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NYT Exec Warns Staff Against Publicly Criticizing Coverage Of Transgender Treatments For Minors

(Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Nicole Silverio Media Reporter
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Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times, sent a memo to employees Thursday warning staffers against protesting the newspaper’s articles they allege were critical of transgender surgeries for minors.

A group of 200 staffers crafted a letter to the newspaper’s executives to express their opposition to publishing articles criticizing sex-change procedures for minors. Kahn’s letter condemned the staffers for calling out colleagues by name and thus violated their company ethics policy.

“We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation of Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums,” the letter said.

Kahn defended the paper’s coverage of transgender issues and accused the 200 journalists and contributors who called out their colleagues’ articles. (RELATED: NYT Admits Activists Are Erasing ‘Women’ From Medical Language After Promoting ‘Menstruators’ And ‘Pregnant People’)

“Our coverage of transgender issues, including the specific pieces singled out for the attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written,” the letter read. “The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats. The letter also ignores The Times’ strong commitment to covering all aspects of transgender issues, including the life experience of transgender people and the prejudice and violence against them in our society.”

The staffers claimed that the executives displayed “poor editorial judgement” by running these articles. They expressed their grievance over Emily Bazelon’s “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” which referred to a transgender child as “patient zero” and covered at length the “mental health” challenges facing gender-confused teens and children.

They also said supporters of cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgeries should not be subject to criticism, saying, “All of us daresay our stance is unremarkable, even common, and certainly not deserving of the Times’ intense scrutiny.”

Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib sponsored a petition urging the Times to “stop providing a dangerous platform” to transgender people.