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The Protocol: 2025 anti-transgender podcast series

In June 2025, New York Times released The Protocol, about healthcare for gender diverse youth. The limited podcast series reflects the transphobic framing of other Times coverage by co-hosts Azeen Ghorayshi and Austin Mitchell.

Production

According to the Times:

“The Protocol” was researched, written and reported by Azeen Ghorayshi. It was produced by Austin Mitchell, Larissa Anderson and Luke Vander Ploeg, with production help from Eli Cohen. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson and Paula Szuchman. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love, Jane Ackermann and Sharmila Venkatasubban. Mixing and mastering by Daniel Ramirez and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producers are Paula Szuchman and Lisa Tobin.

Part 1: The Beginning

The first section profiles “FG,” a conservative Dutch trans man who was the first documented patient to receive puberty blockers in a clinical setting in that country. “FG” is a transmedicalist and transsexual separatist. In it, “FG” complains about how “insulting” the current trans community is to “proper transsexuals”:

“It’s gone a bit extreme to the other side, so it makes a laughingstock of what it’s really about. It seems to be a fashion statement nowadays. It’s like when in the 70s you were a punker. We have to fight against something. We’re forging our identities as young people. We need to stand out, we need to have an opinion against a given society, because that’s our rite of passage. It feels like this has become another forum for that. It’s taken over that role. And for the group that is pure, proper transsexuals, this flirting with pronouns and gender identity is insulting. We spend all our time trying to just fit in, or be able to live the life we feel we should have had, and it’s not a great help when you’ve got people shouting from the barricades and trying to give you a different position of a third sex or whatever, and then talk about things we don’t need to talk about so that we can then identify you. But maybe that’s my own– I’m still stuck in my own paradigm. And maybe that shouldn’t be a taboo. Maybe we would break it open. That’s not how I feel, but intellectually I have to think about that. But I don’t take a lot of these people that seriously because it does seem to be a bit of a fashion statement.”

It also profiles Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, the Dutch psychologist who allowed “FG” to get puberty blockers.

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

  • NYT: “Alex Bakker’s book “The Dutch Approach” chronicles the doctors who helped develop the field of transgender medicine for adults, and later for a select group of children, in the Netherlands.”
  • NYT: “Peggy Cohen-Kettenis’s case report on “FG” detailed the first known case of a child with gender dysphoria treated with puberty blockers. Dr. Cohen-Kettenis and colleagues published a follow-up 22 years later on how he was doing.”

Part 2: The Gender Kids

[in progress]

This episode focuses on Dutch psychiatrist Annelou de Vries and the development of what became known as the Dutch Protocol. As one would expect from a psychiatrist, de Vries strongly promotes disease models of gender diversity and considers psychiatric counseling critical. de Vries also believes the measure of “effectiveness” is directly linked to psychological outcomes. de Vries would screen out about 30% of prospective clients, whom de Vries considered to be simply gay, had “psychological issues that needed to be dealt with first,” or the 10% of young people whom de Vries diagnosed with “autism spectrum disorder”

Mitchell points out the central role of psychiatric gatekeeping in the protocol: “and critically, the mental health assessments that were designed to help figure out which kids should get medical intervention.” According to de Vries, assessment “takes at least half a year, but as we say, we take the time we need.” Ghorayshi and Mitchell then interview Manon, one of the 70 participants in de Vries’ 2011 study.

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

  • NYT: “In 2006, the Dutch team published the criteria for a new approach to treating children with gender dysphoria, what came to be known as the Dutch protocol. In later years, they published additional papers on the Dutch approach.”
  • NYT: “In 2011 and 2014, the Dutch team published the first data on the protocol, from a study that followed a group of young patients after they received the treatments. The landmark study would establish the field of medical care for transgender youth worldwide.”
  • NYT: “The 2011 book titled “Gender Kids” in Dutch featured portraits of Manon and other transgender children in the Netherlands.”
    • on this site:
    • Sarah Wong

Part 3: The American Approach

[in progress]

Focuses on conservative American psychologist Laura Edwards-Leeper.

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

Part 4: The Whistleblower

[in progress]

Focuses on anti-trans extremist Jamie Reed.

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

  • NYT: “In early 2023, Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the youth gender clinic at Washington University in St. Louis, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that the center had hastily prescribed hormones to patients.”
  • NYT: “In response to Ms. Reed’s claims, Washington University conducted an internal review. It concluded that “allegations of substandard care causing adverse outcomes for patients” at the gender center were “unsubstantiated.””
  • NYT: “Citing Ms. Reed’s affidavit, Missouri lawmakers passed S.B. 49, a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, in May 2023.”

Part 5: The Review

[in progress]

Focuses on British anti-trans pediatrician Hilary Cass and the Cass Review.

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

  • NYT: “The Cass Review was commissioned by the National Health Service in England and was published in 2024 alongside several systematic reviews of the evidence.”
  • NYT: “Several critiques of the Cass Review have since been published.”
    • on this site:
    • Meredithe McNamara
    • Kellan Baker
    • Kara Connelly
    • Aron Janssen
    • Johanna Olson-Kennedy
    • Ken C. Pang
    • Ayden Scheim
    • Jack Turban
    • Anne Alstott
    • Chris Noone
    • Alex Southgate
    • Alex Ashman
    • Éle Quinn
    • David Comer
    • Duncan Shrewsbury
    • Florence Ashley
    • Jo Hartland
    • Joanna Paschedag
    • John Gilmore
    • Natacha Kennedy
    • Thomas E. Woolley
    • Rachel Heath
    • Ryan Goulding
    • Victoria Simpson
    • Ed Kiely
    • SibĂ©al Coll
    • Margaret White
    • D. M. Grijseels
    • Maxence Ouafik
    • Quinnehtukqut McLamore 
  • NYT: “In 1979, Johns Hopkins shuttered its pioneering program for gender-affirming surgery for adults, which had been opposed by the university’s chief of psychiatry, Dr. Paul McHugh.”
  • NYT: “In May 2025, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy posted a preliminary version of her paper on psychological outcomes for adolescents after puberty blockers.”
    • on this site:
    • Johanna Olson-Kennedy
    • Ramon Durazo-Arvizu
    • Liyuan Wang
    • Carolyn F. Wong
    • Diane Chen
    • Diane Ehrensaft
    • Marco A. Hidalgo
    • Yee-Ming Chan
    • Robert Garofalo
    • Asa E. Radix
    • Stephen M. Rosenthal

Part 6: The Now

[in progress]

New York Times suggested background reading for the episode:

  • NYT: “Ohio’s H.B. 68, enacted in 2024, banned the provision of puberty blockers, hormones or surgeries as gender-affirming care for minors in the state.”
  • NYT: “In a 2023 national survey of high school students conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3 percent of students identified as transgender, and one in four transgender students reported attempting suicide in the past year.”
  • NYT: “Detransition researchers have argued that detransition needs “further understanding, not controversy.””
  • NYT: “New York Times polling in January 2025 found that 71 percent of Americans felt that minors should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormones.”

References

Reed, Erin (June 6, 2025). NYT Anti-Trans Podcast Finds Earliest Puberty Blocker Patient: Is Just Some Normal Happy Dude Now. Erin In The Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/nyt-anti-trans-podcast-finds-earliest

Urquhart, Evan (June 5, 2025). ‘Who can I talk to that has a human heart?’: New York Times doubles down on harming trans people. The Objective https://objectivejournalism.org/2025/06/new-york-times-podcast-doubles-down-on-harming-trans-people/

Molloy, Parker (June 4, 2025). The New York Times Is About to Do More Damage to Trans People. The Present Age https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-new-york-times-is-about-to-do

Caraballo, Alexandra (June 3, 2025). The New York Times’ War on Trans People. The Dissident https://www.thedissident.news/the-new-york-times-war-on-trans-people/

Times coverage

Staff (June 6, 2025). Introducing ‘The Protocol,’ a New Podcast From The New York Times. New York Times https://www.nytco.com/press/introducing-the-protocol-a-new-podcast-from-the-new-york-times/

Ghorayshi, Azeen; Rudoren, Jodi (June 6, 2025). Our New Podcast: In “The Protocol,” we explore the controversial debate over health care for trans youth. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/briefing/the-protocol.html

Ghorayshi, Azeen; Mitchell, Austin (June 6, 2025). ‘The Protocol’: The story behind medical care for transgender kids. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/medical-care-transgender-kids.html

Staff (June 2, 2025). The Protocol. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/podcasts/trans-gender-care-protocol.html

Media

YouTube (youtube.com)