Pamela Paul

Pamela Paul is a former writer for the New York Times opinion section. Despite not being an expert in transgender people or LGBTQ issues, Paul has used her platform to influence public opinion on these topics, often without consulting LGBTQ people or medical professionals specializing in transgender care, instead citing debunked research from discredited sources.

—Made numerous assertions that are unfounded or based on debunked sources in New York Times column “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?” Paul claims that transgender health care is ineffective, despite overwhelming evidence from every major medical organization supporting health care for transgender people. Paul uses outdated research to assert high detransition rates. Research shows detransition rates are typically between 0.3% and 3.8%. Paul disputes the evidence that transitioning reduces the risk of suicide among transgender youth, despite numerous studies showing a significant decrease in suicidality. Other false claims in Paul’s piece are corrected here. 

—Wrote multiple times (in April 2024 and July 2024) in support of the Cass Report, which ostensibly aimed to improve the NHS gender identity services for children and young people in England. The problems in the discredited Cass Report include: excluding transgender individuals from its advisory committee; selectively using evidence, often ignoring or downplaying studies that support transgender health care; showing bias in favor of cisgender identities as more legitimate or desirable than transgender identities; misrepresenting transgender health care of being based on “shaky foundations”; influence by anti-trans groups; and causing harm to transgender youth by restricting access to transgender health care.

—Included misinformation and inaccuracies and promoted anti-transgender narratives with faulty citations and unsupported claims in New York Times column “As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.” The article claims that “rapid onset gender dysphoria” and transgender “social contagion” is making people trans. In fact, there is no basis for “rapid onset gender dysphoria” or transgender “social contagion.” These theories have been thoroughly discredited as pseudoscience by leading medical organizations. Erin Reed writes, “[Paul’s] first source, used to support ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,’ is an article that has been retracted. Then she turns to Lisa Littman, whose original paper on the topic was immediately withdrawn with an apology by the journal for correction after the data collection methods were revealed, with the republication stating that the research ‘does not validate the phenomenon’ of transgender social contagion. Littman is notably one of the only researchers to argue for the theory, which has been repeatedly dismissed for lacking factual support and for recruiting subjects from anti-trans websites.” Reed also writes, “In a letter from over 60 psychological organizations, the coalition for the Advancement & Application of Psychological Science calls for the elimination of the term, stating, ‘There are no sound empirical studies of ROGD’ and ‘there is no evidence that ROGD aligns with the lived experiences of transgender children and adolescents.’ Paul, however, simply and misleadingly presents this letter as the organization stating ‘there is not enough quality research.’” Paul claims that 80% of transgender individuals desist from being transgender if they go through puberty without intervention. In fact, detransition rates are estimated to be between 1–4%. Other unsupported claims, including Paul’s baseless assertion that transgender people are “actually just gay” are documented here. In response to fact checking and complaints about the opinion piece, Paul wrote more baseless opinions about trans people and gender dysphoria. Assigned Media reports that in a “short column entitled ‘The Courage to Admit You Didn’t Know,’ which is a rather disingenuous headline considering we know that vanishingly few regret transition, most of those who detransition do so for reasons that don’t involve no longer being transgender, and many outspoken detransitioners still experience gender dysphoria.” 

—Defended J.K. Rowling’s multiple transphobic statements and called complaints about Rowling as “absurd,” writing that “nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic.” Prior to the date of Paul’s opinion piece, Rowling had: expressed support for a tax specialist who had posted anti-transgender tweets; liked a tweet that disparaged transgender women as “men in dresses”; written an essay about transgender people giving “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism” and claiming that the trans rights movement erases the concept of sex and women’s experiences; sent tweets falsely claiming that transgender identity is a threat, stating, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”; tweeted that transitioning is a “new form of conversion therapy for young gay people”; announced she would return an award from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group after they condemned her transphobic statements; authored the book Troubled Blood under the pen name Robert Galbraith, featuring a cisgender male serial killer who dresses as a woman to lure victims; and mocked transgender inclusivity on International Women’s Day. Since Paul’s apologia piece published, Rowling has made the false and baseless claim that transgender youth do not exist, and misgendered U.K. transgender journalist India Willoughby and accused her of “cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”

—Complained about the terms “queer” and “LGBTQ” in the New York Times column “Let’s Say Gay.” Paul wrote, “To be clear: There’s nothing wrong with embracing a particular word to describe yourself,” after arguing at length against the words LGBTQ people use to describe themselves. In her April 2022 article, “The Limits of Lived Experience,” Paul writes that her being a “Gen X white woman” shouldn’t keep her from writing about other people’s lived experiences. Paul does not self-identify as “lesbian,” or “gay,” or “queer,” or “bisexual,” or “LGBTQ.” 

—Paul wrote in opposition to the supposed “censorship” of Abigail Shrier’s anti-trans book Irreversible Damage. The book based its argument on interviews with parents who were not supportive of their transgender children, claiming that numerous teenage girls with mental health challenges were incorrectly identifying as transgender boys. The book faced significant social and commercial backlash, but not censorship.