What the Gender Issue Needs in 2026

Which, sadly, we are unlikely to get

There is only one way for liberals and Democrats to fully understand the “gender issue”—controversies over medicating gender identity, and ceding to it over sex in law and policy. That is for The New York Times to report honestly and accurately about those controversies, to push the framing beyond left and right, and deal with the thorny issues of ethics, evidence, and harm. In other words: to report the whole story. To do actual journalism.

If NYT reporters did this, medical associations would be held to account and forced to change their stances on gender-affirming care and to regulate themselves—the only alternative to bans and other strong-armed interventions from the government.

Recall that objections—like, say, why is everyone insisting my masculine daughter is trans?—were welcome in the Gray Lady’s pages in 2017. The Overton window largely shut the next year, with Jesse Singal’s foray into ROGD (never mentioned by name, but described) and detransition in The Atlantic. For many years after, the Times largely repeated advocacy groups’ talking points, rather than employing skepticism. (There are many reasons for this, which I detail in the book I’m working on.)

We saw a slight shift with the arrival of Pamela Paul in the Opinion section, who dared to say out loud what the majority of silent liberals were thinking. (Someone once described the columns as “What Park Slope liberal women admit to each other after two drinks.”) Paul defended JK Rowling, explaining that one person can say “I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others but are vulnerable,” and still believe that men can never become women. She asked why, after so many systematic reviews pronounced the evidence for gender medicine to be remarkably weak, the American medical establishment “shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients.” She reported on detransitioners—a topic the paper mostly ignored.

I use that word, reported, purposefully, because one reason it was so hard to reshape the liberal view was that the news sections were offering opinions while the opinion section was offering reporting. Another reason was that Paul was isolated as the sole liberal voice of objection—believe me, I tried and tried and tried to join her in those pages, but I haven’t made it past the Opinion bulwark since 2020. Others like me tried, too.

Earlier this year, as a few conservative NYT opinion columnists dabbled in the gender issue, Paul was pushed out by the Times. It was a shock and a disappointment to many of us who felt she was our only hope of reaching liberals, our only towline to the truth.

She had been wanting to write about the rift between the LGB and the T communities for two years before this—a story she wasn’t allowed to publish because Opinion leadership insisted there was “no evidence” for it, though of course there was plenty—organizations, prominent writers, activists.

I asked her about the situation earlier this year. Her response:

Under Katie Kingsbury, columnists could no longer write about subjects of their choice but needed top leadership approval first — a substantive change from the way newspaper columnists have traditionally worked at papers like the Times and The Washington Post. (Ruth Marcus wrote an essay in The New Yorker about how this changed occurred at The Washington Post under new leadership, which shocked readers and media watchdogs. But that same change had already been in place for years under Katie Kingsbury at the Times.)

Because of this shift in policy, I was told by top leadership that if I wanted to write about “LGBTQ people” I would have to offer an explanation as to what my interest was in the subject and why I should be the one to write about it. (Presumably, they either assumed I was straight or knew that it would be illegal for them to ask exactly what my sexual orientation was. This narrow qualification seemed to be the only possible justification in their minds for writing about this particular subject, unlike, for example, Gaza or Ukraine or Syria or the working class.) I was explicitly told by the head of Opinion that I would have to justify why I had the right to “speak for the LGBTQ community.”

My response was that it is activists who speak for a community or interest group; the journalist’s job is to write about them. This distinction did not seem to be either understood or appreciated by Opinion leadership. I was pleased that they greenlit Andrew Sullivan’s op-ed, though not entirely surprised as he is both openly gay and a self-described conservative, in addition to being an excellent writer and journalist. One thing that especially discomfited and troubled Opinion leadership was to have a liberal columnist offer opinions that deviated from what they understood to be acceptable positions on the left.

Eventually, that piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and Andrew Sullivan—who apparently ticked the appropriate identity boxes—made the case about the LGB v T split in the Times.

A few weeks ago, Paul appeared on the podcast Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em to talk about her departure, which is worth a listen if you can handle the sadness and outrage. She tells the story of editors choosing belonging over truth—a very normal instinct for the average human, but the equivalent of original sin for journalists. A big thank you to Pamela Paul for her work, and a big grrrr to the Times for not standing by it.

It hasn’t been all bad. A long NYT Magazine piece on the Supreme Court Skrmetti case, from earlier this year, managed to communicate what Paul, Sullivan, and others have been trying to say: We can support people’s right to express themselves how they want without institutionalizing their subjective realities, without upholding gender identity in law and policy. Doing so—and applying these laws and policies to children—likely added the final nail to the coffin of the 2024 presidential election.

But we will not advance the issue, we will not get Democrats to pivot, we will not help people understand that the truth is not blasphemy, until we are aided by The New York Times.

I wish I felt more optimistic about that happening. Please keep sending op-eds, reaching out to reporters, writing letters to the editor. Keep receipts. Keep your head up. Keep trying.

Sorry to end the year on a blue note, but the truth is: I’m sad about the havoc my fellow liberals have wreaked on families, institutions, the country—not to mention the ongoing havoc of the Trump administration, which we brought on ourselves. But it’s been a hell of a year, and whatever happens in 2026, I’m here for it. See you on the other side of 2025.