Why independent media matters more than ever in the face of The Washington Post's latest betrayal of journalistic integrityPride SourceSarah Bricker HuntPublished: May 15, 2025As I write this from Michigan, where Planned Parenthood just announced the closure of four clinics that provide gender-affirming care, I find myself furious at the Washington Post's shameful endorsement of RFK Jr.'s anti-trans pseudoscience report focused on transgender youth and lifesaving, evidence-based gender-affirming care. This isn't just poor journalism — it's a dangerous abdication of responsibility at a moment when trans people need media allies more than ever.The Post's editorial board, which has rightfully criticized RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services for pushing vaccine misinformation and autism conspiracy theories, seems to have suddenly developed selective blindness when it comes to transgender healthcare. They describe a 400-page screed — commissioned through an executive order declaring that transgender people don't exist — as "careful" and "thorough."This is journalistic malpractice.
When they only cover one side that is media bias.
The Post either doesn't understand this distinction or chooses not to. Either option represents a catastrophic failure of journalism at a moment when accurate reporting could literally save lives.For those of us covering trans issues in Michigan, watching major media outlets normalize pseudoscience feels like watching the guardrails of democracy crumble. When the paper of Watergate can't distinguish between legitimate medical consensus and politically motivated junk science, we're all in trouble.Our trans community members are preparing for the worst — stockpiling medications, planning interstate moves, living in fear that their very existence might become illegal. They deserve better than newspapers treating their healthcare as a political football rather than a human right.
During the struggle for marriage equality the media interviewed dozens of religious leaders... but they were all from "fire and brimstone" churches, none from affirming churches. So the take-away was all churches were against marriage equality and that perpetuated the belief that all religions were against marriage equality!
Windy City Timesby Jake WittichDecember 31, 2025Transgender news coverage surged in 2023 as lawmakers introduced a wave of anti-trans legislation, but new data shows that attention quickly dropped off—leaving much of the real-world impact on trans people underreported.The Trans News Initiative is an interactive project that tracks five years of national coverage across more than 200 publications, analyzing how news organizations have covered transgender people.The project—a collaboration among the Trans Journalists Association, the University of Miami School of Communication and Polygraph—reveals spikes in attention during legislative flashpoints are often followed by sharp declines, even as policies continue to reshape people’s lives.Kae Petrin, a co-founder of the Trans Journalists Association, said the initiative grew out of years of recurring conversations with reporters and editors about gaps in coverage.
We have this image of a newspaper editor, covered in ink, editor's visor, and standing over a press, but now it is some billionaire who owns a stable of newspapers shaping the news.
“The things that really rise to the top in terms of journalists covering it consistently and repeatedly tend to be high-level, sort of ‘cancel culture’ debates,” Petrin said.At the same time, stories that examine how laws are implemented, how people navigate new restrictions or how communities respond and adapt are far less common.“You see a lot less coverage of the things that are actually happening to trans communities,” Petrin said. “There’s a lot less coverage… about pre-existing forms of discrimination or even just about creativity and the counter-narratives from trans people.”Petrin emphasized that this pattern reflects a broader distinction between visibility and understanding. While newsrooms have made progress on language and terminology, deeper structural problems remain.
When I was being interviewed we were trying to tell the reporter to check the AP Stylebook for the story, the reporter got very indigent that we were trying to tell him how to do the story. But it finally sunk in that we were just saying for pronouns, etc. us the stylebook and a lot of reporters do not have a clue on interviewing trans people!
Meanwhile our healthcare is hurting! KFF (Formerly known as Kaiser Family Foundation) writes in January of last year, Trump issued "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to The Federal Government" and it had a hard it on the wellbeing of our community!
Implications: This order is broad, directed to all federal agencies and programs. Because federal health programs reach LGBTQ+ people, and some are specifically designed to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community, or account for gender identities in addition to biological sex, this Order could widely affect program funding, guidance, and access. It has several possible implications:The terms used in the Order include several biological and social inaccuracies which could perpetuate misinformation about LGBTQ+ people and transgender people’s health needs. It also takes steps towards ban gender care in certain area, most explicitly in prisons.Requiring that federal funds are not used to “promote gender ideology” has caused significant confusion. Since this order was issued, there have been multiple reports of HIV programs and community health centers that have lost funding as a result of supporting programs inclusive of transgender people. In addition, there have been reports that some health care facilities paused providing youth with gender affirming care, fearing that federal funding would be withheld according to this and another Order relating to youth access to gender affirming care (see separate entry). (See court decisions below.) Withholding care could lead to negative health outcomes for those that require it.Data collection and data presentation/distribution have been impacted. At first some data was removed from federal websites, though due to court order this appears to have been restored. If public health messaging and services related to the health needs of transgender people, or other specific populations, are unavailable, this may result in adverse health outcomes such increased disease prevalence, greater difficulty with care engagement, and poor mental health outcomes. There have been reports that gender identity questions will be removed from federal surveys which makes tracking the experiences and well-being of LGBTQ+ people more difficult.
They went on to write other EO and how they effect our community,
Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, January 28, 2025Implications: If fully implemented, the Order would broadly and extensively limit access to gender affirming care for young people, across a range of payers and providers. Access to gender affirming care is associated with improved mental health outcomes for transgender people and limiting this care with negative ones, including poorer mental health outcomes. Additional impact includes:• The executive order includes details about sex, gender identity, gender affirming care, and transgender people that conflict with science and evidence. These inaccuracies include suggesting that large shares of youth are seeking gender affirming medical care, that regret rates among those seeking care are high, and conflating “female genital mutilation” and gender-affirming care. This has the potential to promote hostility, stigma, and discrimination, and can lead to care denials.• It seeks to remove Federal reference to one of the standards of evidence-based care for transgender people in the US. Directing the HHS Secretary to develop new guidance without this standard, and in accordance with this and other orders, could limit agency ability to identify standards that adequately meet the needs of transgender people.• It also seeks to condition federal research and education grants on grantees not providing young people with gender affirming care.• There has already been some confusion with certain states and providers looking to preemptively comply with the order and another Order relating to “gender ideology” (see separate entry).• The order lays groundwork for the Administration remove explicit protects for LGBTQ+ people in health care, including with respect to accessing gender affirming care. Specifically, the Order suggests a reinterpretation of sex protections in Section. 1557 of the Affordable Care Act void of explicit protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.• The order leans on laws and policies unrelated to gender affirming care in an effort to limit access to those services including by erroneously conflating gender affirming care and female genital mutilation, using the FDA regulatory process to limit access, and suggesting kidnapping protections be applied to parents in certain circumstance.
The Republicans don't care about the harm but rather it is about energizing their base and campaign donations! It is all about power!
