New analysis claims New York Times shifted its coverage of transgender issues after 2022

A review of more than 3,000 New York Times articles claims the newspaper changed how it reported on transgender issues from 2022 onwards.

The analysis, published by civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo in independent outlet The Dissident, examined 3,242 articles published between 2014 and early 2026.

According to the report, coverage in the years before 2022 was more likely to focus on transgender people’s lives, visibility and rights. From 2022 onwards, however, reporting increasingly centred on healthcare, legislation, sport and political disputes involving transgender people.

“This is about the whole corpus of how they’ve covered trans issues over time” – Alejandra Caraballo on New York Times coverage

Caraballo argues the shift coincided with transgender rights becoming a major political issue in the United States. The report claims articles were more likely to frame transgender topics through conflict and controversy, while transgender people themselves became less prominent as sources and subjects.

The study used a combination of data analysis and AI-assisted classification to identify patterns across more than a decade of reporting. Caraballo has also published the project’s methodology and underlying data, allowing readers to examine the findings independently.

“This isn’t about any individual story,” Caraballo said of the project. “This is about the whole corpus of how they’ve covered trans issues over time.”

The report divides the newspaper’s coverage into three periods. The first, between 2014 and 2017, is characterised as focusing largely on visibility and growing public awareness of transgender people. Coverage published between 2018 and 2021 was found to be more varied in tone and subject matter.

How did The New York Times’s transgender coverage change after 2022?

The most significant change, according to the analysis, began in 2022. The report says stories increasingly focused on debates around gender-affirming healthcare, transgender athletes and legislation affecting transgender communities.

In 2023, hundreds of contributors and supporters of The New York Times signed open letters expressing concern about aspects of the newspaper’s reporting. The publication rejected those criticisms and defended its journalism.

Caraballo’s report argues that the change in coverage was not the result of a handful of high-profile stories, but reflected a broader editorial shift that became visible when thousands of articles were examined together.

Readers can review the full dataset and methodology through the project’s accompanying website.