Katie J.M. Baker vs. transgender people

Katie J.M. Baker is an American writer who was one of the New York Times employees at the center of the publication’s anti-trans coverage crisis of the 2020s.

Background

Baker was born on September 15, 1987 and grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Baker earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Baker freelanced for the San Francisco Chronicle and Jezebel before joining Newsweek in 2013. Baker was an investigative reporter at Buzzfeed from 2014 to 2022 and joined the Times as a correspondent in 2022, brought over on the recommendation of Virginia Hughes.

Baker has consulted on media productions about the news. Much of Baker’s writing covers sexual harassment and assault in schools and workplaces, as well as online sex and gender politics.

Transgender coverage

Baker became interested in trans issues after moving from New York to London and witnessing the transphobic moral panic among radicalized “parental rights” extremists, particularly on Mumsnet:

If Mumsnet’s women’s rights forum is popular because it responds to the experience of being stuck at home without support or community, it’s done so in a way that leaves Mumsnetters in a political cul-de-sac. The community isolates its members in a bubble of transphobic thought that leaves them free to develop their bigotries without needing to encounter the human beings affected by them. It also inculcates members with a tragically narrow idea of feminism, one that rejects other people fighting for gender liberation. And finally, it puts followers at odds with the broader left, which has been fighting for a world without gender oppression, as well as for benefits Mumsnetters say they care about, such as free child care and well-funded health care.
Baker (2021)

Baker helped import this moral panic to the US by covering the American parental rights movement for the Times. Where the Mumsnet piece was attacked by gender critical people, anti-trans activists like Jesse Singal had nothing but good things to say about Baker’s Times piece and its framing. Via the open letter by Times contributors:

In a similar case, Katie Baker’s recent feature “When Students Change Gender Identity and Parents Don’t Know” misframed the battle over children’s right to safely transition. The piece fails to make clear that court cases brought by parents who want schools to out their trans children are part of a legal strategy pursued by anti-trans hate groups. These groups have identified trans people as an “existential threat to society” and seek to replace the American public education system with Christian homeschooling, key context Baker did not provide to Times readers.
Walker et al. (2023)

References

Urquhart, Evan (January 22, 2023). NYT Credulously Repeats Parents’ Rights Nonsense. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/nyt-parents-rights-nonsense

Mirkinson, Jack (January 23, 2023). The New York Times Is Hooked on Transphobia. Discourse Blog https://www.discourseblog.com/p/the-new-york-times-is-hooked-on-transphobia

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

Landers, Reba (January 31, 2023). The New York Times Is Wrong: Trans Kids Need Support, Not “Gender Skepticism.” Left Voice https://www.leftvoice.org/the-new-york-times-is-wrong-trans-kids-need-support-not-gender-skepticism/

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

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/

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/

Bond, Chanea (February 17, 2023). The @nytimes is an arm of the oppressive regime… https://twitter.com/heymrsbond/status/1626565133798412288

Minton, Evan (Feb 16, 2023 ) The @nytimes is jeopardizing trans folks’ lives for click bait. Twitter https://twitter.com/EvanMMinton/status/1626462444003659776

Doyle, Jude Allison S. (February 27, 2023). What went wrong at the New York Times? Xtra https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-went-wrong-at-the-new-york-times-246409

Sulzberger, A.G. (April 4, 2022). 2022 State of The Times Remarks. New York Times Company https://www.nytco.com/press/2022-state-of-the-times-remarks/

Walker et al. (February 15, 2023 ff.). [Open letter to Philip B. Corbett] https://nytletter.com/

Gutierrez, Claire; Yang, Jia Lynn (September 9, 2022). Katie Baker joins The Times. New York Times Company https://www.nytco.com/press/katie-baker-joins-the-times/

Baker, Katie J. M. (January 22, 2023). When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/us/gender-identity-students-parents.html

Baker, Katie J. M. (January 2021). The road to TERFdom. Lux https://lux-magazine.com/article/the-road-to-terfdom/