The Pledge Drive is close to its end, but we’re still short of our goal! So please donate what you can. Thanks! You can also contribute on Venmo at David-Futrelle-1.
Yesterday, the New York Times was sent two open letters criticizing what many have seen as biased and misleading coverage of trans issues that has given ammunition to anti-trans activists and legislators. One of the letters was from the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD; the other was signed by 170 New York Times contributors disturbed by the paper’s slanted trans coverage.
Today, the paper’s executive editor Joe Kahn issued a staff memo attacking the Times journalists who signed the letter.
“Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy,” Kahn wrote.
We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.
The letter from the Times contributors noted that “plenty of reporters at the Times cover trans issues fairly” but took aim at what it called “over 15,000 words of front-page Times coverage debating the propriety of medical care for trans children published in the last eight months alone.” The letter focused in particular on two high-profile articles on trans issues by Emily Bazelon and Katie Baker, pointing out that Bazelon’s piece, along with two other NYT articles, had been cited in an amicus brief filed by Arkansas’ attorney general defending a law that would make it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical care to a minor. Because bad journalism can have real effects in the real world.
Since the letter was released yesterday, it has picked up the signatures of hundreds more NYT contributors (now totaling more than 1000) and 25,000 of the paper’s readers.
Adding insult to injury, the NYT today published a blathering opinion piece by former Book Review editor Pamela Paul offering a “Defense of JK Rowling.” The piece declares that Rowling is innocent of all charges of bigotry, going so far as to suggest that accusing the Harry Potter author of transphobia is akin to QAnon delusions or the Nazi Big Lie. Paul claims to have found no evidence of transphobia in any of Rowling’s statements, although, in fact, the proof of this is plentiful. In many ways, the piece seems like an extended advertorial for an upcoming podcast called, with great subtlety, “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” In the end, Paul asserts, remarkably, that
If more people stood up for J.K. Rowling, they would not only be doing right by her; they’d also be standing up for human rights, specifically women’s rights, gay rights and, yes, transgender rights.
Also, black is white, freedom is slavery and war is peace.
Paul’s piece is hardly an official response to the open letters; it was almost certainly in the works long before the letters became public, and its publication today is coincidental. But it is yet more evidence of how badly the NYT has handled trans issues in recent years.
I’m not entirely surprised by this- the NYT is centrist to a fault, which means that even though it shies away from open bigotry, it’s still perfectly content with all the subtle bigotries. And of course if you try to criticize it for that it’ll do crap like this because how dare anyone try to push for anything other than the sacred status quo!
@Anonymous: Politically the New York Times is “centrist” by 1980s and 1990s standards, but the center has moved on since then. Not nearly as much as the left, of course, but that puts the NYT in moderate-right territory. Of course, I know what you probably meant, that they’re “centrist” in the sense that they’re very prone to bothsiderism and the golden mean fallacy. (So that nobody has to look it up: the golden mean fallacy is when two sides feel very strongly about something, then the truth or ideal position must be somewhere in the middle.)
A lot of the current backlash against the NYT is over “what about the parents? don’t they have a right to say whether their kids are allowed to be trans?” not-how-anything-works hangwringing which has been showing up from time to time.
The NYT’s preferred flavor of both-sidesism is particularly obnoxious. When it comes to trans folks, they declare that the entire conceivable range of conversation goes from violent transphobes to centrists who say vague things about supporting trans folks but needing to give the transphobes what they want in order to avoid “division.” It’s the same pattern as just about everything else with them. It’s both-sidesism, but the “sides” they want to represent evenly are raging bigots on the one hand and smug centrists who insist that the only reasonable thing to do is compromise until the bigots accept their position (often with little to no representation from the group they claim to be speaking for).
Between this and how the Times pretty much supported Trump in 2016 (formally endorsing Clinton, but giving Trump so much airtime and uncritically quoting many of his lies in headlines), I think it’s fair to say that the Times these days is doubleplusungood. This likely has something to do with its o₩n€r$hip $tru¢tur€.
So not only did the author of that “defense” not find evidence for transphobia in her statements, but also none for her donations to and direct involvement in transphobic projects? lmao. And that calls themselves a journalist? The level of research gone into this claim borders on pathetic. I would have gotten failing grades for that back in university and I’m a STEM alumnus, not a journalist or sociologist.
I can see what people say about the NYT. They pay lip service to human rights, but actually features dangerous ideologies and views in a bid to appease all, while appeasing no-one.
The extremely narrow definition of transphobia in the NYt piece sounds like the Chris Rock joke that one has to shoot Medgar Evers to be considered a racist.
Rowling believes that escaping womanhood is a extremely common temptation, but also claims that trans women retain a male propensity to commit crimes. Why does she see trans men as deluded but trans women as predatory? The two baseless claims might complement each other if she believes the temptation is driven by mistreatment by cis men. While I don’t know her personal history, there’s a good chance she was victimized when younger like so many other women. If so, she may have allowed her trauma to twist her view of the world into something cruel, marginalizing people much less fortunate than her who have never done her any harm.
@Carstonio
She does claim to be an abuse victim. While that is horrible and I’m sorry it hapened to her, as I am sorry it happened to anyone else – nobody deserves that – it is also not an excuse. Else, I would have to be deeply racist against Turkish people, because as a child, I was bullied and physically abused by my classmates, many of whom coincidentally were Turkish (the first perpetrator wasn’t, btw, not that it really matters anyways). That would ignore, however, that many of my classmates of other nationalities also joined in, and it would further ignore the fact that after my parents finally managed to get me transferred to a different school, their next victim was a Turkish boy who dropped out of school without a diploma shortly after. It would also ignore and demonize all the kind Turkish people I meet on the street and in the shops every day, and who are themselves at times victims of discrimination and abuse. I would rather condemn those people for what they did and support those they hurt, without regard for their sex, gender, oder nationality. As, so I believe, any decent human being should.
Two wrongs never make a right, and I highly doubt that Rowling’s abuser was trans, so there is even less credibility to her transphobia. Instead, she self-professed of having “pac[ed her] kitchen ranting to [her]self” over a quote from a trans woman leading an inclusive abuse shelter that was taken out of context to begin with, and even if she took offense of the quote, which I actually could understand when viewed out of context. Why is her next reaction to open up a trans-exclusive shelter of her own? Because a transwoman said something she disagreed with or found offensive? Again, should I demonize a groupof people now because some individuals from said group caused me harm? Should I throw in their neighbors in for good measure, because they ethnically similar to them? I do not believe I should. The fact the reaction directly targeted and excluded transwomen, to me, shows that it’s a transphobic reaction indeed. As do several of her quotes, but we already knew that.
@KMB: Well said!
I mean, if they feel that “girls are being manipulated into thinking they’re trans, which is horrible, because going on HRT means they won’t be able to have babies and that’s the most important thing about a woman” is a totally ordinary statement, that’s one thing. But they ought to admit that’s what they mean.
Also, I keep meaning to write in and point out that California, one of the largest US states, does not require any proof of medical transition or living as your new gender identity to get your paperwork changed. Any California resident who wants to fill out the paperwork, pay a couple hundred bucks, and wait a few months can do it. We have not exactly had an epidemic of men running around in women’s locker rooms going IT’S OKAY I’M A TRANS WOMAN. Anyone who was inclined to sexually harass/assault people in locker rooms was doing it already.
The Onion once again demonstrating why it’s America’s most trusted news source.
https://www.theonion.com/it-is-journalism-s-sacred-duty-to-endanger-the-lives-of-1850126997
That Pamela Paul editorial could maybe have been written in 2019, when all that was publicly known about Rowling’s views consisted of a few ambiguous tweets. But at this point, Rowling has straight out stated she thinks every trans woman is a probable sex offender, and every trans man is delusional. Rowling is the person who created a charity for the incredibly petty purpose of being able to refuse help to trans people. Every public statement she has made in the last year involves transphobia. She has literally talked about nothing else. This is not a case of over-eager activists taking her remarks out of context. She no longer has any context but transphobia.
@KMB: That ignorant bullshit wouldn’t have flown in my junior high newspaper, frankly.
(Thankfully, the same junior high gave me rudimentary computer access, which has worked out much better for my life than journalism.)
@Carstonio, @KMB
There’s a moment in a documentary about her life where JKR and her sister revealed that Jo, the eldest, was supposed to be a boy. Her parents even had a name chosen: Simon John. And apparently they were quite open about the fact that her being a girl was a great disappointment. They dressed her in blue and gave her “boy” haircuts.
When her sister came along, the parents claimed they were very happy to have a girl now – it was only JKR who’d been a letdown.
I think it really shaped her weird, twisted ideas of trans people. And quite clearly scarred her.
(it’s about 3.5 minutes in here, if anyone’s interested).
I hope this won’t be read as trying to excuse or minimise her horrific views and actions. It just really struck me as something that would mess you up.
Speaking of media. You may recall the makers of the voting machines are suing Fox News et al for suggesting the machines were used to rig the election.
There have been some interesting disclosures. Not least that people like Tucker Carlson knew the claims were BS. They actually refer to Guiliani, and other commentators saying the election was stolen, as “Nuts”. But they were worried about losing their viewers to more right wing outlets.
But Dominion’s legal pleadings have been refreshingly no nonsense…
back to the topic at hand…
<img>
?w=800&h=567 </img>
My impression is that one of the things Rowling at the least implies if not outright says is that she has greater moral authority as an abused woman, and therefore we must accept her “analysis” as the final word, and that to challenge her “analysis” is to further abuse her. Which apart from being slugslime in itself encourages “abuse competition” ie the idea that if you want to shut her up you need at least to have suffered worst abuse that she did, and be prepared to declare this with documentation. While I am in no way diminishing the effects of abuse of any kind the idea that the most abused person should have some sort of special authority is in itself sick, and yes I’ve been abused so I could play that “game”.