Why a crusade against the New York Times shows LGBTQ groups outlived their purpose
Two examples of earlier New York Times articles that were controversial, but not condemned by LGBTQ groups, demonstrate the movement's change in direction.
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Summary: When LGBTQ groups make the liberal beacon such as the New York Times the target of ire, they demonstrate a fundamental change in direction. Times were different for the movement before as two examples of articles from the past can demonstrate.
Everyone reading this newsletter who knows me from my previous work is aware I was a reporter for an LGBTQ news outlet for 15 years. That experience significantly animated my career as I made a presence in the White House press corps asking questions relevant to my audience on LGBTQ issues through three different administrations.
So I’ve invested capital in these issues and I'm not willing to give it up even though I've taken my journalism career down an alternate path. From to time to time, new developments emerge on LGBTQ issues that get me thinking about how they would fit into my past work and how I would approach them as journalist today.
One such development occurred just last week as GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign went after the New York Times for its coverage of the transgender movement. To catch up you up to speed, the two incidents were 1) GLAAD leading a group letter against the New York Times for skeptical reporting on the practice of transgender health care to minors and 2) the Human Rights Campaign blasting the newspaper for giving space to an opinion column refuting the characterization of J.K. Rowling as an anti-transgender bigot.
“The New York Times isn’t defending J.K. Rowling — they’re emboldening transphobic views and giving people a free pass to discriminate against and harm trans people,” the tweet from the Human Rights Campaign says. “We need to make it clear to @nytimes this is unacceptable.”
For conservatives, the New York Times is a favorite punching bag, but that hasn't been the case for LGBTQ groups until recently. Leading groups in the movement now see fit to exert resources to go after the New York Times, which is a regarded as a liberal beacon and has afforded transgender people reams of positive coverage. Those resources appear significant in terms of the GLAAD letter, which has signatures from hundreds of transgender advocates and civil rights groups.
Meanwhile, other conservative outlets ranging from Fox News to the Daily Wire make anti-transgender perspectives the backbone of their coverage and seek to inflame their readers on a daily basis about stories on gender reassignment surgery for kids. My best guess for making the New York Times the target instead: If the Grey Lady gives credence to ideas contrary to LGBTQ dogma, it would the give a more left-leaning audience traditionally supportive of LGBTQ rights a reason to be skeptical. Other than that, the New York Times isn't exactly a major player in perpetuating anti-transgender sentiment in the United States.
But at the end of the day, the idea these leading LGBTQ groups would undertake these efforts demonstrates they've veered off the course from their initial goals — and I would argue it’s the latest act showing they’ve outlasted their usefulness. Basically, these groups are saying they don’t like the New York Times for doing journalism instead of LGBTQ advocacy, which is their job.
Until about a decade ago, when the LGBTQ movement had to claw and scrape for basic civil rights and any whiff of entitlement would turn off the electorate and empower the opposition, the kind of animosity given to the New York Times would have been seen as a waste of resources and self-destructive in reaching that goal. Everyone would have understood the goal of a newspaper was to inform its readers and present multiple perspectives, therefore the New York Times would be fulfilling its duty in presenting differing views, for example, on topics such as transition-related health care for children.
I can give two concrete examples I can remember clearly from my days working at an LGBTQ newspaper when the New York Times published articles that were pilloried online for being inconsistent with the values of the movement. Major LGBTQ groups, nonetheless, stayed away from them.
The first is an article in 2017 about then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions being engaged with confronting anti-transgender hate crimes. The article, clearly planted by public affairs officials seeking the cast Trump appointee in a good light, was "Aiding Transgender Case, Sessions Defies His Image on Civil Rights." I remember frustration over the coverage, including the headline, and angry social media posts. With that framework, the New York Times was ignoring more animating components of Sessions’ record inconsistent with civil rights advocacy. Yet no angry tweet from GLAAD or the Human Rights Campaign was among them.
The other article was published in 2015 amid the national debate over same-sex marriage. The New York Times' legal reporter Adam Liptak wrote an article about social conservatives unable to find legal representation to argue against marriage rights for gay couples. The title: "The Case Against Gay Marriage: Top Law Firms Won't Touch It." Again, there was anger with the New York Times, this time for deigning to give any coverage to opponents of same-sex marriage. I would have to say here that made less sense because the writing was clearly impartial and not framing any particular way of looking at things. Yet there was nothing against the New York Times from the Human Rights Campaign or GLAAD, who would have known better than to pick a fight over the article.
So this is definitely a change for these LGBTQ groups. I suspect the new direction is because the donors behind them are different, but also because the very nature of progressivism has changed where it won't even countenance the expression of contrary views. It's also a sign the LGBTQ movement has largely won the basic fight and the remaining apparatus needs to hit at any and all targets to demonstrate a continued reason for existence.
But instead of demonstrating continued value, striking against the New York Times over even-handedness in reporting on transgender health care for minors, widely regarded as a controversial issue, should have the opposite effect. If there was any sign demonstrating the time has come for them to close shop, I would say it would be mounting crusade against basic principles of journalism.