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Jesse Singal
Jesse Singal (born 1983) is an American journalist. He has written for publications including New York magazine, The New York Times and The Atlantic. Singal also publishes a newsletter and hosts the podcast Blocked and Reported with journalist Katie Herzog.
Much of Singal's writing deals with the social sciences, and he previously edited New York magazine's behavioral-science vertical, "Science of Us". In 2021, he published a book, The Quick Fix, about the failings of popular psychology. Singal's writing on transgender issues has attracted controversy, particularly in his 2018 cover story for The Atlantic, "When Children Say They're Trans".
Singal's political orientation has been described as liberal but "heterodox", though he has expressed an aversion to the latter term as a descriptor of his work.
Singal was born in 1983. He is one of three sons born to Sydney L. (née Altman; 1949–2021) and Bruce A. Singal. Both of his parents were attorneys. He attended Brandeis University for two years before transferring to the University of Michigan, and wrote for student newspapers at both institutions. He received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is of Jewish descent and lives in Brooklyn.
In 2016, Singal wrote a piece defending Canadian sexologist and proponent of conversion therapy Kenneth Zucker. Singal contested the characterization of Zucker's advocated practices as conversion therapy, attributing the designation to a "show trial" undertaken to appease activists.
Singal wrote the cover story for the July/August 2018 issue of The Atlantic. Originally published under the title "When a Child Says She's Trans", the online version was later retitled "When Children Say They're Trans". The long-form piece includes profiles of several adolescents who identify or previously identified as transgender, interviews with youth gender clinicians, and reviews of some of the studies, statistics, and protocols related to youth transition.
Among the controversial aspects of the article was the proportion of weight given to stories of adolescents who had desisted or detransitioned—that is, reverted to identifying with their genders assigned at birth, either before or after undergoing physical transition. In the article, Singal acknowledges that the stories of detransitioners are sometimes viewed with skepticism or suspicion by the transgender community, in part because they have been used by conservative media to further misleading narratives. Alex Barasch, writing in Slate, faulted the article for not including the story of "a single happy, well-adjusted trans teen" in its first 9,000 words. Barasch also criticized Singal for failing to include the stories of individuals who had detransitioned for reasons other than a realization that they were not trans, such as social stigma.
Alexandria Neason, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, stated that despite being fact-checked, the story was considered transphobic by many readers, journalists, and activists in the transgender community, and suggested that more diversity in editorial oversight could have averted the problem. In ThinkProgress, Zack Ford called the article "a loud dog whistle for anti-transgender parents" with "lopsided perspectives and [a] dearth of citations". In The Advocate, Amanda Kerri criticized his understanding of the issue and lack of expertise in the subject matter, while acknowledging "a legitimate concern about the politicization of science and social justice".
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Jesse Singal
Jesse Singal (born 1983) is an American journalist. He has written for publications including New York magazine, The New York Times and The Atlantic. Singal also publishes a newsletter and hosts the podcast Blocked and Reported with journalist Katie Herzog.
Much of Singal's writing deals with the social sciences, and he previously edited New York magazine's behavioral-science vertical, "Science of Us". In 2021, he published a book, The Quick Fix, about the failings of popular psychology. Singal's writing on transgender issues has attracted controversy, particularly in his 2018 cover story for The Atlantic, "When Children Say They're Trans".
Singal's political orientation has been described as liberal but "heterodox", though he has expressed an aversion to the latter term as a descriptor of his work.
Singal was born in 1983. He is one of three sons born to Sydney L. (née Altman; 1949–2021) and Bruce A. Singal. Both of his parents were attorneys. He attended Brandeis University for two years before transferring to the University of Michigan, and wrote for student newspapers at both institutions. He received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is of Jewish descent and lives in Brooklyn.
In 2016, Singal wrote a piece defending Canadian sexologist and proponent of conversion therapy Kenneth Zucker. Singal contested the characterization of Zucker's advocated practices as conversion therapy, attributing the designation to a "show trial" undertaken to appease activists.
Singal wrote the cover story for the July/August 2018 issue of The Atlantic. Originally published under the title "When a Child Says She's Trans", the online version was later retitled "When Children Say They're Trans". The long-form piece includes profiles of several adolescents who identify or previously identified as transgender, interviews with youth gender clinicians, and reviews of some of the studies, statistics, and protocols related to youth transition.
Among the controversial aspects of the article was the proportion of weight given to stories of adolescents who had desisted or detransitioned—that is, reverted to identifying with their genders assigned at birth, either before or after undergoing physical transition. In the article, Singal acknowledges that the stories of detransitioners are sometimes viewed with skepticism or suspicion by the transgender community, in part because they have been used by conservative media to further misleading narratives. Alex Barasch, writing in Slate, faulted the article for not including the story of "a single happy, well-adjusted trans teen" in its first 9,000 words. Barasch also criticized Singal for failing to include the stories of individuals who had detransitioned for reasons other than a realization that they were not trans, such as social stigma.
Alexandria Neason, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, stated that despite being fact-checked, the story was considered transphobic by many readers, journalists, and activists in the transgender community, and suggested that more diversity in editorial oversight could have averted the problem. In ThinkProgress, Zack Ford called the article "a loud dog whistle for anti-transgender parents" with "lopsided perspectives and [a] dearth of citations". In The Advocate, Amanda Kerri criticized his understanding of the issue and lack of expertise in the subject matter, while acknowledging "a legitimate concern about the politicization of science and social justice".
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