New York Times called out for coverage of transgender people
In a one-two punch aimed directly at the New York Times; more than 100 contributing writers, fellow journalists, celebrities and advocacy organizations today joined GLAAD in demanding change in how the newspaper covers transgender issues and trans people.
First, GLAAD hired a billboard truck to circle the newspaper’s Manhattan headquarters this morning with signs saying, “Dear New York Times: Stop questioning trans people’s right to exist and access to medical care,” among other messages. “I think what what’s most upsetting here is the damage this is doing,” Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD CEO and president of the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, told the Washington Blade in her first phone interview on the topic Tuesday. “Every day they’re not stopping is doing more damage.
Every time a new article comes out that debates whether or not trans people should receive board-approved healthcare is damaging.
And so I feel really strongly that their coverage is dangerous.” Then, to protest what GLAAD calls the Times’ “irresponsible, biased coverage of transgender people,” representatives of the organization joined contributors for the Times outside the paper’s building this morning, as they delivered two open letters and issued a joint statement, calling out a “pattern of inaccurate, harmful trans coverage.” The coalition demands the Times immediately “stop printing biased, anti-trans stories,” meet with members and leaders in the trans community within two months, and within three months hire at least four trans writers and editors as full-time members of the Times staff.
