Priya Arora is an American journalist who identifies as nonbinary.
Background
Arora earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Irvine in 2010, followed by a master’s degrees from New York University in 2014 and Columbia University in 2016.
Arora worked as an editor at India.com, Brown Girl Magazine, and Floor Covering Weekly before taking a role as frontpage editor at Yahoo in 2017, then HuffPost in 2018.
New York Times
From 2018 to 2022 Arora worked at the New York Times. Arora was interviewed by Carolyn Ryan and got a contractor role reviewing headlines for the website. In 2019 Arora raised concerns about bias in pieces about chest binding that cited anti-trans site 4thWaveNow and had biased headlines.
Arora was offered a full-time role in London on the global news desk, returning to New York in 2020 and soon being named a senior staff editor. After the Times published a troubling op-ed by Tom Cotton urging a crackdown on George Floyd protestors, Dean Baquet agreed to a meeting with staffers. That led to formalizing of employee affinity groups, including Times Out, where Arora became a leader. These groups soon felt like extensions of management, though, and they were unable to implement things like bringing Trans Journalists Association in for a presentation. After some Times Out members protested an editorial board piece critical of New York Pride for requesting police not to wear uniforms, Carolyn Ryan sided with management. Tensions reached a head when anti-trans activist Pamela Paul of the New York Times book section hired anti-trans activist Jesse Singal to review anti-trans activist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. Arora decided to send an email to Baquet:
I’m reaching out today as a trans non-binary NYT employee who has been deeply hurt by this week, by the actions of my own employer. I want to preface this by saying never before have I walked into a workplace on day one and felt like I belonged. For me, that’s been the magic of this place. Of this institution, of the journalism we do and the values we uphold.
Reviewing this book was absolutely the right call. Picking a cisgender, transphobic person who has a history of denying gender identity is real and who has hurt and defamed transgender journalists was not the right call. As much as transgender issues have come to the forefront in the last few years as people, we’ve always been here. I’m heartened by the progress the Times has made this past year and the renewed efforts towards DEI goals that are backed by action.
It becomes hard to be so invested in our journalism and our coverage when internally our members share the feeling that the Times is not only not as inclusive as it could be, but is actively doing harm to trans, to trans and queer folks inside the building. I don’t know how to defend this place that I love, the people and reporters and editors I love working with when my existence as a trans person feels like it’s up for debate. I’m writing to you because I respect you a lot. I want to make a difference here. I want to know that the Times hears me and sees me as a queer and trans person of color, and is taking my lived experience seriously. There’s a lot more work to be done, but healing the pain that has been caused would require starting with an acknowledgement of our wrongs with a true desire to understand where we’ve made mistakes. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Baquet replied:
I do want the Times to be an inclusive place. It is important to me personally and professionally, but I have to tell you, I disagree with you in this instance. I know Pamela worked hard to find someone to review the book. There was not a long line of people who were willing to do so, to be honest. And for all the criticism of the choice in the building and on social media, I have not seen much criticism of the actual review. There is another very large principle at play here. The editor of the book review has to have tremendous freedom to make choices. Each of us has political views, personal views, and friends who write books. I think she worked tremendously hard to manage all of those issues. Harper I do hope this disagreement doesn’t make you less proud of the place, the place hasn’t changed.
Arora was assigned an audience development role in California. During an interview for a possible role under deputy managing editor Sam Dolnick, publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s cousin, Dolnick said Baquet shared Arora’s email about Singal with the entire masthead.
Arora felt that was the cue to leave, and in 2022, Arora took an editor role at Apple News.
References
Sohn, Amy (May 31, 2019). Chest Binding Helps Smooth the Way for Transgender Teens, but There May Be Risks. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/well/transgender-teens-binders.html
Staff report (May 31, 2019). Do You Use Chest Binders? Tell Us About Your Experience. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/reader-center/chest-binding-experience.html
Takenaga, Lara (June 17, 2019). ‘It’s Binding or Suicide’: Transgender and Non-Binary Readers Share Their Experiences With Chest Binders. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/reader-center/chest-binding.html
Gupta, Prachi (May 31, 2019) At the New York Times, ‘Objectivity’ Means Quoting One Trans Teen and One Anti-Trans Group. Jezebel https://jezebel.com/at-the-new-york-times-objectivity-means-quoting-one-tr-1835150495
Taylor, Derrick Bryson (November 2, 2019). Adoption Groups Could Turn Away L.G.B.T. Families Under Proposed Rule. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/us/trump-hhs-lgbtq-rule.html
The editorial board (May 18, 2021). A Misstep by the Organizers of Pride. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/opinion/nyc-pride-police-parade.html
Resources
Priya Arora (thepriyaarora.com)
Substack (substack.com)
Queering Desi (queeringdesi.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
Contently (contently.com)