The New York Times’ trans coverage is under fire. The paper needs to listen | Arwa Mahdawi

The newspaper's haughty response to two open letters forgets that there is no clear line between advocacy and journalism

Here's a little thought experiment: imagine if an alien managed to avoid getting shot down by the Biden administration and landed its UFO safely in the US. Imagine if it picked up a year's worth of copies of the New York Times, the paper of record, in order to do some due diligence on how us earthlings live. What would it come away thinking about life in America?

I obviously can't speak for extraterrestrial life, but I've got a feeling the poor alien might get the impression that every third person in the US is trans - rather than 0.5% of the population. They (I assume aliens are nonbinary) might get the impression that nobody is allowed to say the word woman" any more and we are all being forced at gunpoint to say uterus-havers". They might get the impression that women's sports have been completely taken over by trans women. They might believe that millions of children are being mutilated by doctors in the name of gender-affirming care because of the all-powerful trans lobby. They might come away thinking that JK Rowling is not a multi-multi-multi-millionaire with endless resources at her disposal but a marginalized victim who needs brave Times columnists to come to her defense.