New York Times Cited 29 Times to Justify Case Limiting Trans Healthcare
Meanwhile, other mainstream media newsrooms treated the U.S. v. Skrmetti case as an opportunity to center coverage around the expected result.
demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court during oral arguments in US v Skrmetti / photo by Piper Bly
Opinion, by Evan Urquhart
This story was copublished with the Objective.
New York Times stories were cited 29 times in amicus briefs supporting Tennessee’s ban on youth gender-affirming care — a ban upheld in the U.S. v. Skrmetti decision on June 18.
The decision leaves in place bans that have forced families of some trans kids to leave their homes to maintain access to the necessary treatments. The precedent could open the door to bans on adult care, upend protections against sex discrimination, and may even leave courts helpless to intervene if an increasingly anti-science GOP moves on from bans on trans healthcare to bans on vaccines.
The Times, which has pushed back against allegations of bias in its trans coverage, was referenced frequently in briefs that sought to portray the treatments as mired in questions and controversy despite gender-affirming care being backed by every major medical organization in the U.S. Reporter Azeen Ghorayshi was by far the most frequently cited by amici defending bans, with 14 citations referencing 7 separate articles, followed by former Times opinion columnist Pamela Paul, with 7 citations referencing 3 columns.
In contrast, briefs submitted in opposition to healthcare bans cited the Times only four times.
The day after the decision, the Times celebrated with a victory lap of sorts: It published six separate stories about the case, many of which framed the decision as the consequence of overreach by the trans rights movement. Erin Reed, a trans journalist and advocate, described it in a scathing opinion column as “dancing on the graves of the transgender youth it has repeatedly thrown to the wolves.”
Even many of the Times’ own contributors have joined organizers and others in criticizing the U.S. paper for biased and misleading coverage of trans youth healthcare and warning that its reporting was fueling the increasing extremism on the right. But even taking into consideration this recent history of animus towards trans people and their healthcare, engaging in an orgy of victim-blaming the day after the decision was untoward given how often Times stories were cited in briefs supporting the ban.
However, the Times is not the only news outlet to have exercised dubious judgement in its coverage of the case. Several major news outlets centered their coverage around the expected result.
“Supreme Court Appears Inclined to Uphold Tennessee Law on Transgender Care,” The New York Times’ story headline Dec. 4 read. “SCOTUS conservative majority appears ready to endorse Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors,” reads CNN’s. Stories in the Guardian and the Nation, as well as some independent outlets such as SCOTUSblog and the 19th, similarly focused on this lens.
Not every outlet framed the story around this narrative of Tennessee’s inevitable win. The Associated Press and ABC wrote down-the-middle stories that avoided speculating or quoting others speculating about what the decision would bring. Another notable holdout was Chris Geidner of Law Dork, who told Assigned Media in a Dec. 5 interview that he thought the speculation from other journalists was irresponsible.
“I don’t think that it’s reporters’ jobs to do the dirty work of the justices,” Geidner said then. “If they’re not willing to say things, reporters shouldn’t pave the road for them to have an easier path, and I do think that’s what a lot of people did yesterday.”
While it’s probably too much to expect balance from the Times, as the paper most responsible for the moral panic over trans youth care, the case’s coverage offers insight for journalists who do want to carefully cover the Trump administration: Avoid giving tacit permission for conservatives’ ongoing roll-back of civil rights by treating major opinions as a foregone conclusion before they’re announced.
Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media.