When Major Media Fails Trans People, We All Lose
Why independent media matters more than ever in the face of The Washington Post's latest betrayal of journalistic integrity
As 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.
As someone who regularly reports on LGBTQ+ issues affecting Michigan communities, I can tell you the real-world consequences of this kind of media failure. While the Post treats anonymous authors of anti-trans propaganda as brave truth-tellers, actual transgender Michiganders are stockpiling hormones, driving hours for basic healthcare and watching their access to life-sustaining treatment evaporate.
The editorial ignores that this HHS report endorses thoroughly discredited theories like "rapid onset gender dysphoria" and "social contagion." It deadnames early transgender patients out of spite. It cites known anti-trans ideologues whom courts have ruled unqualified to speak on transgender healthcare. Most insidiously, it promotes "Gender Exploratory Therapy" — conversion therapy wearing a lab coat.
When the Post dismisses critics of this report as mere "activists," they're talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and experts at Yale who have spent their entire careers in research. Meanwhile, they treat an anonymous, Trump-commissioned document as legitimate scientific inquiry. The rhetorical game is as obvious as it is dangerous.
Here in Michigan, the stakes couldn't be clearer. The Planned Parenthood closure in Marquette will leave the entire Upper Peninsula more than 100 miles from a clinic, with the next closest facility nearly five hours away in Traverse City. Trans community members are rationing medication to build reserves, buying hormones from abroad and discussing escape plans to other states or countries.
"It really feels like we're in Weimar, Germany," a source recently told me, "and it's only a matter of time before we get targeted in even more ways reminiscent of Nazi Germany."
That's not hyperbole when the Trump administration has launched a "whistleblower" portal specifically to report doctors providing gender-affirming care — care that remains legal in Michigan. It’s not hyperbole when federal agencies are weaponizing decades-old regulations about sterilization to pressure healthcare providers, or when the president's executive orders refer to medically necessary treatment as "mutilation."
The Washington Post can apparently recognize the rot inside RFK Jr.'s HHS when it comes to vaccines, measles outbreaks and autism. But when it comes to transgender people, their standards evaporate. Suddenly, the same department pushing anti-vax conspiracies becomes thoughtful and measured.
Why? I suspect it's because trans lives make for easy outrage clicks, and the Post, under Jeff Bezos, increasingly positions itself to win a right-wing audience. This is a paper that once led on trans health coverage — now it's legitimizing extremism.
As independent journalist Erin Reed writes, what the HHS report promotes isn't "greater emphasis on psychotherapy" — it's only "psychotherapy" specifically designed to prevent transition. Just as crisis pregnancy centers mask anti-abortion extremism behind medical language, "Gender Exploratory Therapy" exists solely to stall and deny care until patients give up.
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.
Publications like Pride Source have remained independently owned not because it’s the most financially viable (or easiest) option. We fight the fight free from corporate ownership because there is an invaluable freedom in never feeling beholden to the financial and political interests of a Jeff Bezos or a Rupert Murdoch.
I implore you to seek out independent journalism wherever you can find it, including the work of trans creators like Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist, author and activist known for their powerful writing on LGBTQ+ rights, political dissent in Russia and democracy; Imara Jones, an Emmy Award-winning journalist, filmmaker and creator of TransLash Media who focuses on the intersection of trans rights, racial justice and social change through storytelling and advocacy; and Erin Reed, a legislative researcher and journalist who tracks anti-trans legislation across the United States, providing real-time analysis and reporting on trans rights and policy issues.
For Pride Source, which has published Michigan's longest-running LGBTQ+ print publication, Between The Lines, for over 30 years, independence means our ad team hustles daily for advertising dollars that directly pay our salaries and it means we could always use more paying subscribers. It also means the buck stops here — there is no corporate interest to hide behind. It’s a responsibility we take seriously. We’re scrappy and fiercely independent, not unlike this great state itself.
Over in the world of “mainstream media,” The Washington Post's motto is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." But sometimes, democracy dies in broad daylight, one legitimized lie at a time, a little too close to Jeff Bezos for comfort.
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