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‘New York’ magazine and transgender people

Media outlets Reviewed August 13, 2026 4 min read

New York is an American media organization. With the exception of their short-lived Science of Us blog edited by Jesse Singal, their coverage of trans topics has been generally fair and accurate.

Background

The print magazine New York launched in 1968, founded by editor Clay Felker and designer Milton Glaser as a spinoff from the Sunday magazine of the New York Herald Tribune. After that newspaper folded in 1967, Felker secured funding and relaunched it as an independent weekly, focusing on city reporting, service journalism, and cultural criticism.

In 1976, Rupert Murdoch purchased the magazine. In 1993, it was sold to Primedia. In 2004, financier Bruce Wasserstein acquired the magazine and created New York Media, refocusing the brand and investing heavily in digital expansion.

The mid-2000s marked the beginning of the magazine’s shift to a digital-first focus. In 2006, New York‘s website, NYMag.com, underwent a year-long relaunch, transforming from a site that principally republished the magazine’s content into a digital-first platform with several group blogs (which they called “verticals”), including:

  • Vulture (culture, 2007–)
  • The Cut (women’s interest and style, 2008–)
  • Grub Street (food, 2008–)
  • Science of Us (2014–2017)
  • Intelligencer (politics and news, 2016–)
  • The Strategist (shopping and product recommendations, 2016)

Science of Us

Science of Us was a standalone group blog launched in 2014 and edited by Jesse Singal. At the time, Singal stated:

I’d always been somewhat interested in psychology; I took a couple courses in college. And I think like a lot of, frankly, white dudes in their late teens and early twenties, I became convinced that my opinion on things like George W. Bush as a president were very important. So my college columns were like that: Issuing opinions on things I knew nothing about. At some point something clicked, and I got less interested in arguing with myself, which I still do sometimes, and more interested in answering the question of why people believe what they do. And once you peel back this veneer of self righteousness, like–“How could anyone disagree with me?”–the question of why people believe what they do is completely fascinating and leads you down these unexpected alleyways.

Singal was joined by Melissa Dahl, Cari Romm, and Drake Baer as well as a number of contributors. Science of Us was folded into The Cut blog in 2017.

Before New York pulled the plug on the Science of Us blog, Singal published a number of pieces promoting other reactionary centrists and anti-trans activists, including Alice Dreger, J. Michael Bailey, Kenneth Zucker, Ray Blanchard, Rebecca Tuvel, and Stella O’Malley. Singal then moved to publishing anti-trans pieces elsewhere.

References

Starke, Lauren (August 21, 2017). The Cut Unveils Redesign and New Site Organization. New York https://nymag.com/press/2017/08/the-cut-unveils-redesign-and-new-site-organization.html

Fitts, Alexis Sobel (May 15, 2014). New York launches social science vertical. Columbia Journalism Review https://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/new_york_launches_new_social_s.php

Semuels, Alana (December 2, 2013). New York magazine to reduce print offerings. Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/business/la-new-york-magazine-print-edition-20131202-story.html

Selected articles

Singal, Jesse (May 2, 2017). This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like. New York https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/transracialism-article-controversy.html

Singal, Jesse (January 13, 2017). You Should Watch the BBC’s Controversial Documentary on the Gender-Dysphoria Researcher Kenneth Zucker (Updated). New York https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/you-should-watch-the-bbcs-kenneth-zucker-documentary.html

Singal, Jesse (September 20, 2016). This BBC Interview With a Gender-Nonbinary Kid and His Mom Is Fascinating and Problematic. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/this-interview-with-a-gender-nonbinary-kid-is-fascinating.html

Singal, Jesse (September 12, 2016). People Are Misunderstanding a Recent Study About Trans Youth Pregnancy. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/a-study-about-youth-trans-pregnancy-is-being-misunderstood.html

Singal, Jesse (July 25, 2016). What’s Missing From the Conversation About Transgender Kids. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/whats-missing-from-the-conversation-about-transgender-kids.html

Singal, Jesse (February 7, 2016). How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html

Singal, Jesse (February 1, 2016). CAMH to Staffers: It Wasn’t Our Job to Fact-check That Report, and Zucker’s Firing Was Just a Coincidence Anyway. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/how-camh-explained-zuckers-firing-to-its-staff.html

Singal, Jesse (January 27, 2016). A False Accusation Helped Bring Down Kenneth Zucker, a Controversial Sex Researcher. New York https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/false-charge-helped-bring-down-kenneth-zucker.html

Singal, Jesse (December 30, 2015). Why Some of the Worst Attacks on Social Science Have Come From Liberals. New York https://www.thecut.com/2015/12/when-liberals-attack-social-science.html

Resources

New York Magazine (nymag.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

reddit (reddit.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

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