A New York Times preview of this weekend’s California state track and field championships has renewed criticism of the newspaper’s coverage of transgender athletes. The publication provided little context and no interviews with trans people or with supporters of transgender inclusion.
The focus of the Timesreport is AB Hernandez, a 17-year-old transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley, who returns to the state meet one year after winning two gold medals amid controversy over her participation.
As The Advocate has reported, state policy requires her to share first-place gold medals and the podium with cisgender high school girls, who finish after her. It guarantees that even if a trans student-athlete like Hernandez finishes first, the highest-finishing cisgender athlete is also awarded first place.
Not everyone in the transgender community is opposed to that. Out trans sports scientist Joanna Harper, who has been studying the ways hormone therapy makes a difference in trans people’s athletic performance for two decades, told The Advocate she agrees with the state’s podium policy.
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“Given that California allows trans girls to compete in the female category without hormones, then don’t think it is unreasonable to have a shared podium,” Harper said. The policy was adopted as California seeks to preserve participation opportunities for transgender students while responding to concerns raised by opponents. The state is currently suing the Trump administration over demands that it abandon its transgender-inclusive athletics policy.
President Donald Trump referenced Hernandez’s case last year without naming her directly and threatened to withhold federal funding if California continued allowing transgender girls to compete under current rules.
The Times article, published Friday, noted that Hernandez could return to defend her titles and potentially win additional championships.
The story also highlighted pending rulings in Supreme Court cases involving bans on transgender athletes in West Virginia and Idaho. The article noted that a ruling is unlikely to alter California’s policy.
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Earlier this month, The Advocatereported on an analysis published by Assigned Media that found that while The Times produced more transgender-related coverage than any outlet examined, it was the least likely to quote transgender people or transgender advocacy organizations in stories primarily focused on transgender issues.
Last month, a former subscriber who is the parent of a transgender teenager raised concerns about that coverage during a shareholder meeting, arguing that Times reporting on transgender issues has been cited by the Trump administration and others “to justify discrimination and harm.” Publisher A.G. Sulzberger defended the newspaper’s reporting as “fair and comprehensive.”
In 2024, GLAAD launched a campaign criticizing what it described as biased and inaccurate coverage of transgender issues by the newspaper. That same year, writer Riki Wilchins argued that The Times’ coverage helped shape public skepticism toward transgender people and transgender rights.
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The Advocate contacted Times reporter Juliet Macur and executive editor Joe Kahn to seek comment on Friday’s story and on broader concerns of the newspaper’s transgender coverage. Neither responded before publication. Among the questions sent by The Advocate were how reporting decisions were made regarding source selection and why the story did not include more perspectives from supporters of transgender inclusion in sports.
Friday’s article did include comments from Chris Erchull, a senior staff attorney at GLAD Law, who represents transgender clients. Erchull told The Advocate that he does not expect any forthcoming Supreme Court ruling on state transgender athlete bans to affect California’s policy.
“There’s pretty much zero chance that it will have any bearing on what California is doing,” Erchull told The Advocate by phone. “In fact, the California policy right now with respect to AB,” he said, “is actually very friendly to the people who raise all these concerns about fairness and opportunities.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: For a trans California senior, it’s a track meet. For The New York Times, it’s a debate