Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry.

[chanting]

Montana's first trans state representative has been formally silenced. Representative Zooey Zephyr is a Democrat elected in 2022. On April 20th, she strongly criticized a bill banning gender affirming care for minors, and she had some words for supporters of the bill as well.

Representative Zooey Zephyr: If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there's an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.

Melissa Harris-Perry: State Republicans initially said Zephyr would be recognized on the floor once again if she apologized for her comments. A number of Zephyr's supporters took to the chamber to protest.

[chanting]

On Wednesday, April 26th, state Republicans voted to ban Zephyr from attending or speaking during floor sessions. She will be allowed only to vote remotely for the rest of the legislative session. According to the Human Rights campaign, 17 states have passed legislation banning gender affirming care for minors, at least in some form, and Montana could become the 18th. Also, this week in Missouri, the State Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, was set to enact emergency rules that would put significant barriers on access to healthcare for both trans minors and adults, but late yesterday, a Missouri judge temporarily blocked the action.

Still, it's worth noting that in his effort to restrict gender affirming care, State Attorney General Bailey cited reporting to justify his actions. Reporting from the New York Times. Bailey is not the first to do so. In states including Montana, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas, and Arkansas, lawyers, activists and state officials have pointed to reporting by the Times to cast doubt on and even punish those seeking or providing gender affirming care. Care that every major medical and mental healthcare organization have deemed necessary, safe and effective. Here's testimony from Lawyer David Bagley in Nebraska in February.

Lawyer David Bagley: The New York Times likes to think of itself as the paper of record in the United States. I took note when the New York Times published a story on November 14th, 2022, which stated, "There is growing evidence of potential harm from puberty blocker."

Melissa Harris-Perry: In February, a group of New York Times contributors released an open letter raising concerns about an alleged imbalance and bias in the paper's coverage of trans people and issues. We spoke with one of the letters' co-authors.

Harron Walker: My name is Harron Walker. I'm a freelance journalist contributor to New York Magazine and GQ.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Over 1,200 contributors to the Times and 34,000 media workers and readers have now signed the letter. Walker and her colleagues pointed to stories that misrepresented sources and used language likening transness to a disease. They noted a disparity between coverage of anti-trans legislation and thousands of front page words dedicated to stories casting doubt and debate on gender affirming care.

In response, the associate managing editor for standards, Philip Corbett, categorically disagreed that the coverage was biased. He wrote that the stories cited in the open letter were "Only a small portion of our coverage." Another statement from the Times appeared to conflate the open letter with a separate letter sent the same day by the advocacy organization, GLAD. In early April, Harron and her co-authors released another letter this time addressed directly to Times publisher, A.G Sulzberger. I sat down with Harron for an update.

Harron Walker:

The New York Times's public response to the letter since February has been dubious, I think we could say. There have been multiple efforts to both sidestep any accountability, any acknowledgement of the letter externally on the public facing side. As well as willfully conflating our letter with a similar letter released by GLAD on that same day in February 15th, in order to describe our letter and our critiques as a form of advocacy. Which then allowed them to intimidate their own employees who signed onto the letter, as well as discount any of the critiques therein as advocacy or activism. Which according to them runs counter to the efforts and mission of journalism. Which also just fully ignores the history of how intertwined advocacy and journalism are within the US. Look at a figure like Ida B. Wells. I would assume that Times management would understand that history.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Disentangle for me this point about being the co-author on the letter that you're referencing here, and this conflation with the GLAD letter. What's happening there?

Harron Walker: I think for the the absolute truth, you would have to go to Times management themselves. To me and the other co-authors of our letter, we did see it as an intentional tactic in order to sidestep the actual criticisms being made by myself and the other seven co-authors of the letter. As well as the more than 1,200 New York Times contributors past and present who signed on about the paper's ongoing anti-trans bias in covering trans people and issues that we face in the US and also internationally.

There are internal policies at the Times, as well as just like broadly throughout journalism in certain circles, especially those that dominate the field. The idea of objectivity or neutrality is understood as an important pillar within journalistic practice. For many of us, we of course know that objectivity and neutrality are themselves subjective concepts. That in the practice of journalism only serve the interests of those who are allowed to be objective or be seen as neutral in any given situation. Often those in power, those who are wealthy, those who are white, those who are male, those who are cis, those who are straight, those who are able-bodied.

Those of us who say are media workers and produce work that runs counter to those hegemonic narratives, our work can be dismissed as opinion-based, which has some implicit coding as irrational or hysterical. It's very yellow wallpaper if you will. We did eventually receive a response from Philip B. Corbett, the standards editor at the Times. We found the response that he sent us to be lacking, to say the least, and pretty dismissive of our concerns. He sent over a list of more than a dozen New York Times stories from the last 10 years that he said demonstrated the fair and thoughtful coverage the Times has produced on trans people.

The coverage itself was great, which is something we acknowledged in our initial letter, that there is a lot of great coverage that is sympathetic to trans people and the material stakes of our lived experiences. It didn't meaningfully grapple with the content of our critique, much less the ongoing anti-trans bias in the paper's coverage of trans children's access to medical care, which is being legislated away from them left and right, state by state it seems.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Working for the Times either as freelancers or as staff writers, it really isn't so much about you all, right? It's really about the realities on the ground that are being reported in ways that you all are describing as at odds with how the New York Times self-presents.

Harron Walker: Yes, absolutely. One thing that we critiqued in our letter is the fact that the New York Times's coverage of trans people had been previously used in an at least two different court cases with lobbyists and state attorneys general. Citing the New York Times's coverage of turns children's access to medical care in order to defend their discriminatory restrictions and bans on access to that care. We saw that again in Missouri. The Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, actually cited a past New York Times article about trans kids' access to care in imposing this unconstitutional ban, that then served to restrict access on that care in the state of Missouri. That is something that is not being fully acknowledged, I would say, by Times management.

That while our critique is of the actual coverage itself and its dissonance with the lived realities of trans people in the US, it does then have a material impact. It's not just that I read this and it hurts my feelings. There is an actual ongoing legislative and judicial and medical impact on trans people depending on where you live, because those with power are able to then cite the New York Times's coverage. Given the New York Times' credentials as paper of record to defend these really vile, vicious attacks on our lives and the lives that we're trying to lead.

That said, I will say that I have noticed since about the end of March that the New York Times has been covering healthcare bans and other legislative attacks on trans people in a timely, substantive way that does not, to me as a reader, denote any anti-trans bias, as was often seen in their reporting prior to that. For example, February 28th, Mississippi signed a law banning gender-affirming care for minors. There was a brief mention in an op-ed for one line, but the Times didn't actually cover it till March 30th. Similar things happened with a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for March 2nd, no substantial coverage beyond a mention in an evening news roundup or passing mentions in tangentially related coverage until March 30th.

March 11th, West Virginia passed a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, and the Times didn't actually cover it until I think about two weeks later. Then on March 29th, you see that Kentucky's legislator voted to override the governor's veto on a bill that would ban gender affirming care for minors. West Virginia's governor that same day signed a similar healthcare ban for minors, and the Times covered both items on that same day.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay. Quick break right here. We're going to be back talking about New York Times coverage of trans issues and people right after this. We're back with Harron Walker. She's one of the co-authors of a contributor letter to the New York Times, focusing on the Times coverage of trans people and issues. Have you seen impact in other reporting, other venue reporting that is perhaps doing a better job?

Harron Walker: I do have to give it up for other news outlets, like the Takeaway, and like Them.us, like Democracy Now!, like Imara Jones's TransLash Media. Which have been covering trans people's issues in the US, in a way that did not need such a substantial course correction, much less, impact state law. We have seen that the Washington Post in late March began to very visibly and notably produce a lot more coverage about trans people. That's both sympathetic understanding of our material realities, and also invested in letting our perspectives and lived experiences inform their reporting. Which to me, again, clearly demonstrates a shift in resources internally. Of course, I don't work there, it looks that way as a reader.

There was a study that they did that the headline was something like most trans people are more satisfied with their lives after they transition. It spoke with, I believe, hundreds of trans people in collecting this data that then informed the reporting. On a gut level I assume that involves more resources being devoted to meaningful coverage of trans people and transness, and issues that we face in the US. Of course, I would love it if more of this coverage at Washington Post or other places were also produced by trans-non-binary and gender-nonconforming reporters themselves. That's just an [unintelligible 00:12:03] critique. I'll always say, whenever anyone asks me anything tangentially related to trans people in media.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Harron, are there things we should be watching for?

Harron Walker: Nothing is over. This is unfortunately still ramping up. We've seen even just in the last week, Florida has advanced a bill that if turned into law would separate trans kids from their parents if those were affirming of their genders. It's like another example in the ongoing history of American nationalist policy to use family separation to enforce some fascist politics. We've seen it being deployed against all kinds of marginalized groups, it's in groups in US history, past and present. You see the enforcement of this on Central and South American migrants crossing the border. You've seen it enforced on Black people in the US, Indigenous people, so that is definitely a thing that's happening.

I will say there's also an interesting case in the Montana State Legislature right now, where there's a representative named Zooey Zephyr who after speaking out as a lawmaker in debates over a bill that would target trans people, is now literally being silenced. She's the first out trans lawmaker in the Montana State Legislature and her colleagues are all keeping her from speaking in debates over issues that affect people like her.

Kansas's State legislature is seeking to legislatively revoke the license of any medical care provider that has ever provided gender-affirming care to someone under 18. Puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, any form of surgery. It's operating on this idea that this kind of medical care is-- it's like driving through the drive-through at Dunkin' Donuts or something. America does not unfortunately run on gender-affirming care. Personally speaking, I think it would be fab if it did, but it does not. That is not the reality, despite whatever claims the Right Wing is trying to pump out through the media, through lawmakers. There's just a lot to watch out for. I hope that your listeners are definitely, unfortunately, getting prepared to keep fighting this at the state level, school district level, at the federal level. It's going to keep happening.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Harron Walker, I feel like we have so many other conversations we should also be having. Harron Walker co-author of the letter to the New York Times freelance journalist. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today.

Harron Walker: Thank you so much, Melissa. Thanks for having me back. I really appreciate this chance to talk to you and all your listeners about this.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The Takeaway reached out to the New York Times for comment. We'll update you on our website at thetakeaway.org.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.