Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to European Union data released Thursday.
The EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation.
Twitter wasn’t alone — most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse. But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU’s tough new online rules after owner Elon Musk fired many of the platform’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks.
The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.
In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64%, Instagram slipped to 56.9% and YouTube dipped to 83.3%. TikTok came in at 92%, the only company to improve.
The amount of hate speech Twitter removed after it was flagged up slipped to 45.4% from 49.8% the year before. TikTok’s removal rate fell by a quarter to 60%, while Facebook and Instagram only saw minor declines. Only YouTube’s takedown rate increased, surging to 90%.
“It’s worrying to see a downward trend in reviewing notifications related to illegal hate speech by social media platforms,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova tweeted. “Online hate speech is a scourge of a digital age and platforms need to live up to their commitments.”
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment. Emails to several staff on the company’s European communications team bounced back as undeliverable.
Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month fanned widespread concern that purveyors of lies and misinformation would be allowed to flourish on the site. The billionaire Tesla CEO, who has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive, has been reinstating suspended accounts, including former President Donald Trump’s.
France’s online regulator Arcom said it received a reply from Twitter after writing to the company earlier this week to say it was concerned about the effect that staff departures would have on Twitter’s “ability maintain a safe environment for its users.”
Arcom also asked the company to confirm it can meet its “legal obligations” in fighting online hate speech and that it is committed to implementing the new EU online rules. Arcom said it received a response from Twitter and that it will “study their response,” without giving more details.
Tech companies that signed up to the EU’s disinformation code agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation and file regular reports on whether they’re living up to their promises, though there’s little in the way of punishment.
The mayor of Washington DC has won applause from activists after signing a “comprehensive” trans and abortion sanctuary bill.
Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser signed act 24-0808, better known as the “Human Rights Sanctuary Amendment Act”, on 21 November.
The amendment, shared on Twitter by trans activist Erin Reed, aims to uphold various rights to those who are either transgender or wish to have an abortion within the region.
“They can’t use ANY means to enforce anti-trans and anti-abortion laws against people fleeing states,” Reed said in a tweet. “No cops, no jails, no warrants, no subpoenas, not even ink to paper.”
The bill, initially introduced in May, aims to prevent district officials from cooperating with interstate investigations that would “infringe upon the exercise of reproductive freedom”.
It was sponsored by Washington DC officials after the controversial Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which essentially gutted nationwide protections on abortion.
Washington DC attorney general Karl A. Racine conducts a news conference. (Getty)
During a July testimony to a District of Columbia committee, attorney general Karl A Racine said: “The Supreme Court overturned a precedent that had stood for nearly half a century and eliminated the constitutional right of abortion.
“It is not enough to talk about equality on paper; we must enable it in practice,” Racine continued. “The sanctuary bill and related pending legislation seek to bolster the district’s longstanding policy of protecting civil and human rights.
“[This includes] the rights to make pregnancy decisions, access gender-affirming medical care, and engage in same-sex relationships.”
Activists applauded the bill, saying it will effectively turn Washington DC into a ‘human rights sanctuary’.
Another wrote: “It’s a crying shame this is needed, but well done to DC for doing this.”
Others weren’t so quick to applaud, pointing out that because it is not a state law, Congress is able to override bills such as these, with one saying: “They do have control over what DC can do.”
Treating HIV symptoms in “clusters” could help improve a patient’s overall quality of life, according to a study presented at the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care 2022 annual meeting.
The evidence, according to Medscape, showed that the four main symptom clusters for HIV include pain, body psychological, gastrointestinal, and body image. These symptoms were also more common in HIV-positive people older than 45.
Natalie Wilson, PhD, assistant professor of community health systems at the UCSF School of Nursing, and a group of colleagues performed a study that also suggested that the elderly population experienced more distress from their symptoms, with the exception of anxiety.
“The symptom burden is still high in people living with HIV,” said Wilson. “The medications got better but the symptoms remain.”
Higher symptom burdens are also linked to a lower adherence to antiretrovirals. Treating groups of symptoms together could lead to targeted interventions, Wilson said, “instead of treating one symptom at a time and increasing the pill burden for people living with HIV.”
In the full study, previously published in The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2,000 HIV-positive participants completed the 20-item HIV Symptom Index. They then reported their symptoms on their first visit to one of six national HIV Centers of Excellence, rating the presence of the symptom from 1 (doesn’t bother me) to 4 (bothers me a lot.)
The younger population reported more anxiety and were more distressed by it, where the older generation found stressors caused more by muscle aches and joint pain.
While this initial study paves way for further studies over time, the current findings have raised some important questions. One of the more important findings in the study was the accelerating aging process HIV-positive patients experienced.
Cheryl Netherly, an HIV nurse and clinical educator for CAN Community Health, said that people living with HIV and dying from age-related comorbidities is something “we never thought would happen. Unfortunately, now we’re losing them to the different things like kidney issues, heart disease, and diabetes.”
The ACLU and six other civil rights groups filed complaints Monday against two Texas school districts, asking the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate policies they say unlawfully discriminate against transgender students, The Hill reports.
The policies at the center of the complaint include one censoring books that discuss “gender fluidity” and another forcing trans students to use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender.
“The effect of the [book] policy, absent federal civil rights intervention, will be to stigmatize LGBTQ+ and particularly transgender, non-binary, gender diverse, and intersex students in Keller ISD, to uniquely deprive them of the opportunity to read books that reflect their identities, and to create an environment in which unlawful discrimination flourishes,” the complaint states.
Among the more than 40 books removed by the school district in response to the new policy were The Bible, a graphic novel depiction of The Diary of Anne Frank, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Opponents of the bathroom policy say that it would allow districts to ignore the gender listed on a student’s legal documents, including amended birth certificates.
“This policy seemingly allows Frisco ISD and its teachers and administrators to ignore and erase students’ gender identities in violation of federal law,” the complaint states. “School districts have no right to question students’ sexual characteristics such as genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes.”
The ACLU of Texas is encouraging impacted students to reach out.
According to the Texas Tribune, the complaints are just the latest filed by civil rights groups in opposition to anti-trans policies in Texas school districts. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a similar complaint against the state’s Carroll Independent School District over concerns it failed to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, and race.
In the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, the school board recently adopted policies that effectively force teachers to deny the existence of transgender people. Its new guidelines prohibit discussion of “gender fluidity,” the use of gender-affirming pronouns, and the use of gender-congruent restrooms.
At the state level, Texas Republicans recently proposed creating a book rating system for school libraries. In a statement on the proposed legislation, PEN America called the system “a dangerous escalation in the movement to censor public education.”
In March, an investigation by the Texas Tribune and ProPublicaexposed the explicitly anti-LGBTQ motives behind one Texas school district’s attempt to remove books from school shelves.
The policies are part of a national trend pushed forward by coordinated action from right-wing activist groups like Moms for Liberty. Similar book bans have been proposed or adopted in Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, and other states. Many states have likewise considered policies prohibiting trans students from using facilities that align with their gender, or otherwise restricting their rights.
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.
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.
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,
Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore, a psychology researcher familiar with the studies on gender-affirming care, criticized The Times’ interpretation of the data about puberty blockers. 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.
Jenn Burleton, program director for the TransActive Gender Project, was interviewed for The New York Times piece but said the reporter’s coverage missed the mark.
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 Ecker, a nonbinary trans doctor, provides gender-affirming care at Connecticut’s Anchor Health.
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.
The results of this year’s midterm elections showed a tendency among American voters to rebuke extremism from the right, whether it took the form of denying the results of democratic elections or denying women’s reproductive freedoms.
For the LGBTQ community and its allies, it was also a repudiation of attacks from some far-right GOP candidates on trans people, particularly trans youth.
Virginia would not have reelected Democratic Reps. Jennifer Wexton and Abigail Spanberger “if transphobic attacks that are geared toward and about kids were an effective message and an effective persuasion message,” Virginia Delegate Danica Roem told the Washington Blade on Tuesday.
Transphobic campaigns led by the congresswomen’s Republican challengers cost them Virginia’s Prince William County, said Roem, who would become the second openly trans state senator in the country if she is elected in next year’s race to represent Virginia’s 30thSenate District.
Republicans in the state went as far as to weaponize a sexual assault case to attack trans students – by lying about the gender identity of the perpetrator, Roem said.
Last year, the mother of a boy who was charged with sexually assaulting a girl in a Loudoun County high school told The Daily Mail, “First of all, he is not transgender…And I think this is all doing an extreme disservice to those students who actually identify as transgender.”
It is not just in the DC-Maryland-Virginia region that voters rejected transphobic attacks during this election cycle, Roem said. GOP candidates tried this approach in Michigan and Wisconsin, leading to the reelection of Democratic Governors Tony Evers and Gretchen Whitmer, who will enjoy the state’s first Democratic trifecta in 40 years, Roem said.
“Across the country anti-equality opponents tried to win close races by persuading swing voters that trans kids were a danger – a group of people that needed to be bullied and attacked,” said Geoff Wetrosky, campaign director for the Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest LGBTQ organization.
“And it failed for them as a strategy, in places from Michigan to Kansas, where close races ended up going to the pro-equality candidates not despite these attacks but because of them,” Wetrosky told the Blade.
“Voters did not appreciate candidates singling out trans kids and speaking propaganda and stigma to rile up extreme members of their base,” he added.
Wetrosky recounted how parents in Arizona had received an anti-trans mailer that was disseminated by former Trump administration official Stephen Miller’s organization America First Legal and reacted by “showing up to the polls for their trans kid but also to show that communities of color could not be split from LGBTQ folks.”
It would be inaccurate to say that Republican gubernatorial candidates like Florida’s Ron DeSantis or South Dakota’s Kristi Noem were reelected because of their open hostility toward trans youth, Wetrosky contends, because we saw that strategy backfire elsewhere.
In terms of attacking trans candidates running for elected office over their gender identities, “the right still tries to use these tactics but it’s harder and harder to manufacture a boogeyman,” LGBTQ Victory Fund and LGBTQ Victory Institute President & CEO Annise Parker told the Blade by phone on Tuesday.
Parker agreed with Wetrosky’s position that much of the transphobia seen from Republican officeholders is meant to appeal to the most extreme elements of the base of the party, for the purpose of raising the profiles of those with national political ambitions.
Communities around the country gather to honor Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR) on Nov. 20. Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans activist, created TDOR as a vigil for Rita Hester, a Black trans woman who was murdered in 1998. Since 1999, TDOR has become a national memorial to those whose lives were stolen from them because of transphobia and anti-trans violence.
Local activist, community leader, and founder of Baltimore Safe Haven, Iya Dammons, is preparing for the day with a week of activities that honor the trans community’s fight against violence while also paying homage to victims who were failed by the systems that should have protected them from their murderers.
“We will read off the names and have a few youth, community members and advocates step up and share stories of their loved ones who have paved the way,” Dammons said.
Dammons, a Black trans woman and Washington, D.C. native, is no stranger to the uphill struggle of her brothers and sisters in the Baltimore-Washington metro area trans community. At different times during her life, Dammons battled homelessness and turned to sex work to support herself. Dammons’s own experience navigating the tumultuous waters of life fuels her desire to help her community.
“I am a reflection of the people that I work with,” Dammons said.
A 2021 Williams Institute study found that trans people over the age of 16 are victimized four times more often than cisgender people and have higher rates of violent victimization.
One of Baltimore Safe Haven’s driving forces is increasing community awareness of what anti-trans violence looks like for those who are still alive and fighting for equity and justice.
“Sometimes we get so caught up with remembering people that we do not tell our own community members that we appreciate you, but we want you to be vigilant and mindful that harm can happen to you at anytime,” Dammons said.
For Dammons, TDOR is not just about remembering loved ones but also acknowledging that anti-trans violence can happen to her.
“I know that the worst can happen anyday to myself. So I’m sharing space with those other community members to let them know they’re not alone and we stand together in solidarity,” Dammons said.
Elle Moxley, a Black trans woman and founder of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, echoes Dammons’s plea to remember, protect, and cherish trans lives.
This month, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) will launch its new coalition that works with Black trans-led organizations to end anti-trans violence, specifically against Black trans women, and improve trans people’s lives through public policy and equity.
The coalition will bring organizations together from underserved areas of the country like the Midwest and Deep South, which are traditionally conservative areas that have higher rates of anti-trans violence.
“As violence continues to be something that is a pattern for this country, we know that our efforts to build power will probably be the only efforts to end that violence,” Moxley said.
Both Dammons and Moxley are targeting the structures that perpetuate anti-trans violence in their activism.
“We’re not just reporting on the names of those who have been murdered, that we’re not just reporting on vigilante violence, that we actually are doing our work to provide solutions to ending that violence,” Moxley said.
The MPJI’s coalition will support numerous events and outreach efforts, including advocacy days, legislative days, and healing retreats.
In Washington, D.C., Dammons is starting a new Safe Haven chapter.
“We’re looking at a building now to establish a housing program for 18 to 24 year olds,” Dammons said.
Like Dammons, Moxley sees TDOR as an appreciation for life and the ability to be a voice for those whose voices were unfairly silenced.
“This is a time of commemoration and a time of owing the fight for our lives together,” Moxley said. “TDOR for me means that I am still alive, that I’m still here, and that my name is not on a list when it could have easily been based on the things that I’ve experienced and survived.”
Safe Haven will hold its TDOR remembrance ceremony at 5 p.m. on Nov. 20 at 401 N. Howard St. in Baltimore. There will be a Trans Day of Remembrance brunch, “We will not be erased,” on Saturday, Nov. 19, 11:30 a.m. at Hillcrest Heights Community Center at 2300 Oxon Run Dr., Oxon Hill, Md. Tickets are free but you must register at the event’s Eventbrite page.
Cake Society and MULUSA Rainbow Visibility Platform is hosting a Trans Day of Remembrance Brunch at 11 a.m. on Nov. 20 at 2771 Hartland Road, Falls Church, Va. The event is free, but register to attend at the event’s Eventbrite page.
