My Continued Opposition to the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD's Attack on the New York Times
Why Proper Reporting About Medical Practices and Medical Treatments Isn't Transphobia
As the Human Rights Campaign (the “HRC”) and GLAAD continue to double down on their crusade against the New York Times, I wanted to add more to my opposition that I published on Monday.1
I disagree with the reasoning of the HRC and GLAAD that the New York Times is transphobic in its reporting. The New York Times reports accurate information on transgender medical healthcare related issues. The HRC and GLAAD reason that any questioning, any criticism, and any reporting on potential malfeasance in the medical profession or medical practices is automatically transphobic.
This is really absurd.
Reporting accurate information on medicine and medical healthcare is the job of a newspaper. A newspaper can and should ask questions in the medical arena such as:
Are certain medical treatments or medications are appropriate?
Are medical professionals are exercising the proper standards of medical care with patients?
Are pharmaceutical companies appropriately marketing products to consumers?
Do certain drugs have harmful side effects that doctors and patients should be aware of?
Are certain doctors committing medical malpractice?
Are certain drug companies committing fraud?
These are all questions that are perfectly suitable for a newspaper to ask. We do not consider them to be bigotry in any other context. And we shouldn’t do so in the context of transgender care.
Now, it is certainly conceivable that transphobic people have made up completely false allegations about transgender medical care and are spreading rumors just to harm the transgender community, and transgender youth in particular. Jamie Reed, the Washington University in St. Louis gender clinic whistleblower, might secretly hold transphobic agenda and everything she has alleged is is inaccurate. The detransitioners might really be just the 2020s version of the Ex-Gay Movement. The medical dissidents who are openly questioning protocols for transitioning may be making up things whole cloth simply because they dislike transgender people.
If that’s the case though, shouldn’t we want newspapers to report accurate information on the topic and disprove those who are lying to the public? If no one is being unnecessarily rushed into medical transition, medical transition has no negative side effects, and no one actually regrets transitioning, shouldn’t we want that information to be broadly known by the public? Wouldn’t that be of paramount importance so that those who should transition are not discouraged from doing so?
The rush to demand censorship by the HRC and GLAAD might lead one to believe that perhaps these whistleblowers, detransitioners, and dissident medical professional critics are speaking the truth.
Either way, the flaw in the HRC and GLAAD logic becomes even more apparent when it is taken outside of the context of transgender care.
A few hypothetical examples where we would want fair and accurate reporting.2
A. COVID19 Vaccine Reporting Erasure
A person with a serious pre-existing medical condition is advised by their doctor that they should not get the COVID19 vaccine. The doctor is fully vaccinated and up-to-date with boosters herself. She generally encourages her patients to get the COVID19 vaccine and stay boosted.
However, in this instance, her patient has a severe allergy to one of the ingredients in the MRNA vaccine has a pre-existing myocarditis issue. In this personalized instance, she advises her patient to not get the vaccine or she advises holding off for the time being until more information is known. While she understands the risks associated with getting COVID19, she believes her patient faces greater risks from the vaccine. The patient agrees with the doctor’s personalized recommendation and forgoes the COVID19 vaccine.
The New York Times subsequently reports on some studies that show vaccinated people who get COVID are less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and prematurely age than unvaccinated people who get COVID19.
By the HRC and GLAAD’s logic, this reporting would be “erasure” of the person who has been advised to not receive the COVID19 vaccine, perpetuating bigotry against that individual, and harmful to that person for reminding them of the additional risks they will face should they contract COVID19.
But that would be nonsense.
The New York Times has not erased or attacked the patient who forgoes the COVID19 vaccine due to legitimate medical advice from their doctor. They’re reporting truthful and newsworthy information that the general public should hear. Information that people can use to make personal decisions as to whether to get the COVID19 vaccine. This reporting doesn’t change the patient’s individual medical circumstances, attack their personal medical decision, or demean the doctor for giving what they feel is the best medical advice.
B. Reporting on Prohibited Abortion Practices and Defective Birth Control
Let’s consider abortion regulations that even pro-choice people favor.3
Should Dr. Nick Riviera (the incompetent doctor on The Simpsons) be allowed to perform abortions with his used plastic fork and knife from lunch that he cleaned off with his napkin?
Should a doctor be allowed to knowingly give a woman false medical diagnoses in order to persuade her to terminate a pregnancy she otherwise would like to carry to term?
Should a doctor be allowed to give abortion medication to a patient without telling her that she’s being given abortion medication (or that she’s even pregnant) in order to induce an abortion the woman did not otherwise want?
Should a doctor be allowed to knowingly sterilize a patient against her will and without telling her?
Should a doctor who performs surgical abortions be allowed to wrongfully tell a teenage girl that she’s not pregnant at the time she could still terminate her pregnancy with abortion medication in the hopes that she will need to have a surgical abortion later on?
Would it be ethical (or good public policy) for a group of doctors, who stood to profit from performing more abortions, or a pharmaceutical company that sells abortion medication, to create a model school curriculum full of biologically wrongful information that ultimately leads to an increase in unwanted teenage pregnancies?
The answer to all these questions is no.
Of course not. We can tell the difference between a legitimate medical ethics regulation and a required transvaginal probe.
However, using the logic of the HRC and GLAAD, if the New York Times ever discovered anyone engaging in these practices and reported upon them, the New York Times would be anti-abortion and have engaged in an anti-abortion campaign.4
But that would be nonsense. Those of us who are militantly pro-choice, mean what we say, favoring “choice”. It is a woman’s choice as to whether she carries her pregnancy to term. It is not the choice of the government or another private individual who feels they know better than the woman does. Carrying out an abortion against a woman’s will is not in any semblance choice.
We also believe that abortion must be legal in order to protect women from the health and safety risks of back-alley abortions. Back alley abortions led to severe injuries and deaths for women. It also led to lifelong sterilization for women. It would not be anti-abortion for the New York Times to report on Dr. Nick Riviera’s unsafe practices because as much we support abortion rights, we support safely conducted abortions. We don’t support unsafe abortions in unsafe facilities by doctors who don’t know what they’re doing.
C. Ethics Related to the Sale of Pharmaceutical Drugs and Biologics
A popular birth control implant is discovered to cause permanent infertility in people who use it after an extended period of time. The implant is often sold to people who ultimately wish to have children but are not yet ready to start a family. The manufacturer of that birth control implant discovers this problem but hides this information from the public. They make big profits from the sale of this birth control implant and those profits would be jeopardized if consumers discover that this medication causes permanent infertility.
The New York Times uncovers the birth control implant device permanently sterilizing individuals and the intentional hiding of this information by the pharmaceutical manufacturer, and then reports on it.
Using the logic of the HRC and GLAAD, the New York Times is against birth control and the decision to not procreate. Using birth control and deciding whether to have children are fundamental rights. Warning people that this birth control implant might permanently sterilize them interferes with the exercise of those fundamental rights. If someone is sterilized by this birth control medical implant, it’s absolutely fine because many people choose to not have children.
And reporting it as though unintended sterilization is a bad thing demeans and erases those individuals. Even worse, warning about the potential negative side effect of a birth control device is discouraging people from using birth control. Reporting on a pharmaceutical company that deliberately hides this information from the public is also wrong because it attacks a company that provides a vital medical tool.
Again, this is absolute nonsense.
The fundamental right to birth control and the fundamental right to procreation are individual choices. Being sterilized without one’s consent is not the same thing as willingly deciding to not have children. If a birth control implant causes permanent infertility, consumers have the right to be informed.
Moreover, if the manufacturer knows of this information but deliberately keeps it from the public so they can profit from sales to unwitting customers, they have committed gross legal violations. This information is newsworthy and reporting it to the general public would be in our vital interests. The reporting would not be anti-birth control.
Let’s suppose a manufacturer of HIV/AIDS treatments develops a surplus of these treatments due to declining rates of HIV infection among gay men resulting from an increase in safe sex practices. The manufacturer wants to sell more of these treatments and embarks on a campaign to deliberately encourage unsafe sex practices among gay men in the hopes of increasing HIV/AIDS rates so they can sell more medication.
If the New York Times uncovered this information and reported on it, would that make the New York Times homophobic, complicit in the denial of key HIV/AIDS treatments, or deniers of HIV/AIDS?
No. Obviously not.
Reporting on the bad practices of pharmaceutical companies is newsworthy. If anything, gay and bi men would benefit from this news coverage because we would learn that we were being encouraged to engage in unsafe activities solely for the purposes of profit. The logic of the HRC and GLAAD would actually make gay and bi men more vulnerable in this situation because in their haste to censor truthful and accurate information, we would not be aware that we were being taken advantage of.
D. Lobbying for Safety Regulations
Let’s suppose that automobile manufacturers lobby to get rid of key federal car safety regulations that could prevent a person from getting decapitated in an accident. When it is pointed out that the removal of these safety regulations could result in more losses of limbs, the lobbyists argue that opposition arguments are ablest and stigmatizing to disabled people.
After all, the lobbyists argue, we should embrace people with physical disabilities and end stigmatization of people who lose limbs. Furthermore, the lobbyists argue that since it is illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities, it’s really irrelevant if someone loses a limb due to how they manufacture a car.
As it turns out, the automobile manufacturers aren’t truly concerned with destigmatizing physical disability caused by losing limbs and are actually more concerned with getting rid of safety regulations because of the massive increase in profits that they will see.
If the New York Times uncovers this information and reports it to the public, would the New York Times, as the logic of the HRC and GLAAD dictates, be engaging in promoting discrimination against the disabled?
Again, no.
One can believe strongly in prohibiting discrimination against the disabled and also believe that safety policies designed to prevent people from accidentally losing limbs is still a sound and worthwhile public policy goal. More importantly, if the desire to end discrimination against and stigmatization of the physically disabled is being purposefully manipulated by lobbyists solely for the purposes of corporate profit (and isn’t apparent to anyone paying attention), the New York Times has every journalistic obligation to report it.
Why do I raise these practically insane hypothetical situations?
Because through their attacks on the New York Times, the HRC and GLAAD have demanded the equivalent for coverage of transgender medicine issues. They are asking the public to support their efforts to restrict journalism on the reporting of actual medical issues in the name of “civil rights” that are in reality, fair game for public discussion.
Reporting on medical practices and medication efficacy and safety is not denying the existence of transgender people nor is it the promotion of discrimination against transgender people. These are topics that are of a universal public interest including transgender people themselves. The job of journalism is to ask questions of institutions and medical practices. That can include reporting on uncomfortable topics. But that’s not bigotry. Transphobic or otherwise. And it shouldn’t be conflated as such.
Count me out of any demands for the New York Times to stop its coverage.
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To be clear, these are all completely hypothetical situations. I use them for illustrative example of what we would consider acceptable and what we would want investigated or reported on if true.
For the record, I am pro-choice. My personal favored option on abortion law would be Canadian style abortion law where there are no restrictions whatsoever on when a woman may seek to terminate her pregnancy. I do not support changing the current California law, which has the viability standard, only because the law in this state is well-settled and there’s no need to restart the argument. Medi-Cal is constitutionally required to cover abortion services and the minors cannot be constitutionally required to obtain parental consent to obtain an abortion. I would rather not let perfect be the enemy of the extraordinarily good.
Just to be clear, these are not practices I believe are happening anywhere. I raise these hypothetical scenarios for illustrative purposes. If a doctor or pharmaceutical company were to engage in any of these practices, I would oppose them and find it unethical. And I do not believe that doing so would make me pro-life.