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 calling out the legacy newspaper for its coverage of transgender issues.

associate managing editor for standards, the contributors say they have "serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper's reporting on transgender, non⁠-⁠binary, and gender nonconforming people."

writers, including opinion contributor Roxane Gay and culture journalists J Wortham and Dave Itzkoff, as well as occasional contributors such as Ed Yong of 

signed the letter. While such a public rebuke of their editors is rare, journalists at 

 and elsewhere have become increasingly more willing to openly challenge newsroom leaders ever since the racial justice movement of 2020. 

has treated coverage of gender diversity "with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language," and recent reporting has omitted some sources' associations with anti-trans groups.

 by correspondent Katie Baker that focused on the challenges schools face when students change their gender identity without their parents knowledge "misframed" the issue and failed to make clear that related lawsuits brought by parents against school districts are part of a legal strategy tied to groups that have 

identified trans people as an "existential threat.

about children questioning their gender identity, in which author Emily Bazelon explored what she called "delicate issues" that had been turned into "political dynamite" by the right. The rate of regret for adults in the past who had gender-affirming care was very low, she wrote. But in today's society, she asked, "How many young people, especially those struggling with serious mental-health issues, might be trying to shed aspects of themselves they dislike?" 

The letter also takes issue with a recent decision by the 

 not to renew a contract for  one of its opinion writers, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who is trans.

coverage as part of the broader fight for the rights of trans people.

A group of more than 130 LBGTQ advocates and organizations 

released a statement on Wednesday supporting the contributors' letter

, calling out the Times for "irresponsible, biased coverage of transgender people" that elevates harmful and false information about trans issues and is "damaging to the paper's credibility."

 to meet with transgender community leaders and hire at least four more reporters and editors who are trans. 

The New York Times did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment. 

Social Issues

Mary Yang

Author

Prominent journalists and writers, including some well-known 

staffers, have signed a letter accusing the paper of biased coverage.

Prominent journalists and writers, including some well-known Times staffers, have signed a letter accusing the paper of biased coverage.


'New York Times' contributors slam paper's coverage of transgender people

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