What was wrong with Emily Bazelon's NYT article in 2022?

Here's a brief summary from Erin Reed on Substack:

"The allegations against The New York Times' coverage of transgender issues were numerous. Current and former contributors pointed out that the publication has used derogatory terms for transgender people. For instance, in Emily Bazelon's story, "The Battle Over Gender Therapy," one of the first trans youth who received puberty blockers was referred to as "patient zero” — extremely dehumanizing language that compares trans people to an infection. Multiple experts featured in the article have since noted that their work was misrepresented. I recently pointed out that organizations like Genspect are presented with no context as "an international group" without noting that they are explicitly campaigning for an end to gender-affirming care up to the age of 25 and that they are not a medical or professional organization. Upon investigating the journalists covering these stories, it was found that they tend to follow almost exclusively anti-trans sources and groups that call for an outright elimination of transgender people from society. It is clear that the reporters' media diet comes from people who oppose transgender individuals."
— "I Signed A Critical NYT Trans Letter. Their Response Is Insulting." Erin Reed, Substack, Feb 17, 2023. Consider subscribing to Erin's work to support her.

Lots of people have written about the Bazelon article and the Baker article that followed.

Okay, let's dissect why Bazelon's piece was irresponsible. A close read.

She frontloads the piece by talking about increased referrals to trans services, and cites a study for saying there are more AFAB individuals than AMAB. pic.twitter.com/uoSSptQJDs

— Mx. D. E. Anderson (@diannaeanderson) June 22, 2022

This is incredible. The NYT gathers stories under the heading “On Being Transgender in America,” even as they have shown utter disregard in their coverage for the experience of trans folks & those who love them as the GOP targets them in increasingly brutal & dehumanizing ways. https://t.co/9xOr8m6djh

— Lisa Diedrich (@lldiedrich) April 16, 2023

And you’ve actively helped them do so by publishing deeply biased articles “just asking questions” about gender-affirming care, and punishing contributors and employees who called you out on it. https://t.co/OwjZwBar4n

— Florence Ashley (@ButNotTheCity) April 15, 2023

Here's another NYT article in 2022

Parker Molloy refers to "a Times article ["They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost?" November 14, 2022], co-written by Megan Twohey [with Christina Jewett], who seems set on torching the positive reputation she earned after reporting on Harvey Weinstein, that wildly played up concerns about bone density."

Molloy continues:

"And in response, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) released a statement calling out factual inaccuracies and undue speculation in its piece. Naturally, the Times ignored this criticism, with anti-trans activists inside and outside of the company brushing it off as coming from an advocacy group.

But WPATH isn’t an 'advocacy group;' it’s a group of medical professionals that help set the standards of care for transition-related health care. The group’s goal isn’t to expand trans rights, but simply to set the guidelines trans people have to follow. And they are pretty thorough, often restrictive guidelines, at that."

Later, a study found not quite so profound effects on bone density. So the newspaper had just been "picking up the topic of trans teens and essentially deciding that there are too many trans people out there and something should be done about that."

See also

See also my breakdown of Pamela Paul's four most recent op-eds in the NYT: "How to Argue Transphobically That You’re Not Transphobic". It's a 10-minute read on Medium.