“Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism,” reads a new op-ed from the New York Times.
Yes, you read that right. This is not a Fox News chyron, a tweet from Libs of TikTok, or an excerpt from “Do No Harm,” The Daily Caller’s groundbreaking documentary on the pediatric transgender crisis. No, this is the most respectable liberal paper in the country calling out its own readers for being insane.
The multi-thousand word piece by opinion columnist Pamela Paul ran on Friday, sounding the alarm on the irreparable damage done to children — and to the credibility of the medical establishment — in the name of gender ideology. It addresses virtually every conservative concern that has fallen on deaf ears since doctors, politicians, school teachers and affluent, liberal parents all decided it was in the best interest of children to pump them full of cross-sex hormones and surgically mutilate them. Perhaps most shockingly of all, it chastises the radical left for its role in fomenting the hysteria. (RELATED: ROOKE: Montana Child Trafficking Story Exposes GOP Weakness In Protecting American Children)
The piece focuses on the medical journey of several “detransitioners,” former transgender people who decided to revert to their actual gender, often in the face of fierce opposition. Typically, detransitioners are attacked by rabid activists as right-wing pawns, but the Times sympathetically profiles their “ostracism and silencing” at the hands of activists and gender clinics alike. They all were pressured by doctors and influencers into believing they were a different gender, and now live with the emotional and physical consequences.
“I was a gay man pumped up to look like a woman and dated a lesbian who was pumped up to look like a man. If that’s not conversion therapy, I don’t know what is,” one of the young male detransitioners told the Times.
The Times lobs a grenade at its readership by asserting that not all “transgender kids” are, well, transgender. Rather, it implies that the social contagion theory (or, to use its clinical name, “rapid onset gender dysphoria”) is a very real phenomenon, despite typically its frequent portrayal as a bigoted, right-wing conspiracy theory. Of course, anyone not clouded by trans ideology can see this perfectly clearly.
Often, “parents of kids who consider themselves trans say their children were introduced to transgender influencers on YouTube or TikTok … Others say their kids learned these ideas in the classroom,” the Times notes. In other words, social media and purple-haired public school teachers are indoctrinating America’s youth. And the country’s paper of record is finally admitting it. (RELATED: ROOKE: American Parents Stood Up To The Trans Cult And Won Big)
In telling these destransition stories, the Times paints a disturbing picture of the “gender-affirming care” model as a whole. It acknowledges the existence of parents who felt “compelled by gender clinicians, doctors, schools and social pressure to accede to their child’s declared gender identity even if they had serious doubts.” It details how some remain alienated from their children and regret allowing themselves to be bullied and blackmailed over their child’s health.
The piece also quotes several reformed gender clinicians who detail how they felt pressured to “automatically agree to a young person’s self-diagnosis” against their better instincts. They blame activist pressure and ideologically captured medical organization for making them “afraid to speak out.” (RELATED: ‘I Was Scared’: Ex-Therapist Says Hospital Required Her To Misdiagnose Troubled Teens As Trans)
The piece addresses the “methodological flaws” in some of the more egregiously false statistics the trans lobby uses to transform its preferences into policy. “Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?” is shown to be the baseless “emotional blackmail” tactic that it is, something conservative analysts and more serious medical researchers have long claimed. The piece goes on to advocate for a more medically and ethically sound course of action: watchful waiting.
It even points out how the American program, which is “falsely presented to the public as settled science” and “likely understate[s] the actual numbers [of detransitioners],” is actually quite backwards compared to other Western countries that use a far more measured approach.
“To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best,” it chides, it “is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time.”
And it minces no words for transgender influencer hostility, including vicious bullying and “threats” against anyone who decides to detransition.
In short, the piece is a compendium of every legitimate concern that has been raised in response to the indoctrination and mutilation of American kids. All Paul’s article is missing is an #OkGroomer hashtag at the end. But don’t get too excited. This isn’t the NYT admitting that conservatives were right all along. It’s the NYT realizing that the critique of the trans craze — as articulated not only by right-wingers, but by sane liberals like Bari Weiss — has broken containment. These concerns can no longer be written off as mouth-frothing bigotry, so they have to be addressed and somehow accomodated.
This isn’t a surrender: it’s a strategic withdrawal and retrenchment.
After dozens of paragraphs ripping the radical left, the piece inevitably circles back around: “The larger threat to transgender people comes from Republicans who wish to deny them rights and protections.” Yes, Republicans are the real bad guys. You, dear reader, can still get off on your moral superiority. It concludes by telling readers how they should think about transgender issues:
Instead of promoting unproven treatments for children, which surveys show many Americans are uncomfortable with, transgender activists would be more effective if they focused on a shared agenda. Most Americans across the political spectrum can agree on the need for legal protections for transgender adults. They would also probably support additional research on the needs of young people reporting gender dysphoria so that kids could get the best treatment possible.
A shift in this direction would model tolerance and acceptance. It would prioritize compassion over demonization. It would require rising above culture-war politics and returning to reason. It would be the most humane path forward. And it would be the right thing to do.
So, like the op-ed against left-wing immigration radicalism last week, this piece is effectively a warning call to New York Times readers. The corporate press knows it’s in trouble, and more importantly, so are Democrats.
Media has helped box the Democratic Party in by catering to a radical base and shaping the sensibilities of its own, affluent right-thinking readers. With the tony Times readers effectively as radicalized as the shrieking activists, they are now scared to express views that deviate from progressive orthodoxy. This then creates an echo chamber that the Democratic Party is forced to conform to — even at the expense of the critically needed moderate vote.
The real purpose of this op-ed is to tell Times readers that it’s alright to take a more moderate position that “most Americans” are comfortable with. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and you’re certainly still better than those awful Republicans.
But please, allow us to pivot the middle or we’re looking at some mutilation of our own come November.