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Pamela Paul vs. transgender people

Pamela Paul is an American writer and anti-transgender activist who launders anti-trans extremism into the New York Times.

While editor of The New York Times Book Review, Paul hired anti-trans activist Jesse Singal to write a glowing review of anti-trans activist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, helping spark a newsroom crisis about anti-trans coverage that culminated in 2023. The day after the crisis reached its peak, Paul published a piece defending anti-trans activist J.K. Rowling.

Paul has published many opinion columns for the Times repeating anti-trans talking points and defending other anti-trans activists.

Background

Pamela Lindsey Paul was born on March 2, 1971. Paul graduated from Brown University, then was an editor at American Demographics. Paul’s first marriage to conservative Times columnist Bret Stephens ended in 1998. Paul married hedge fund manager Michael Stern in 2004.

Paul has authored several books.

New York Times

Paul was named children’s book editor of The New York Times Book Review in 2011 and editor in 2013. Paul became an opinion columnist at the Times in 2022.

Patrick Ness says the original line said “The culture wars have come for your transgender children.” The Times made Ness change it to something “less political.” A Times spokesperson later said Paul was not involved.

The novel The Men by Sandra Newman is one of many sci-fi works in which all men or all women suddenly disappear. The concept can easily steer toward anti-trans sentiments, and some objected to Newman’s book. Paul defended Newman with a lot of anti-trans dogwhistles:

But apparently Newman got too creative — or too real — for some. That a fictional world would assert the salience of biological sex, however fanciful the context, was enough to upset a vocal number of transgender activists online. They would argue that “men” is a cultural category to which anyone can choose to belong, as opposed to “maleness,” which is defined by genetics and biology.

In this case, we can set aside contentious questions around gender identity and transgender politics. Even if you don’t believe the sex binary is as fundamental to human beings as it is to all other mammals, a fiction writer ought to be free to imagine her own universe, whether as utopian ideal, dystopian horror or some complicated vision in between.

In another piece, Paul claims these anti-trans views are a middle ground or a centrist political position. Rather than seeing reproductive rights and bodily autonomy as a shared goal of trans people and pro-choice activists, Paul sees trans people as engaging in “erasure” of women by proposing inclusive and value-neutral language around reproduction. Paul describes “female biological function,” meaning reproductive function and reduces women to their reproductive function and organs in order to exclude trans women.

Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own.

Daniel Froomkin notes that Paul builds on the anti-trans work of other Times writers, including Emily Bazelon, Michael Powell, and Anemona Hartocollis.

Both-sidesing would have been a step up for this column, which devoted only 52 words out of 1,300 to the right’s decades-long campaign to strip women of their rights. The rest was about how “the fringe left” is “jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda.”

The central thesis of Paul’s argument was an exaggerated summary of a scaremongering news article from last month by Michael Powell, one of the two star reporters the Times has assigned to the woke-panic/cancel-culture beat –the other being Anemona Hartocollis, who just a few days ago gave us this already infamous piece of soft-focus cancel porn.

Powell, Paul wrote, had concluded that “the word ‘women’ has become verboten.”

This conspiracy has become known as “Pamela Paul’s great replacement theory,” which Melissa Gira Grant described as “lightly laundered anti-trans propaganda, presented as a sensible centrist argument.”

2024 column on the ex-trans movement

Paul continued promoting anti-trans talking points in 2024 with a piece on the ex-trans movement. Activists cited included:

  • Grayson / Grace Powell (ex-trans activist)
  • “Kathleen” (unsupportive parent)
  • “KC Miller” / Kasey Emerick (ex-trans activist)

Conservative therapists cited include:

Other anti-trans writers cited include:

  • Zanny Minton Beddoes

In defending Paul, Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the disproportionate number of anti-trans articles the section publishes by citing three articles that are purportedly not anti-trans:

Given the state legislative fights over trans Americans and their civil liberties and access to medical and psychological care, we have published many columns and guest essays from health professionals and activists on issues affecting trans people, as well as a focus group last year hearing from trans Americans about their lives. 

Kingsbury (2024)

Since the ex-trans movement is a single-digit minority, the next 90+ articles should be on gender diverse youth who have benefited from the care that is the current US medical consensus.

References

Urquhart, Evan (February 2, 2024). Pamela Paul Shows NYT Opinion’s Lack of Accountability to the Truth. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/pamela-paul-shows-opinion-is-opinion-is-opinion

Reed, Erin (February 2, 2024). Debunked: Misleading NYT Anti-Trans Article By Pamela Paul Relies On Pseudoscience. Erin in the Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/debunked-misleading-nyt-anti-trans

Reed, Erin; Urquhart, Evan (February 8, 2024). Readers Deserve Better Than Misinformation About Trans Care; A Response To Pamela Paul. Erin in the Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/readers-deserve-better-than-misinformation

“Epistemophagy” (February 15, 2024). Pamela Paul: Several Problems. X https://twitter.com/epistemophagy/status/1758059449405870380

Strangio, Chase (February 22, 2023) The New York Times’ dehumanizing trans double down — and its consequences. MSNBC https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/new-york-trans-coverage-jk-rowling-controversy-consequences-rcna71615

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

Bibi, Elizabeth (February 16, 2023). Human Rights Campaign Calls Out New York Times for Publishing Transphobic Column One Day After an Open Letter Condemning its Anti-Transgender Coverage. HRC https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-calls-out-new-york-times-for-publishing-transphobic-column-one-day-after-an-open-letter-condemning-its-anti-transgender-coverage

Champion, Edward (). Pamela Paul, The Gray Lady’s in-house transphobe. Reluctant Habits http://www.edrants.com/pamela-paul-the-gray-ladys-in-house-transphobe/

Cauterucci, Chirstina (February 16, 2023). Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul! Slate https://slate.com/business/2023/02/jk-rowling-pamela-paul-new-york-times-trans-coverage.html

Urquhart, Evan (February 16, 2023). Pamela Paul Doesn’t Know What Transphobia Is. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/pamela-paul-doesnt-know-transphobia

Fischer, Molly (January 24, 2023). The rules according to Pamela Paul. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rules-according-to-pamela-paul

Fedorov, Andrew; Krichevsky, Sophie (August 18, 2022). What Is Pamela Paul Thinking? The Fine Print https://thefineprintnyc.com/article/pamela-paul-biography-career/

Pineda, Dorany (July 7, 2022). Pamela Paul criticized for anti-trans opinion about the word ‘woman.’ Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-07-07/pamela-paul-criticized-for-anti-trans-opinion-about-the-word-woman

Grant, Melissa Gira (July 6, 2022). Pamela Paul’s Great Replacement Theory. The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/166991/pamela-paul-new-york-times-trans-great-replacement-theory

Froomkin, Dan (July 5, 2022). Who hates inclusivity? The question answers itself. Press Watch https://presswatchers.org/2022/07/who-hates-inclusivity-the-question-answers-itself/

Specter, Emma (July 5, 2022). Inclusive Language Around Abortion Costs Us Nothing and Makes the Movement Stronger. Vogue https://www.vogue.com/article/inclusive-language-abortion-rights

Factora, James (July 5, 2022). The Times Published Some Transphobic BS Over the Weekend. them https://www.them.us/story/new-york-times-op-ed-women-gender-inclusive-language-misogyny-trans-rights

Finnegan, Leah (May 23, 2022). Pamela Paul is the new worst columnist at the New York Times. Gawker https://www.gawker.com/media/pamela-paul-is-the-new-worst-columnist-at-the-new-york-times [archive]

https://twitter.com/KyleLukoff/status/1543957466320441344?s=20&t=aAhpDNOP-GssoCuz5x4vOA

https://twitter.com/timmaughan/status/1543942381933838337?s=20&t=bY_863plnaRXzb1i4_IOIg

Staff report (August 15, 2004). WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Pamela Paul, Michael Stern. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/style/weddings-celebrations-pamela-paul-michael-stern.html

Selected anti-trans writing by Paul

Paul, Pamela (July 3, 2022). The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/opinion/the-far-right-and-far-left-agree-on-one-thing-women-dont-count.html

Paul, Pamela (June 12, 2022). She Wrote a Dystopian Novel. What Happened Next Was Pretty Dystopian. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/opinion/sandra-newman-men.html

Paul, Pamela (July 24, 2022). There’s More Than One Way to Ban a Book. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/opinion/book-banning-censorship.html

Paul, Pamela (February 16, 2023). In Defense of J.K. Rowling. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transphobia.html

Paul, Pamela (February 2, 2024). As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html

Resources

Pamela Paul (pamelapaul.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

  • PamelaPaulNYT (closed by Paul and later suspended after it was out of Paul’s control)