Media Boosted Anti-Trans Movement with Credulous Coverage of ‘Cass Review’

Rather than publishing any op-eds critical of the Cass Review for balance, the Washington Post (5/3/24) added a second op-ed a week later by freelance journalist Benjamin Ryan, who has recently published several pieces on trans issues for the conservative New York Sun and New York Post. Ryan criticized the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for being “notably silent” on Cass’s findings, and citing the fact that the only panel at its 2024 conference contained supporters of gender transition:

The program for the 2024 APA annual meeting lists only one panel that touches on pediatric gender-transition treatment, titled “Channeling Your Passion and ‘Inner Outrage’ by Promoting Public Policy for Evidence-Based Transgender Care.”

The panel notably includes Jack Turban, a University of California at San Francisco child psychiatrist and a vocal supporter of broad access to gender-transition treatment.

A letter to the editor in the Washington Post (5/10/24) noted that abstracts for the APA were due before the final Cass Review was published, so it would not have been possible to submit a panel examining its findings. This is something the Post could have easily factchecked.

In the US, gender-affirming care bans for minors have taken place amongst a similar backdrop of relentless media assault, based on similarly poor sources (FAIR.org, 8/30/23) and bad interpretations of data (FAIR.org, 6/22/23). The coverage of the Cass Review shows just how much US media have taken their cues from the Brits.

(Emphasis original.)