Adam Nagourney is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Nagourney’s dismissive views of trans and gender diverse people have been noted by peers and historians.
Nagourney and Jeremy W. Peters claimed in the New York Times that there is a “medical disagreement” in 2023 about trans healthcare. There is clear medical consensus on best practices which is opposed by a conservative fringe minority.
Background
Adam Nagourney was born on October 10, 1954. Nagourney earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from SUNY Purchase in 1977.
Nagourney joined The New York Times in 1996.
1999 book Out for Good
Nagourney has long been known for dismissive views of trans and gender diverse people. Dudley Clendinen and Nagourney co-authored the 1999 book Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. By the late 1990s, only out-of-touch old gay cis men called our rights movement “gay rights.” The most common inclusive term at the time was GLBT (later amended to LGBT).
Nagourney’s coverage of the activism in Minnesota that led to the nation’s first transgender-inclusive human rights laws reveals this anti-trans bias:
As Donna Cartwright has pointed out in “Distorting Mirror: Trivializing and Silencing Transgender people in Queer Media,” (Transgender Tapestry Magazine), even one of the most extensive accounts of that history, Adam Nagourney and Dudley Clendinen’s Out for Good, “treats [trans people] largely as a disempowered, voiceless ‘other.’” In their account of the Minnesota struggles about trans inclusion, for example, Cartwright notes that Nagourney and Clendinen “primarily quote opponents of trans-inclusion, and to a lesser extent, gay advocates for transgender rights,” while failing to let the voices of transgendered activists appear in their narrative. Cartwright also points out that “their description of us ‘gender queers’ virtually drips with condescension.”
As an example, here is how Nagourney and Clendinen describe trans folk singer Beth Elliott (p. 165ff):
The program included a performance by a folksinger named Beth Elliott, a tiny woman with a guitar slung around one shoulder, beads around her neck, wearing granny glasses and an earth-mother gown. Indeed, she might have been the only woman in the room wearing a skirt or a gown – except for the fact that Beth Elliott wasn’t a woman. Beth Elliott was a preoperative transsexual, a man in the process of trying to become a woman, and who, to complicate things, claimed to be a lesbian. The radical lesbians from San Francisco recognized her, or him, the moment she, or he, stepped onstage. This was the same transsexual whose demand to be admitted into the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis had torn the group apart.
2019 book Pride
In the 2019 photo anthology Pride: Fifty Years of Parades and Protests from the Photo Archives of the New York Times, Nagourney omitted nearly every contribution of trans and gender diverse Americans. The book omits the terms transsexual and transvestite completely, as well as historical figures like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. The term transgender is mentioned just nine times, compared to gay (69 times), lesbian (20 times), bisexual (1 time), and LGBT (3 times).
References
Klein, Charlotte (February 27, 2023). Inside the New York Times blowup over transgender coverage. Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage-debate
Bolies, Corbin (March 7, 2023). The New York Times’ Trans Coverage Debacle Was Years in the Making. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-new-york-times-trans-coverage-debacle-was-years-in-the-making
Cartwright, Donna (2000). Distorting Mirror: Trivializing and Silencing Transgender People in Queer Media. Transgender Tapestry Issue 91 https://archive.org/details/transgendertapes9120unse https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/v979v310m
Purchase College. Adam Nagourney ’77. https://www.purchase.edu/live/profiles/3378-adam-nagourney-77
Barbaro, Michael (June 1, 2023). How the G.O.P. Picked Tans Kids as a Rallying Cry. New York Times -https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/podcasts/the-daily/anti-trans-bills.html
Stein, Sam (March 11, 2010). NYT’s Adam Nagourney Leaves DC to Become LA Bureau Chief. The Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/nyts-nagourney-leaving-po_n_495034.html
Reilly, Patrick (February 15, 2023). New York Times accused of ‘editorial bias’ in coverage of transgender issues. New York Post https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/new-york-times-blasted-for-editorial-bias-in-transgender-coverage/
Bolies, Corbin; Cartwright, Lachlan (February 16, 2023). New York Times blasts staffers who condemned paper’s trans coverage. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-blast-staffers-who-condemned-papers-trans-coverage
Eckert, AJ. What the New York Times gets wrong about puberty blockers for transgender youth. Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-new-york-times-gets-wrong-about-puberty-blockers-for-transgender-youth/
USPATH and WPATH respond to NY Times article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost? published on November 14, 2022 (PDF). https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/USPATHWPATH%20Statement%20re%20Nov%2014%202022%20NYT%20Article%20Nov%2022%202022.pdf
Urquhart, Evan (November 17, 2022). The NYT’s big piece on puberty blockers mucked up the most important point about them. Slate https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/puberty-blockers-side-effects-controversy.html
Oladipo, Gloria (February 18, 2023). Nearly 1,000 contributors protest New York Times’ coverage of trans people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage
Migdon, Brooke (February 15, 2023). NYT contributors blast paper’s coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3859501-nyt-contributors-blast-papers-coverage-of-transgender-people/
Yurcaba, Jo (February 16, 2023). N.Y. Times contributors and LGBTQ advocates send open letters criticizing paper’s trans coverage. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ny-contributors-lgbtq-advocates-send-open-letters-criticizing-papers-t-rcna70800
Paul, Larisha (February 15, 2023). Gabrielle Union, Tommy Dorfman, more accuse NYT of ‘Harmful’ coverage of trans people. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/new-york-times-coverage-of-trans-people-open-letter-1234680299/
Kalish, Lil. These New York Times contributors say the paper’s coverage of gender issues is hurting trans people. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lilkalish/trans-writers-open-letter-nyt-biased-coverage
Hays, Gabriel (February 15, 2023). Celebs rip into New York Times for ‘irresponsible’ transgender coverage: Demand end to ‘both sides’ focus. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/media/celebs-rip-new-york-times-irresponsible-transgender-coverage-demand-end-both-sides-focus
Dunlap, David W. (June 19, 2017). How The Times gave ‘gay’ its own voice (again). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
Klein, Charlotte (February 15, 2023). Nearly 200 New York Times contributors are denouncing the paper’s anti-trans coverage. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage
Davies, Rachel (February 16, 2023). The NYT knew what it was doing with its ‘Defense of J.K. Rowling’. The Mary Sue. https://www.themarysue.com/the-nyt-knew-what-it-was-doing-with-its-defense-of-j-k-rowling/
Warrington, James (February 16, 2023). How the New York Times was engulfed by a trans culture war. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/15/new-york-times-accused-writers-anti-trans-bigotry/
Mastrangelo, Dominick (February 16, 2023). NYT editors: Paper ‘will not tolerate’ its journalists protesting coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/3862101-nyt-editors-paper-will-not-tolerate-its-journalists-protesting-coverage-of-transgender-people/amp/
Smith, Ben (October 18, 2022). Inside the identity crisis at The New York Times. Semafor https://www.semafor.com/article/10/18/2022/inside-the-identity-crisis-at-the-new-york-times
Remnick, David (December 22, 2017). A conversation with A.G. Sulzberger, the new leader of the New York Times. New York https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conversation-with-a-g-sulzberger-the-new-leader-of-the-new-york-times
Ember, Sydney (December 14, 2017). A.G. Sulzberger, 37, to Take Over as New York Times Publisher. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/business/media/a-g-sulzberger-new-york-times-publisher.html
Barron, James (October 20, 2016). A.G. Sulzberger: leading change at The New York Times as journalism evolves. The New York Times. http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2018/02/ag_sulzberger_new_york_times_p.html
Rogoway, Mike (February 9, 2018). A.G. Sulzberger, New York Times’ publisher and former Oregonian reporter, talks journalism in the digital age. The Oregonian.
Wemple, Erik (December 14, 2017). A.G. Sulzberger to assume publisher role at New York Times on Jan. 1. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/12/14/a-g-sulzberger-to-assume-publisher-role-at-new-york-times-on-jan-1/
Benton, Joshua (May 15, 2014). The leaked New York Times innovation report is one of the key documents of this media age. NiemanLab. https://www.niemanlab.org/2014/05/the-leaked-new-york-times-innovation-report-is-one-of-the-key-documents-of-this-media-age/
Snyder, Gabriel (February 12, 2017). The New York Times claws its way into the future. Wired. https://www.wired.com/2017/02/new-york-times-digital-journalism/
Levitz, Eric (October 19, 2016). A.G. Sulzberger Vanquishes His Cousins, Becomes Deputy Publisher of the New York Times. New York. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/10/a-g-sulzberger-becomes-deputy-publisher-of-new-york-times.html
Benton, Joshua. This is The New York Times’ digital path forward. NiemanLab. https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/01/this-is-the-new-york-times-digital-path-forward/
Sulzberger, A. G. (October 7, 2015). Our Path Forward (PDF). The New York Times Company. https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/m/Our-Path-Forward.pdf
Sulzberger, A. G. (January 1, 2018). A Note from Our New Publisher. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/01/opinion/Arthur-Gregg-Sulzberger-The-New-York-Times.html
Selected publications on gender
Nagourney, Adam; Nehamas, Nicholas (November 20, 2024). Harris Loss Has Democrats Fighting Over How to Talk About Transgender Rights. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/us/politics/presidential-campaign-transgender-rights.html
Nagourney, Adam; Peters, Jeremy W. (April 16, 2023). How a campaign against transgender rights mobilized conservatives. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/us/politics/transgender-conservative-campaign.html
Nagourney, Adam; Peters, Jeremy W. (June 15, 2020). A Half-Century On, an Unexpected Milestone for L.G.B.T.Q. Rights. New York Times
The New York Times; Nagourney, Adam (2019). Pride: Fifty Years of Parades and Protests from the Photo Archives of the New York Times. Abrams, ISBN 9781683355878
Clendinen, Dudley; Nagourney, Adam (1999). Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9780684810911
Resources
New York Times (nytimes.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)