Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
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Given said weirdness, today I’d like to highlight the fact that intersex people are much more than just the medical procedures that we are often subjected to — and that we’ve been around way before they even existed. Take, for example, Gen. Casimir Pulaski, born in Poland in 1745 and known as the “Father of the American Cavalry.” As the Smithsonian documentary The General Was Female? details, when the monument marking Pulaski’s grave was temporarily removed, his remains were discovered to have certain female characteristics. After years spent analyzing his skeleton and DNA, a team of researchers concluded that Pulaski was probably born intersex, with XX chromosomes.
Despite his XX chromosomes, Pulaski appeared male at birth because of his intersex variation, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), which often masculinizes genitalia, Pulaski was able to serve in the military, becoming an American Revolutionary War hero after relocating from Europe. He is believed to have saved George Washington’s life in the Battle of Brandywine and is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary American citizenship, along with notables such as Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa.
Pulaski’s story illustrates that intersex people have been thriving for centuries before the surgeries used to change us existed, and it’s also a stark reminder of the harms and limitations of our current “fix it” approach. For today, in situations like Pulaski’s — where an individual has XX chromosomes and a variation known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia — medical experts routinely recommend surgical reduction of the phallic structure and estrogen hormone therapy to feminize the child’s body and assign them female. The assumption is that, due to their XX chromosomes, these individuals are “really” girls and should thus be made to look it. Yet there’s Pulaski, a man more successful than most of his counterparts.
We can only speculate about the countless other intersex people throughout history because, as with other LGBTQI+ folks, most of our history has been lost due to the fact that we’ve only recently been able to live openly as who we are. For example, when the news broke that Hollywood film legend Rock Hudson was gay, my mother, like many, had a hard time believing it. Had it not been verified after Hudson became the first major celebrity to die of AIDS-related causes, in 1985, he would have lived and died being misperceived as heterosexual. Similarly, had Pulaski’s remains not been uncovered, we would have never known that the prominent military hero was intersex.
Today, the vast majority of intersex people are still living this way — with their intersex status publicly unknown. It’s easy for me to understand why because until I was 28 I’d been living the same way. Although I’d been “out” as a lesbian for a decade, since college, everyone but my lovers and a handful of friends believed I was a non-intersex female. I knew I was different because my physical differences are very visible, but coming out as intersex in a world that only acknowledged males and females just didn’t seem like an option in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I came out precisely when and because I was asked, in 1996, to do so by a survivor of childhood surgeries, sometimes referred to as intersex genital mutilation. She had learned that I like my intersex body and feel blessed that I wasn’t subjected to IGM, and she thought it would be useful for people to hear this perspective. Having learned about the lifelong physical and psychological harms that often result from IGM — which can involve involuntary sterilization or the loss of sexual sensation, I agreed. I wanted the world to know that doctors’ claims that intersex children need to be altered in order to be happy are, in my experience, false.
Those who’ve watched me explore my intersex-ness since my 20s have, like me, viewed it as a positive aspect of who I am — one friend just recently called it my “superpower.” While I reminded her that millions of intersex people have not been afforded these experiences due to IGM and that even for me it wasn’t always easy due to societal ignorance about intersex people, the irony of her statement wasn’t lost. For me, being intersex has been a beautiful adventure, full of unexpected sexual pleasure and a rich understanding of both male and female experiences that I feel privileged to have known — which is essentially the opposite of what doctors who promote IGM predict intersex people will experience.
Incidentally, proponents of IGM like to dismiss my experience as an exception. Perhaps I just want to be different, some speculate, which makes me laugh out loud. As the queer child of Latinx immigrants in a white neighborhood and school and having a name so unusual I grew up hearing, “Hida, what’s that?” I often longed to blend in. Or, some speculate, perhaps I’m just unusually self-confident, in a way that we can’t expect normal people to be. Far from it! As those close to me know, I suffer insecurities as much as everyone else.
The true reason I like being intersex is simple: When you don’t raise a child to believe they’re defective, they’re more likely to end up feeling good about who and what they are — and it’s my hope that all future generations of intersex people are given the chance to experience this. On that note, a growing number of medical associations have begun to listen to intersex people. They are honoring their oath to “first do no harm” by recommending that no cosmetic surgeries be performed unless intersex people seek them out for themselves, as other adults sometimes do, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
Hida Viloria is the author of Born Both: An Intersex Life and is a long-term intersex advocate.
Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, Equal Pride.
ONE, a condom and lubricant company, is distributing the first and only condoms approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in anal sex. After the approval, ONE partnered with Walmart on new packaging to highlight the FDA clearance.
Walmart stores in the U.S. will exclusively carry the ONE Backdoor pack, a condom kit that is a “butt stuff approved” sampler of the different styles available from ONE.
The pack will feature products like the ONE Vanish, which is 25 percent thinner than the standard ONE condom. It works best with the ONE Move lube, according to the company. The ONE Super Sensitive line — thin, smooth condoms with 50 percent more lubricant — will also be included in the kit. Also included are different samples from the MyONE Custom Fit, which includes condoms of various sizes to accomodate appendages of different shapes and girth.
The Backdoor Pack’s Vanish and Sensitive condoms are sized via the company’s MyONE size method, which is based on popular purchasing habits and is slightly shorter and wider than a regular condom. The included FitKit measuring tool will also help buyers find their perfect cut.
Walmart will also carry 12-count packs of ONE Vanish and ONE Super Sensitive condoms, both with packaging that highlights “FDA cleared for anal use.”
The popular ONE Move silicone lube and the Oasis Silk lubricating lotion are also available in Walmart stores.
With the telescope nearly a year into its stint in space, the agency has released its chief historian’s investigation into the namesake of the telescope. James Webb, NASA’s second-ever administrator, worked at the US State Department during the Lavender Scare, a period in which LGBTQ federal employees were often fired or forced to resign, and the decision to name the telescope for him courted criticism from researchers.
There’s no evidence that proves Webb was directly involved in those firings in the 1950s or in the 1963 firing of gay NASA employee Clifford Norton, according to Brian Odom, the NASA historian who completed the investigation.
Webb’s name caused controversy
Officials at NASA announced in 2002 that the telescope would be named for Webb, who oversaw the Apollo moon landing program in the 1960s and helped burnish the fledgling agency’s reputation. It was considered an unusual choice at the time, since Webb was an administrator and not a scientist.
Months before the telescope was set to finally launch, though, several astronomers called on NASA to remove Webb’s name from the telescope, which has since recorded severalnever-before-seenimages of the universe.
In a 2021 piece for Scientific American, a group of astronomers wrote that Webb’s legacy “at best is complicated and at worst reflects complicity in homophobic discrimination in the federal government.”
Even scientists who work on the telescope have expressed their dissatisfaction with its name. Earlier this summer, Dr. Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, tweeted that “a transformative telescope should have a name that stands for discovery and inclusion.”
Officials at NASA have refused to rename it, though, citing an investigation into Webb’s career. The results of that investigation weren’t made public until now, almost a year after the telescope launched.
The report found no evidence linking Webb to firings
In his report on his investigation into Webb, Odom acknowledged the pain caused by the Lavender Scare but said that “no available evidence directly links Webb to any actions or follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation.”
The findings of that investigation, Odom wrote, were based on more than 50,000 pages of historical documents from various archives, including NASA headquarters, the Truman Presidential Library and the National Archives.
Odom investigated two meetings that predated Webb’s time at NASA: In 1950, then-undersecretary Webb met with President Harry S. Truman and later two White House aides and Democratic Sen. Clyde Hoey of North Carolina to discuss the Hoey Committee, a Senate subcommittee created to investigate how many LGBTQ people worked for the federal government and whether they were “security risks.”
In his meeting with Truman, Webb discussed with the president how the committee and the White House “might ‘work together on the homosexual investigation,'” according to historian David K. Johnson, author of “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government,” one of the many documents Odom cites in his report.
No evidence links Webb to any action that followed those discussions, Odom said.
The historian also investigated the firing of Norton, a budget analyst at the space agency. Norton sued the Civil Service Commission after his firing, and his case, Norton v. Macy, was one of several that helped overturn the executive order that allowed federal agencies to fire LGBTQ employees for their sexuality, Odom wrote.
Odom said he found no evidence to show that Webb was aware of Norton’s firing; since it was federal policy at the time to oust LGBTQ employees, Odom wrote, Norton’s departure was “highly likely — though sadly — considered unexceptional.”
No documents could prove that Webb was directly linked to firings of LGBTQ employees, Odom said.
Don’t look for Salvation Army bell ringers outside your local Macy’s this holiday season.
The department store company didn’t renew its contract with the Salvation Army, a spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “We reevaluated our cause and community work and made a significant commitment to driving societal change by empowering underrepresented youth in our community,” the spokesperson said. “With this shift, we made the difficult decision to not continue our partnership with the Salvation Army this holiday season.”
The Macy’s rep did not say explicitly if the decision was related to the Salvation Army’s fraught relationship with the LGBTQ+ community. The Salvation Army, a conservative Christian organization, has been accused of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in its provision of services — something it has denied strongly. It also has stated it does not discriminate in employment.
But its churches do not marry same-sex couples, a topic a Salvation Army spokesman tried to pivot away from quickly in an Advocate interview in 2017. In 2012, it joined other faith groups in denouncing marriage equality as a threat to religious freedom, but its leaders have said since then that it is not involved in any efforts to undermine marriage equality.
Macy’s is an LGBTQ-supportive company. It has a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. It has advertised in LGBTQ+ publications and featured same-sex couples in its ads. Its 2018 Thanksgiving Day parade featured a performance from the Broadway show The Prom that included a same-sex couple kissing, a first for the parade. It has worked with LGBTQ+ organizations such as HRC and the Trevor Project.
Its charitable work is in keeping with its recently adopted “Mission Every One” statement, which emphasizes “grant funding to advance human rights, racial justice, workforce development and economic opportunity in partnership with organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, National Urban League, Hispanic Federation and the Asian American Business Development Center,” according to Macy’s website.
A Salvation Army spokesperson told the Inquirer, “The Salvation Army is incredibly thankful for the many years of Red Kettle partnership with the Macy’s Corporation. Macy’s decided not to renew our annual Red Kettle agreement in 2022 to focus on other nonprofit causes at this time. We are grateful for all our continuing national and local Red Kettle partners and the generosity of the public to help us help their neighbors in need, which is greater than ever this season.”
The Advocate has sought comment from both Macy’s and the Salvation Army and will update this story if it receives a response. In interviews in 2015 and 2017, the Salvation Army denied any discrimination in its provision of services, which include drug and alcohol recovery services in the U.S., shelter for the homeless, disaster relief, assistance for former prisoners reentering society, and more.
The group’s national spokesman, Lt. Col. Ron Busroe, told The Advocate in 2017 that he’s less concerned that charges of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination will affect donations than that they might discourage LGBTQ+ people from seeking help. “My greater concern is not whether they’re donating, but if they’re saying the Salvation Army won’t help you because you’re gay,” he said.
The Salvation Army once had a statement against same-sex relationships on its website but no longer does. Also, it removed links to conversion therapy groups several years ago. Its site now states that it does not engage in “unlawful discrimination or harassment” on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristics in its employment practices or provision of services.
Barely a day after a deadly LGBTQ bar shooting killed two transgender people and three other patrons, Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker (R) released a campaign ad slamming trans athletes. Democrats are pointing to Republican anti-LGBTQ campaigns like Walker’s as the type of rhetoric that led to the murder of five people at Colorado Springs bar Club Q on Saturday night.
The video featured Riley Gaines, a self-described 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer. In March, Gaines tied for fifth place with trans swimmer Lia Thomas. Gaines has been complaining about it ever since.
In Warnock’s ad, Gaines says, “For more than a decade, I worked so hard. Four a.m. practices to be the best. But my senior year, I was forced to compete against a biological male.”
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Walker says, “That’s unfair and wrong.”
Both are peddling a right-wing narrative that trans women are a threat to women’s sports, locker rooms, and other female “safe spaces.” This narrative has been used to push trans youth sports bans across the nation, even in states where no trans athletes are competing in school sports.
Gaines continues, “A man won a swimming title that belonged to a woman, and Senator Warnock voted to let it happen.”
The on-screen text then reads: “Raphael Warnock voted to allow biological men to compete in women’s college sports.”
Walker says, “Warnock’s afraid to stand up for female athletes.” Walker will face incumbent Sen. Warnock (D) in a December 6 runoff election.
Looking into the camera, Gaines says, “Herschel Walker stands up for what’s right.”
Walker then smiles at the camera and says, “I’m Herschel Walker and I’m proud to approve this message.”
In the ad, Gaines doesn’t mention that she and Thomas were both actually beaten by cisgender female athletes, or that the number of trans athletes in collegiate sports is actually very small. She also doesn’t mention that women’s sports are actually threatened by huge funding disparities, rampant sexual abuse, and media neglect, rather than by trans people.
Walker’s ad was released just after Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual commemoration of trans people who lost their lives to violence and otherwise. This year, at least 32 trans people have died from violence – most have been Black women.
In response to Walker’s ad, Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy organization, wrote, “Shame on Herschel Walker — and shame on every politician using LGBTQ lives as political props.”
“There’s an undeniable nexus between this kind of baseless and hateful rhetoric and the violence leveled against our community this weekend in Colorado Springs and the violence being perpetrated against marginalized communities all across this country,” Bridges added.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of the LGBTQ media watchdog group GLAAD, wrote, “Airing this kind of rubbish under the guise of a political campaign was already deplorable enough—but in the wake of Saturday night’s massacre at Club Q, it’s simply unconscionable.”
“These ads should be pulled immediately from Georgia’s airwaves before more lives are put in danger,” Ellis added.
In April, Gaines went onto the Fox News program of white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ bigot Tucker Carlson to talk about her discomfort with sharing a locker room with Thoma (Though she didn’t mention whether she actually saw Thomas in the locker room).
Gaines has since become a right-wing darling for continually speaking out about the issue. Her voice has joined a growing chorus of those who cast trans people as a threat to women’s and children’s safety. This chorus not only inspires legislation that harms trans people’s well-being, it also inspires violence against the greater LGBTQ community.
A State Department official on Friday said the U.S. has raised LGBTQ and intersex rights with the Qatari government ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
The World Cup begins in Qatar on Sunday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the country on Monday in order to open the fifth annual U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue.
State Department Spokesperson Ned Price in a statement he released on Friday said Blinken will meet with Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and other officials. Blinken is also scheduled to attend the U.S. men’s soccer team’s match against Wales that will take place on Monday in Al Rayyan.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Daniel Benaim on Friday during a virtual briefing that previewed Blinken’s trip said he would “not going to get ahead of Sec. Blinken on his specific plans.” Benaim, in response to the Washington Blade’s question about whether Blinken plans to raise LGBTQ and intersex rights with Qatari officials, added they are “certainly an issue that we have raised with the Qatari government at depth and will continue to do so.”
Qatar is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Human Rights Watch last month published a report that noted “arbitrary” arrests of LGBTQ and intersex people between 2019 and September 2022 and several cases of “severe and repeated beatings” and “sexual harassment in police custody” during the aforementioned period. World Cup Ambassador Khalid Salman earlier this month described homosexuality as “damage in the mind” during an interview with a German television station.
Peter Tatchell, a British activist, on Oct. 25 protested the country’s LGBTQ and intersex rights record while standing outside the National Museum of Qatar in Doha, the country’s capital. British comedian Joe Harry Lycett has challenged David Beckham to walk away from a £10 million ($11.84 million) deal to be a World Cup ambassador.
Ten captains of European soccer teams that will compete in the World Cup have said they will wear “one love” armbands to show their support for LGBTQ and intersex people. The U.S. men’s soccer team while in Qatar will have a redesigned logo with the Pride flag in its badge.
President Joe Biden in 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy.
The anti-LGBTQ One Million Moms (OMM) is circulating a petition against the beloved British children’s show Peppa Pig after it aired an episode featuring a young polar bear child with two polar bear moms.
The petition tells families to “Beware! Peppa Pig is now boldly glorifying gay marriage.”
It states that OMM is “concerned with the normalization of a sinful lifestyle choice during a children’s show.”
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“This type of sexuality should never be included in a cartoon designed for children, much less praised. It is especially distressing since this popular children’s program is viewed in 180 countries,” the petition said.
The petition is asking Hasbro, which owns the rights to Peppa Pig, to “stick to entertaining and providing family-friendly programming instead of pushing an agenda.”
The Peppa Pig episode in question aired back in September. The show has been on for 18 years but this was its first time featuring an LGBTQ couple.
In its episode called “Families,” a character named Penny introduces her two moms.
“I live with my mummy and my other mummy. One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti,” Penny says.
The episode came about in response to a petition to include a same-sex couple in the show that garnered almost 24,000 signatures.
And the episode caused international panic among conservatives. Far-right politicians in Italy denounced it, as did Russian lawmakers, one of whom called the cartoon pig a “tool of hybrid war.”
Federico Mollicone, culture spokesperson for the conservative Brothers of Italy party, declared that the nation “cannot accept gender indoctrination” and claimed that “once again the politically correct has struck, at the expense of our children.”
Senator Isabella Rauti, a member of the party, called the episode “gender propaganda” and stated that the “Brothers of Italy have long denounced the attempt at indoctrination by supporters of gender theories.”
In Russia, it was member of Parliament Alexander Khinshtein who denounced the show.
“LGBT is nowadays a tool of hybrid war, and in that hybrid war, we must protect our traditional values,” said Khinshtein during a speech. “We must protect our society and our children. Let me very quickly demonstrate what kind of propaganda is already being waged against our society.”
Now, seemingly a bit slow on the uptake, OMM is getting in on the action. The group is a division of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group.
The group routinely campaigns against LGBTQ representation in commercials, television shows, and the media and states on its website that the goal is to “stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media.”
The Navy has confirmed that a sailor was among the 18 injured in the Colorado nightclub shooting on Nov. 19 that also left five dead. Local officials and police said the sailor played a key role in stopping the shooting.
Information Systems Technician Petty Officer Second Class Thomas James was among those injured, the Navy said in a statement released Tuesday but added that “James is currently in stable condition and we remain hopeful he will make a full recovery.”
News of James’ injuries comes as many have begun to praise the heroic actions of another member of the crowd who served in the military — Armyveteran Richard Fierro — who has been credited with heroically rushing the shooter, causing him to drop the AR-style rifle he was holding.
The Denver Post reported that, after Fierro had the shooter on the ground, he took the man’s handgun from him and proceeded to beat the shooter with it. Meanwhile, James kicked the shooter in the head.
James enlisted in the Navy in 2011, according to records released by the service, and served aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, as well as at posts in England and Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, before being stationed in Colorado Springs.
James was qualified as an enlisted aviation warfare specialist and enlisted surface warfare specialist. James’ service included being awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal twice, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and a Good Conduct Medal, in addition to several other awards.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that President Joe Biden called Fierro and his wife at a press briefing Tuesday and offered his condolences as well as his thanks “for his bravery and … for his just instinct to act … saving maybe dozens of lives.”
Jean-Pierre noted that “this attack also comes amid a rise in violent rhetoric and threats against the LGBTQI+ people across the country.”
Colorado Springs is home to several military facilities and has a strong Army and Air Force presence. A spokeswoman told Military.com the Department of the Air Force is unaware at this time of any airmen or Guardians injured in the shooting.
The Navy said that it is asking everyone to “respect [James’] privacy as he continues his recovery.”
One night, someone called 911 to ask police in Malvern, Pennsylvania to conduct a mental wellness check on Maddie Hofmann, a 47-year-old transgender woman.
The caller said that Maddie had sent an email that sounded like a suicide letter. When police checked on Hofmann, they ended up shooting her three times inside her own home. She died from the injuries.
Her death left behind her wife, Rebecca Hoffman, and their two children, ages 9 and 4. Her wife and family are still searching for answers and accountability.
“[My wife] belonged on medication, not on a shelf,” Rebecca told The Philadelphia Inquirer, referring to a box of Hofmann’s ashes.
Maddie struggled with anxiety and depression and spent years going on and off medication. Weeks before the shooting occurred, Maddie had shared several concerning tweets, including one of her holding a firearm.
Maddie’s sister, Emily Flynn, said that both she and her sister were Korean adoptees raised by white parents. This resulted in some mental distress, Flynn said. Maddie had just begun finding healing and a voice for the painful isolation she felt in a predominantly white community.
Because Maddie was her family’s main income earner, Rebecca had to ask her mother for funds to cover her wife’s funeral and other living expenses. After what the Inquirer described as a “months-long back-and-forth” with Social Security, Rebecca finally received a check for her deceased spouse’s benefits.
But Rebecca hasn’t been able to read the police incident report or access body-camera footage, leaving her to rely on police accounts when explaining to her young children what happened.
“[My older child] wants to know if [police] didn’t do the right thing because they didn’t know what to do and maybe if someone told them, then they would know what to do next time,” said Rebecca. “But then he also is asking, Did they know the right thing but they just didn’t want to help his [parent] because his [parent] was different?”
In response to the shooting, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said that Maddie had aimed a Glock 19 9mm handgun at police during the wellness check. As a result, no officers were charged in her slaying.
Malvern Mayor Zeyn Uzman said police officers in the local department took a three-hour course in 2021 that covered recognizing and responding to people with mental health issues and other special needs.
“Given the factual circumstances of the event and the incident lasted only 57 seconds, any additional training or policy changes would not have prevented this tragic occurrence,” Uzman told the Inquirer.
After her sister’s death, Flynn launched a GoFundMe campaign to provide for the well-being of Maddie’s children and to raise awareness to prevent similar incidents. Additional funds “will be used to start a foundation or scholarship fund for trans youth in the foster care system in Maddie’s name,” the campaign states.
The shooting is not only an example of trans people’s higher rates of negative encounters with law enforcement and judicial officials; it’s also a grim reminder that people in mental health crises make up about 25 percent of fatal police shooting victims in recent years, a Washington Post investigation noted. Many of these people died after police conducted wellness checks over fears of a possible suicide attempt.
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
While public sentiment toward transgender people in the U.S. continues to warm, anti-transgender campaigners are exploiting the public’s uncertainty about trans youth to promote Florida-style bans on gender-affirming care.
And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Boston Children’s Hospital has been on the receiving end of at least three bomb threats this year due to misinformation about health care for transgender youth being provided there.
The piece hinges on what the authors describe as “emerging evidence of potential harm” related to the use of puberty-suppressing medications for transgender youth. But transgender health experts say that the data referenced in the Times‘ reporting comes to a different conclusion. The Times’ analysis of this data is so misleading that some advocates are questioning the motives behind the piece.
I talked with three experts – a trans advocate and educator, a psychology researcher, and a gender-affirming healthcare provider – to better understand what the Times got wrong and why it matters. Their criticisms touched on a range of issues including the data, the sources, and the framing of the issues. Many of these concerns are echoed by transgender people and care providers across the country.
“Basically, any way you slice it, this is not investigative journalism,” said Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore,
who has a Ph.D. in Psychology and conducts research at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “This is storytelling and editorializing from science they – at best – don’t understand because they don’t apply a logical lens to it.”
Critics of the Times piece said the reporters did get a few things right: More research on transgender health topics is needed. The reticence of drug companies to conduct research with transgender people creates barriers for FDA approval. Bone scans are beneficial for youth before and during treatment with puberty blockers.
And the most concerning is the fear that research findings could be exploited in the current political climate.
The Times article is itself a clear example of this exploitation in action and is arguably more dangerous than the transparently transphobic content published by opponents of trans rights. By echoing their claims in an ostensibly objective news outlet with a large, mainstream audience, the authors lend legitimacy to hateful extremists.
Many of the false claims promoted by those who believe gender-affirming care is tantamount to child abuse are presented to readers as if they’re objective fact. While this would be dangerous enough in an opinion piece, the Times framed this reporting as a well-vetted public service piece:
As growing numbers of adolescents who identify as transgender are prescribed drugs to block puberty, the treatment is becoming a source of confusion and controversy.
We spent months scouring the scientific evidence, interviewing doctors around the world and speaking to patients and families.
Here’s a closer look at what we found.
The celebratory response from far-right pundits is revealing. The Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh, whose film What is a Woman? manipulates the documentary format in an attempt to legitimize harmful transphobic myths, took credit for “[forcing] the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous.”
Jenn Burleton, director of the TransActive Gender Project at Lewis and Clark’s College of Education and Counseling, has watched media narratives about transgender people evolve over 35 years of advocacy work. She’s seen the damage anti-transgender rhetoric can do. As part of the college’s first-of-its-kind certificate program in Gender Diversity in Children and Youth, Burleton lectures on the origins and impacts of anti-transgender bias.
She was one of the experts interviewed for the Times article. But Burleton told LGBTQ Nation she was disappointed that the reporter declined to include any discussion of the forces behind the current campaign against gender-affirming care.
“I primarily discussed the immense amount of disinformation being spread about trans-affirming healthcare, specifically as it impacts adolescents and teens,” Burleton recalled. “[Megan Twohey] seemed very interested in looking into that, and I believed the story was going to have content that exposed the false claims being made in white nationalist media and in some state legislatures.”
Instead of delving into the well-documented rise in trans antagonism promoted by far-right religious and political groups, the brief mention of Burleton portrays her as a pushy activist, prodding healthcare providers and advocating for “early and easy access” to puberty-suppressing medication.
Dr. AJ Eckert, who directs the gender-affirming care program for Anchor Health in Connecticut and teaches at Quinnipiac University’s school of medicine, described the report as “another hit piece against trans people.” He also expressed frustration about the timing of the story, which was published on the first day of Transgender Awareness Week.
“I don’t understand how a journalist in good faith can publish something like this,” Eckert told LGBTQ Nation. “Trans youth are a vulnerable target and this is just so extremely sh**ty.”
Far from clarifying confusion about the safety and efficacy of “puberty blockers” in easing gender dysphoria, the reporting fuels an increasingly vitriolic debate over the existential rights of transgender people. The most vocal opponents of prescribing medications like Lupron to temporarily suspend exogenous puberty – or puberty a person would go through absent puberty blockers – are not calling for a more cautious approach. Rather, they advocate for the eradication of transgender identities altogether.
As trans Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo pointed out on Twitter, “The anti-trans side doesn’t want research, they want us eliminated.”
But no amount of research will make a difference if media outlets like the Times are unable or unwilling to accurately translate its findings and their significance.
“The entire article is based on the premise that puberty blockers are horrible for bone health,” Dr. Eckert explained. Through cherry-picked anecdotes and quotes, the story paints a picture of children being pushed into taking a dangerous and untested drug that might give them osteoporosis and which locks them into a medical transition process.
The Times describes one teen’s experiences:
During treatment, the teen’s bone density plummeted — as much as 15 percent in some bones — from average levels to the range of osteoporosis, a condition of weakened bones more common in older adults.
The anecdote elicits an emotional response, but there is no data to support the claim that puberty blockers are giving teenagers osteoporosis. Unfortunately, the average reader won’t dig into the cited research studies to fact-check these claims – they will simply trust that the Times’ interpretation of that data is accurate and presented without bias.
What Does the Data Say?
“Simply put, there’s no evidence in their review that puberty blockers lower adolescents’ bone mineral density at all. And here’s how I know this: [the studies] say so,” Dr. McLamore explained.
They explained that the difference in bone density between trans youth on blockers and their cisgender peers is attributable to the difference in exposure to sex hormones. Also, trans youth are more likely to have lower bone density before starting puberty blockers, due to a dysphoria-related lack of exercise and nutritional deficiencies.
“Puberty causes an increase in bone density. Blocking puberty will then halt this increase; therefore, bone density will decrease in these trans youth compared to cis youth, an expected result,” Dr. Eckert explained. “Trans youth treated with puberty blockers in early puberty have changes in bone health comparable to those of cis youth of their experienced gender.”
Also unfounded is the claim that gender-affirming care reinforces trans identity, as if healthcare providers are encouraging a bad habit by indulging a patient’s desire for medically-appropriate care.
“According to the gender-critical crowd, affirming a youth’s gender identity, whether socially and/or medically with blockers, causes a youth to double down on that identity. It’s an oft-cited argument to dissuade parents and school environments from affirming youths’ true identities,” Eckert explained. “There is precisely zero evidence that blockers ‘lock in’ a trans identity. Yes, many trans youth start gender-affirming hormones. Trans adolescents know who they are. Those youth who started on blockers and moved on to gender-affirming hormones do so because they are trans.”
To force youth to delay transition in the hopes that puberty will reaffirm their sex assigned at birth is cruel and potentially deadly. Heightened gender dysphoria is associated with an increased risk of suicidality.
“Puberty does not ‘help clarify gender,’” Eckert said. “For many of us, puberty can be highly traumatic and irreversible; waiting to see if gender dysphoria resolves is not a neutral response.”
On the contrary, puberty blockers can prevent the need for future surgeries by preventing the development of noncongruent sex characteristics like breasts or facial hair.
What’s the Harm?
As many transgender folks have observed, the study authors and named sources include a cast of familiar antagonists. And while the Times mentions in passing that some of these sources have testified in favor of state-level bans on gender-affirming care, their names are not cited in connection with the article’s dubious claims, leaving readers to take them at face value.
Of the 50-plus sources the authors say they interviewed, only about a dozen are named in the article. According to the Times, this is because several sources requested to not be named and more than a dozen declined the interview. Instead, they are cited under the syntactical cover of “some experts,” significant enough to matter but not specific enough to be held accountable.
Why do these concerns matter? Because they have a real-world impact. A well-functioning press has the power to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But a reckless reporter’s pen can be just as harmful as a drunk surgeon’s scalpel.
The article repeatedly and uncritically leans into the talking points of anti-transgender extremists, parroting their narratives without examining their sources. As a result, advocates of gender-affirming care are finding themselves in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Myth.
“I’m tired of repeatedly refuting the same points,” Eckert said, noting that they have been so busy responding to the false claims that they have gotten little sleep since Monday. “But I have to keep doing it until mainstream media starts platforming trans voices alongside these biased and transphobic editorials.”
Though public trust in media is on the decline, the Times has managed to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy news source, particularly among the sort of well-educated, left-leaning readers who are most likely to support transgender rights.
The credibility of this story is also bolstered by its byline. Lead author Megan Twohey is best known for helping break the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story. A film about her journalistic accomplishments, She Said, hits theaters this week. Co-author Christina Jewett is an award-winning journalist who focuses on issues including drug safety. Readers can’t be blamed for seeing them as trustworthy.
“The harm done by this article is not that it reveals disagreement about treatment methodologies among a relatively small group of providers and researchers. Disagreement and unbiased, ethical discussion about healthcare is imperative to delivering improved healthcare,” TransActive’s Burleton explained. “The harm done by this article is that it implies that trans-affirming providers and advocates oppose asking questions that will improve trans-affirming healthcare. The article ignores the [denial] that anti-trans zealots – including some care providers/’experts’ – have about the very existence or authenticity of gender expansive identity.”
Whether the author’s missteps are due to malice or ignorance is up for debate. But it is worth noting that neither of the reporters has much experience covering transgender issues. That much is clear from the language they use to describe the experience of being transgender. The authors conflate gender dysphoria and trans identity with “the discomfort of puberty” and cite an interest in wearing dresses as evidence that a child must not have a masculine gender identity. At one point, they go so far as to describe supporters of gender-affirming care as “enthusiasts.”
The Times owes transgender people an apology – and some serious soul-searching – after platforming anti-trans extremism under the guise of investigative journalism. While Monday’s front-page story purports to be a thorough analysis of the scientific research, it traffics in a dangerous misrepresentation of the data. It’s not the first problematic piece from the Times, but it is the most high profile. And while other media outlets are guilty of similar missteps, reporters like Twohey and Jewett (and their editors) should be capable of better. And if they aren’t, perhaps the Times should consider assigning these stories to transgender journalists.