Pamela Paul

Pamela Paul is an op-ed writer who has gotten quite infamous since she got a column for The New York Times in 2022, though she had a history working for the newspaper long before that point.Opinion announces Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul will join Opinion as we expand our columnist ranks. Although vaguely presenting herself as a centrist liberal, its clearly apparent that she is far more conservative than she lets on; as most of her writings are usually the same type of mindless and reactionary culture war slope you'll find on a Fox News segment (often accompanied by a stylish photograph or illustration above the essay, as if to create the illusion that what you're reading is more sophisticated and interesting than it actually is), but for some reason being laundered in a supposedly "prestigious" legacy newspaper. These primarily come in the form of articles either lamenting over whatever social issue/controversy is trending at the moment or criticizing members of the progressive left for going "too far", even though she does sometimes argue these points through left-wing terminology. 
To give everybody an idea of just where her priorities lie, her first ever column for The New York Times was "The Limits of ‘Lived Experience’", where she criticized the idea that only those of a certain background can write about specific topics.The Limits of ‘Lived Experience’ Her article is filled with strawmen, with lines like the following:
Paul offers no evidence for the claim that anybody has ever said, "Only Holocaust survivors can convey the truth of the Holocaust," a statement so obviously absurd that the vast majority of humanity would condemn it. The most we get is a reference to three controversies several paragraphs before hand, which reads:
However, of the three examples given, exactly one was actually involved in a public controversy. Best as anybody can tell, the only one of those to actually cause any controversy was the situation with Dana Schutz, and that was less because she merely painted Emmett Till and more because people felt, in the words of British artist and critic , "it is not acceptable for a white person to transmute Black suffering into profit and fun."GEORGE BAKER ON PAINTING, CRITIQUE, AND EMPATHY IN THE EMMETT TILL / WHITNEY BIENNIAL DEBATE Jo Livingstone and Lovia Gyarkye also say they felt it was tasteless for her to attempt to recreate the icon photo of Till's open casket saying the artist in question had "disrespected that act of dignity [given to the Till family through having an open casket funeral], by defacing them with her own creative way of seeing."The Case Against Dana Schutz Even if you disagree, this is far more complicated than merely "painting Emmett Till."
Dan Froomkin of PressWatchers.org wrote in response to this column, "Wow. New @nytopinion columnist comes out of the gates with a straw-man panic attack on wokeism. Just what the place didn’t need.""Wow. New @nytopinion columnist comes out of the gates with a straw-man panic attack on wokeism. Just what the place didn’t need." by @froomkin (4/24/2022) Twitter (archived from April 24, 2022). Little did he know this was only the beginning. 
==Transphobia==
One of Paul's most notorious aspects is her transphobia, expressed all throughout her various columns, although her coziness with the transphobic goes back long before that point, earning her the label of "The Gray Lady's In-House Transphobe" as one writer put it.Pamela Paul, The Gray Lady’s In-House Transphobe As GLADD once noted, "Paul was New York Times Books Editor when writer Jesse Singal, who is not transgender but who has built a career inaccurately writing about trans issues and targeting trans people, reviewed, and supported his friend’s inaccurate anti-trans book."GLAAD Responds To New York Times Hiring Anti-Lgbtq Attorney As Opinion Columnist
Paul typically tries to cloak her contempt for trans people by concern trolling petty complaints over some supposedly new type of semantics or personal expression that she simply happens to "disagree" with. For example, one article of hers with the headline "The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count" (published nine days after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade by the wayWho hates inclusivity? The question answers itself.) claims progressives "deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes." Never mind how one of the terms she alleges activists are using to replace "women" is "birthing people," a term which involves explicitly calling the person a person when describing who they are.The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count One particularly telling moment regarding how quick Paul is to not consider the wider context of the situation comes in this line:
This was in reference to The Lancet tweeting out the cover to its latest issue, which contained the quote "Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.""Our new issue is here! On the cover—'Periods on display' and the cultural movement against menstrual shame and #PeriodPoverty. Plus, @WHO air quality guidelines, low #BackPain management, community-acquired bacterial #meningitis, and more. from @TheLancet, 9/24/2021 Paul wonders why the medical journal didn't use the word "woman" in reference to this group of people, but actually reading the article this quote came from shows they did in the very same paragraph that was being quoted on the cover:
The article comparing those who advocate for inclusive language with anti-abortion activists also got it called "a nasty bit of business" by journalist Patrick Ness.Pamela Paul criticized for anti-trans opinion about the word ‘woman’
False comparisons between modern progressives and those on the far right are a reoccurring staple of Paul's columns, it should be noted. In an article of hers defending disgraced children's fantasy author J.K. Rowling, she writes:
This is far from the most hyperbolic comparison in the column, by the way, as she also writes:
Because having your books pulled from some stores due to your transphobia is the same as having a fucking fatwa put on you, we guess.Salman Rushdie on Surviving the Fatwa One writer noted how Paul's comment was "perpetuating the shitty stereotypical trope of trans person as murderer that was played for cheap titillation in Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill more than forty years ago."
The entire column is also filled with denial of Rowling being a transphobic, as Christina Cauterucci wrote in response to this:
===Siding with transphobes===
Although not everything Paul writes on the LGBT community is evidence of transphobia, she does seem to find herself on the same side as bigots more often than she doesn't. One example is her column "Let’s Say Gay" (the headline is a reference to the "Don't Say Gay" bill in FloridaHere's what Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill would do and what it wouldn't do which gets no references in the actual column) where she criticizes the move away from terms like "gay" and towards terms like "LGBTQ" and "queer."Let’s Say Gay Of course, writing columns like this put her in the same boat as people like the LGB AllianceThe wildest claims LGB Alliance makes in its report against the word ‘queer’ who are infamous for their transphobia.Gay rights group was set up ‘to promote transphobic activity’, court told
It is also worth noting that Paul's chief example of this is Kelley Robinson choosing to describe herself as queer during a video where she explains her life story in response to her becoming the President of the Human Rights Campaign. Tucker Lieberman, writing on Medium, says the following on Paul's choice to criticize her:
None of this is even getting into the factual errors present in the article, for she example Paul writes:
However, this ignores the fact that "gay" had also been used as a playground insult for much of the 1990s and 2000s. Why Is It OK To Say "That's So Gay?"
Another article sees her write about "a strain of progressivism that has repurposed some of the very stereotypes women and men worked so hard to sweep away" specifically in relation to gender roles.Free to Be You and Me. Or Not. She goes on to write:
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) wrote a very detailed response to this article, noting the similarities between the rhetoric of Paul and the writings of the anti-transgender movement, saying:
FAIR also makes note of an incident where Paul dedicated a column to defending a novel that was criticized for being transphobic without actually engaging in the arguments made against the novel in question.
===Detransitioners===
On 2/2/2024, Paul's column "As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do." was published, primarily consisting of a profile of detransitioners, or people who previously thought they were transgender but no longer believe that to be the case.As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. The article was filled with misinformation, with transgender journalist Erin Reed writing an extensive fact check of the various claims Paul made.Debunked: Misleading NYT Anti-Trans Article By Pamela Paul Relies On Pseudoscience In response to this and another piece critical of her,Pamela Paul Shows NYT Opinion’s Lack of Accountability to the Truth Paul wrote a short article saying we simply don't know the rate of detransition among transgender people.The Courage to Admit You Don’t Know As Erin Reed said in response "This is despite, in her original piece, devoting 4,500 words that painted a picture of high detransition rates, citing studies that she misread and misunderstood."[https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1755629345861759255 "3. Paul backpedals after reading our criticism, titling her new piece 'The Courage To Admit You Don't Know.' This is despite, in her original piece, devoting 4,500 words that painted a picture of high detransition rates, citing studies that she misread and misunderstood." by @ErinInTheMorn, 2/8/2024
==Anti-progressive rhetoric==
Despite The New York Times being seen by many as some bastion of progressive thought, Paul has a long list of examples of bashing progressives despite writing her column for a relatively short amount of time. One column of hers, called, "There’s More Than One Way to Ban a Book" sees her drawing a false equivalence between attempts from the right to use the government to ban books and those on the left who use petitions and other peaceful methods as ways to attempt to persuade publishers not to work with certain people.There’s More Than One Way to Ban a Book Of course, given the right to petition others is a part of freedom of speech,Right to Assemble and Petition Paul is expressing the paradoxical view that freedom of speech is causing censorship. In the same regard, freedom of association is widely seen as a right under The Constitution,Amdt1.8.1 Overview of Freedom of Association and this should include the right of a publisher to not publish material they do not wish to for whatever reason.
Of course, this comparison that she draws between liberals and conservatives might hold more water if she hadn't defended one of the people most responsible for the right's interest in book banning, Ron DeSantis,Presidential hopeful DeSantis inspires push to make book bans easier in Republican-controlled states whom she wrote an entire article on in order to argue that the left has unfairly demonized him.What Liberals Can Learn From Ron DeSantis For those wondering what her understanding of Florida politics is like, at one point she writes:
The implication is clearly that Hispanic support for DeSantis is a reason to take him serious, but Latino support for Republicans has been growing all throughout the Trump era,The new reality about Latino voters that Democrats must accept and you can find news stories talking about the importance of Hispanic voters for Republican victories going as far back as 2004.Florida vote may hinge on Latinos
==Science understander==
One of her columns, called "The Evidence Is In: Science Should Be Judged on the Merits" covers a supposedly scientific paper being rejected by publishers over its claim that science should be impartial.The Evidence Is In: Science Should Be Judged on the Merits The problem is this never actually happened, as The American Prospect notes:
Basically, the paper was rejected because, regardless of what you think of its conclusion, it did not fit the mold of what these journals publish. Rejection from scientific journals is a common phenomenon, with the article pointing out:
Paul also makes a few odd statements about human nature, such as writing the following:
However, Paul totally missed the point as to why such practices are used. They are not to show points of view to be more or less valid based on the identity of the person proposing the idea, they are simply statements of bias, something which everybody has.Everyone Is a Little Bit Biased Paul also provides no evidence for what such actions cause "in practice," so she has not actually done anything but made an unsubstantiated statement.
==Sex work==
In addition to being a TERF, she also happens to be something of a SWERF as well, as evident in the article "What It Means to Call Prostitution ‘Sex Work’" where she argues against the liberal point of view regarding sex work and views the term itself as little more than a euphemism meant to hide what is really going on.What It Means to Call Prostitution ‘Sex Work’ Actual people inside the industry found it to be a factually inaccurate piece of misrepresentation, and criticized it thusly.Sex Workers React to Inflammatory NY Times Op-Ed
Paul's prudish attitudes towards prostitution and open sexuality appears to go back as far as the mid-2000s, when she wrote the book in 2006. In the book (the subtitle of which had suspiciously changed the word "damaging" into "transforming" in later editions), Paul makes several Evangelical-like arguments against the ever-growing availability of pornography and adult entertainment on the internet of the time; using a handful of anecdotes and selective studies to portray this cultural trend as a serious national crisis that turns everyday Americans into depraved "sex addicts", breaks apart families, and dehumanizes women.https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/books/review/pornified-dirty-minds.html
==Karen==
Another infamous column of hers is "Don't Call Her 'Karen'" where she talks about the incident surrounding Sarah Comrie and the controversy that developed when one of her videos went viral, defending the woman in question and calling the term "Karen" a misogynist and ageist slur.Don’t Call Her ‘Karen’ Zack Linly, a black man, broke down Paul's understanding of the story and explained how she was misrepresenting certain aspects of it in order to make the woman look better than she actually was.‘Don’t Call Her Karen’: White Woman’s NYT Op-Ed Defends Sarah Jane ‘Citi Bike’ Comrie
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Authors
Category:Living people
Category:Political activists
Category:TERFs