New York Times publishes opinion piece supporting the importance of sex

[Ingenieur]

The New York Times, a bastion of correct thinking, has published an opinion piece, jointly from a philosopher and an evolutionary biologist. It states the critical importance of sex and the dangers of subordinating it to gender, and that the shifts of language have not been organic, rather imposed from the top by institutions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/opinion/sex-assigned-at-birth.html

More like this please!

QED
The fuckers have already started 🙄

@BloodyHellKenAgain sorry, what? I was just pointing out that the Guardian have in fact published opinion and reportage pieces that take a broadly GC stance - particularly with regards to sport.

The issue at the Guardian is the conflict between the US team (fully signed up to gender woo) and the UK team (broadly GC with the obvious exceptions). They don't help themselves by constantly publishing US articles in the UK edition as filler. And then when a GC article gets published on the UK edition, the US team raise a fuss - and in some cases publish a counter article.

But they can't afford to lose their US readership who account for half of their digital subscriptions.

@Soigneur the Guardian that drove out Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman? That Guardian?

@Chersfrozenface yes, that Guardian. Obviously.

My view was the tide turned to an extent when The Times in the UK started writing some articles in favour of the biological sex side of things and this NY times article is a good step in the right direction. I really don't know why trans people have an issues with these things as most of us on the other side want trans people treated well. It is not as if we hate them.

The issue at the Guardian is the conflict between the US team (fully signed up to gender woo) and the UK team (broadly GC with the obvious exceptions). They don't help themselves by constantly publishing US articles in the UK edition as filler. And then when a GC article gets published on the UK edition, the US team raise a fuss - and in some cases publish a counter article.

You're right that the US team are fully signed up to gender woo, but not right to say that the UK team are broadly GC. They're just not. Just look at the long list of people who signed the anti-Suzanne Moore letter. If she had a lot of sympathisers in the office, she wouldn't have left. Yes, there are a handful of GC voices like Susanna Rustin and Sean Ingle, but the trans activist lobby (Owen Jones, Zoe Williams, Libby Brooks, Helen Pidd and a number of others) are very much in the ascendant.

Janice Turner has been writing about this issue in the Times since at least 2016 when I became aware of it.

@Soigneur my comment was aimed at The Guardian not you 🙂
Please see my original post on page one.

What@RoyalCorgi said. The fact that there's been a handful of GC-friendly stories in the Guardian (mostly on sport, and many originally coming from the Observer) doesn't mean that the stance of the paper, and it's senior staff, isn't strongly behind the gender movement. And the way the likes of Suzanne Moore have been treated speaks to that.

The sports section of the Graun has always been on a little GC island, far more GC stuff on the back pages than pro trans stuff.

Journalists, medical professionals, academics and others have the collective power to restore language that more faithfully reflects reality.says the article.

There we have it. No excuse for the media not to restore language. Even that odious organisation Stonewall have now conceded misgendering is not hate.

All of this. Especially Point 3, there's not just a trickle of lawsuits, there's two big class actions being mounted right now in the US against healthcare providers who stand accused of carrying out aggressive medical and surgical interventions on mostly young people (including minors) without giving them (or their parents) full info on side effects or expected complications, thus negating the concept of informed consent. Some of the plaintiffs have been left permanently disabled, it's very sad, but also vitally important as these class actions will effectively set the pattern for further suits in the US and, I believe, public prosecutions in the UK.

NYT has finally twigged that this is the new thalidomide/AIDs-tainted blood transfusions, and is realigning its editorial stance accordingly.

I personally find it very sad that until now, NYT has based its reporting of this issue on ideology and not on simple, objective facts and evidence, which is supposed to be the guiding star of the NYT's approach and the historical basis for the respect with which it used to be held in the global media landscape.

Even that odious organisation Stonewall have now conceded misgendering is not hate.

All Stonewall has said is that misgendering is not a crime.

Which is refreshing in that Stonewall doesn't often recognise actual legislation, preferring its own made up version.

But it is emphatically not the same as Stonewall saying misgendering is not hate.

The BTL comments at the NYT are usually much saner than the opinion writers.

It's nice to see, though it probably tells you something that we're glad to see the occasional sane opinion piece, and in prestige US media it's invariably either the NYT or the Atlantic (and as often as not Jesse Singal).

This is a good article.

This paragraph, particularly the last sentence, puts it particularly well.

When influential organizations and individuals promote “sex assigned at birth,” they are encouraging a culture in which citizens can be shamed for using words like “sex,” “male” and “female” that are familiar to everyone in society, as well as necessary to discuss the implications of sex. This is not the usual kind of censoriousness, which discourages the public endorsement of certain opinions. It is more subtle, repressing the very vocabulary needed to discuss the opinions in the first place

It's good, it's great to see sunlight and we need more. It's so devastatingly sad that it took so many people being misled into medication and deeply damaged. I hope they win hand over fist, but that won't get them back the healthy bodies they once had.

What they’ve done in the past is publish something from people who are nicely GC, like this and then a few days later publish a TRA rant - almost like they are creating a space to let someone go off on one by giving them something to respond angrily too. I’m not holding my breath on the reverse ferret front.

Letters in response have just been published:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/opinion/gender-identity.html

They are surprisingly mild, and a couple are in support. The ones that object generally fail to address the point of the original (not unusual when gender ideologues respond to anything sex realist). So I should perhaps take back my comment from a few weeks ago.

Archive link for the above.

https://archive.ph/VTCUx

If I, a trans man far into his medical transition, were to walk into a doctor’s office and claim to simply be “female,” utter confusion could follow.

🙄

I doubt it! I'm sure the doctors office of all places would understand that you can be a woman who thinks they are a man without having to change your sex markers which will make things more difficult for the doctor to diagnose problems properly.

They really have done a number on women who believe that by getting hairier and developing male pattern baldness they actually change sex.

And the fatuous statement from the 9 yr old about how we can't know the gender of a baby because we can't "see into their hearts" isn't wisely compassionate, it's regurgited right-speak. Also irrelevant in a discussion on sex.

"I really don't know why trans people have an issues with these things as most of us on the other side want trans people treated well. It is not as if we hate them."

Agreed.