According to recently released research, The New York Times has not quoted any trans people in any of its articles on anti-trans legislation in the United States in the past 12 months. Photo: Molly Butler/Media Matters
This year, roughly one month after reporters and activists criticized The New York Times for boosting anti-transgender voices, GLAAD and Media Matters released the research. According to the study, the outlet dismissed any critiques of its policy as “protests organized by lobbying groups.”
The study reviewed Times’ stories from Feb. 15, 2023, to Feb. 15, 2024.
In a press release, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said, “One of the first tips we make during the lots of LGBTQ training briefings we hold with national and local newspapers is to include LGBTQ voices in LGBTQ reports: meeting the people impacted by your policy and include their ideas.”
The New York Times “failed that fundamental lesson 101,” and instead cited a pattern of obscuring options’ transgender affiliations and allowing their propaganda to spread unchecked. Our alliance of more than 150 organizations, society leaders, and significant LGBTQ individuals and allies remains firm in our calling for the Times to increase their protection of transgender people,” Ellis said.
Ari Drennen, LGBTQ system director at Media Matters, stated in the same release that “the report of record has an obligation to provide its readers with the whole human toll of the anti-trans legislative assault.” “Trans people are more than conceptual mysteries that need to be debated from far. Living, breathing persons whose tones deserve to get heard and whose reports deserve to be told are the subject of each and every anti-trans costs.
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Here are some of the study’s conclusions.
- According to the study, two-thirds of the articles did not offer a trans or gender non-conforming person in either their title or lead paragraph. However, at least 65 articles mentioned anti-trans legislation in either their headline or lead.
- Only 19 articles published between July and September.
- According to a press release from the groups, 18% of the pieces “included anti-trans misinformation in quotes without adequate fact-checking or additional context.”
One article, for instance, quoted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claims that gender-affirming care includes nonsurgical treatment, and that genital surgery is not advised for minors, it is a euphemism for” sex-change operations,” according to Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis also falsely claimed that providing such care amounts to” sexualizing” children.
Politicians claim that the public is on their side, despite polls suggesting a large majority of Americans support trans inclusion, according to the New York Times, which has led to Republican criticism of allowing trans people to serve in the military.
Additionally, the article makes claims that young people are being rushed into gender-affirming care and that their parents are being manipulated into permitting it, despite the fact that they frequently endure lengthy waits for care.
The New York Times has a responsibility to stop spreading a moral panic that is being sown by right-wing media about trans identity by focusing on improving its coverage by focusing on the voices of those impacted by these harmful bills, according to the press release. More than 470 bills targeting LGBTQ people have already been passed by state legislatures across the country in 2024.
