I’d like to give a very special fuck you to The New York Times and all of the other major newspapers that went out of their way to get Donald Trump elected and demonize transgender people. Article after article, the Times positioned Trump like a sane and reasonable choice for president.
Well now the Times is suddenly concerned. A Feb. 10 article titled “Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis” quoted Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California law school dean, as saying, “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now. There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”
In other words, Trump is doing crimes at lightning speed, basically giving the middle finger to Congress and the courts that dare rule against him. Remember when we learned that there were three branches of government and that these three branches would check the power of the others? We don’t have that now. Trump is literally doing whatever he wants, including defying court orders.
Not to be that reply guy, but is anyone surprised? Besides the Times?
And then there’s how the Times framed the issue of transgender people and their very humanity.
On Feb. 9, the Times editorial board published an opinion piece titled, “Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans.”
“Some of the most deplorable episodes in U.S. history involve the government wielding the power of the state against minority groups: Black people, Indigenous people and gay people, to name just a few,” they write. “Though these campaigns might have received popular support at the time, history has consistently judged them as immoral, illegal and un-American. Rather than understanding this history, President Trump is borrowing from the worst of it.”
Well, fire up the No Shit machine.
The Times accused Trump of waging “as direct a campaign against a single, vulnerable minority as we’ve seen in generations.”
And they’re right. But what they don’t ever say in this opinion piece is, “And The New York Times helped Trump demonize transgender people, thus making it easier for Trump to usher in this cruel vendetta.”
In fact, they continue to do it in this very opinion piece. “It should be recognized that society is still grappling with the cultural and policy implications of the rapidly shifting understanding of gender. There are some issues — such as participation in sports and appropriate medical care for minors — that remain fiercely debated, even by those who broadly support trans rights. There should be room for those conversations.”
On the surface this seems reasonable, but the “just asking questions” crowd is rarely operating in good faith. What is actually being argued — as Trump made clear in his Inauguration speech and his executive order to kick transgender people out of the military — is whether or not transgender people exist. Or, more pointedly, deserve to exist. “Are these people even human?” is the thinly veiled question at the root of these “debates.”
The Times published article after article fanning the flames of these “debates,” basically encouraging their readers to be suspicious of transgender Americans. And it has led to where we are now.
The Times continues, “What shouldn’t be debated is whether the government should target a group of Americans to be stripped of their freedom and dignity to move through the world as they choose. This is a campaign in which cruelty and humiliation seem to be the fundamental point.”
YES. THAT IS THE POINT. Again, the Times is absolutely complicit in this.
As GLAAD explained on Feb. 14, the Times has a habit of “publishing inaccurate, biased pieces about transgender people that are regularly used by extremist lawmakers and extremist organizations in court as justification for banning trans people from accessing best practice medical care.”
In a Jan. 21 article for The Flaw, Simone Unwalla wrote, “In 2018, there were 19 bills targeting transgender people in state legislatures across the United States. In 2020, there were 60. Today, there are 541.”
Unwalla connects this “avalanche of legislative efforts to restrict and punish trans people” to the Times. “Liberal-leaning outlets like the New York Times helped anti-trans panic catch fire under a veil of objectivity and through misleading ‘both-sides’ reporting. Outlets like the Times didn’t just capitalize on transphobic rhetoric, they actively legitimized it and spread it to new audiences.”
Now Trump is using his unchecked executive power to actively harm transgender people. But thank god the Times avoided seeming biased in favor of the humanity of transgender people just trying to live their lives. Journalistic excellence, indeed.