New York’s latest cover story is an essay by critic Andrea Long Chu, who makes the moral case for the right of anybody, at any age, to change their sex. As anti-trans policies are implemented across the country, with a particular focus on preventing children from transitioning, Chu argues that a reluctance to talk about biological sex has put trans advocates on the back foot, and she urges the left to reimagine biological sex itself as a matter of freedom and justice.
“I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to do a piece on trans kids ever since I joined the magazine,” said Chu. “The current political moment has gotten so toxic and hostile that I knew it was time. It’s clearer than ever to me that the media has a huge role in either legitimizing trans kids or throwing them under the bus, and I know which side I’m on.”
Chu is a Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and critic. Her book, Females, was published by Verso in 2019 and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Nonfiction. Her debut essay, “On Liking Women,” published by N+1 in 2018, has become essential reading in gender-studies classes across the country.
Elsewhere in the issue, features writer Bridget Read writes on how an enterprising group of party throwers became squatters in a Los Angeles mansion, upending the comfortable lives of their new, ultrawealthy neighbors, and columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton profiles Dr. Becky Kennedy, whose reassuring advice has made her the biggest parenting expert since Dr. Spock.