New York Times Violates Transgender Narrative

The establishment media’s unthinking support for the transgender ideology is cracking amid the mainstream media’s exposure of harm to teenagers and women, say advocates for laws that recognize the different needs of the two sexes.

The transgender activists “are losing control of the narrative,” Natasha Chart told Breitbart News, which has led the mainstream coverage of the expanding damage caused by the ideology.

Their loss of control was displayed by a June 15 article by the New York Times. The article spotlighted the deep damage of transgenderism to impressionable teenage girls and also showcased the recklessness of sex-change surgeons who rejected their peers’ recommendation against irreversible sexual surgery on 15-year-old teenagers.

The very long article ended with a quote saying, “Evidence matters, yes, but common sense matters, too.”

The trans-identified activists are “very unhappy with the way that it was written, that there was any questioning of their narrative, and that it wasn’t written according to their guidance,” said Chart, an activist for laws that recognize biological distinctions between men and women.

“… just a completely copied and pasted Daily Stormer article with a new lede,” responded one Twitter account.

“Do your editors compel you to elicit quotes from the Flat Earth Society when covering NASA events or do you take the initiative?” complained a tweet from “Joanna (They/ Them).”

“As a trans person, this article is an embarassment to your craft [sic],” said another Twitter account. “The failures to engage with trans expertise in this area are flagrant.”

The pushback was also shown by a critical June 15 article by the Associated Press (AP). That article opened by saying, “A leading transgender health association has lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition treatment, including sex hormones and surgeries.”

The AP article then described the permissive surgery guidelines that will be released by the association of medical providers in the for-profit transgender business, dubbed WPATH:

The update also recommends:

—Sex hormones — estrogen or testosterone — starting at age 14. This is often lifelong treatment. Long-term risks may include infertility and weight gain, along with strokes in [men] trans women and high blood pressure in [women] trans men, the guidelines say.

—Breast removal for [girls] trans boys at age 15. Previous guidance suggested this could be done at least a year after hormones, around age 17, although a specific minimum ag wasn’t listed.

The frank description is good, said Chart, adding that “it’s been typical for mainstream media outlets to deny that was surgery going on with minors.”

The critical June 15 New York Times article was approved by the top editors who also endorsed a May 29 article that criticized the Ivy League’s decision to allow a supposedly “transgender” man to join in women’s swimming races:

The battle over whether to let female transgender athletes compete in women’s elite sports has reached an angry pitch, a collision of competing principles: The hard-fought-for right of women to compete in high school, college and pro sports versus a swelling movement to allow transgender athletes to compete in their chosen gender identities.

… [The] disagreements are profound. They center on science, fairness and inclusiveness, and cut to the core of distinctions between gender identity and biological sex.

Critics of the transgender ideology are hopeful the coverage will get better:

The ideology says each person’s feelings of “gender identity” are more important than their male-or-female sex, and also that government should enforce those “gender identity” choices on other people who disagree with the ideology.

In practice, that policy would allow sexually interested men to insert themselves into all social institutions created by and for women, such as bathrooms and showers, athletic and aesthetic contests, grants and scholarships, as well as civic associations and lesbian relationships.

But the establishment has a long way to go before it can describe the problems of the transgender ideology, said Chart.

The New York Times reporter, Emily Bazelon, was “very deferential with regards to [claims that] medical professionals have good reasons for sterilizing minors,” said Chart, adding:

It is clear from this article, and from watching the timeline of this kind of coverage or several years, that if someone like Marci Bowers — who is a transidentified gender clinician [quoted in the article] — had not basically validated the concerns raised by Abigail Shrier [and other sources] —  this article would not have even brought up the controversies … [For most journalists] if there’s not a trans-identified man to help validate critics’ concerns, you can’t even say it.

“Bazelon deserves kudos for this nuanced piece,” Sullivan said in another tweet. “But to ignore the feminist left’s objections, and many centrists’ worries, and making this all about ‘right wing’ opposition is odd. It feels like signaling.”

People who say they are transgender “still have huge power over the [media] narrative,” especially with younger journalists, said Chart, adding:

Younger journalists are a lot more captured by online peers and social circles [ who are] surrounded a social group that is completely immersed in social justice and cancel culture, and they don’t even understand that their viewpoint is the minority that most people don’t share and don’t understand.

The transgender movement is diverse, with competing goals and priorities.

Before last year, less than one percent of Americans claimed to be transgender. Less than one in ten of the few men who claim to be transgender have their genitalia removed.

The movement includes heterosexual autogynephilic men who demand sex from lesbians, alienated young men fantasizing about being submissive women, and lesbians trying to become men.

It also includes teenage girls trying to flee a sexual environment twisted by pornography, as well as gay teenagers trying to escape their minority status, by cooperatively adopting an attempted non-sexual identity.

It includes non-political people trying to live as idealized stereotypes of the opposite sex, pre-pubescent children with childish views of sexuality, and ideologues who wish to blur distinctions between the two sexes.

The transgender environment also includes revenue-seeking drug companies and medical service providers, wealthy donors, ambitious politicians, manipulative teachers, and professional advocates.

It also includes sexual liberationists and progressives who are eager to liberate people from their bodies, parents who are eager or willing to endorse transgender claims, and journalists eager to help their social peers.

This movement is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, by doctors shocked at the psychological and health care damage, by a growing number of young people who have “de-transitioned” back to their sex, by parents trying to shield their children from transgender activists, and by transsexual, gay, liberal, and conservative critics of the transgender ideology.