NYTimes Balks On Name Changes For Transgender Journalists

New York Times journalists want the company to bring in “Ally McBeal”-style gender neutral bathrooms and to retroactively revise the bylines of transgender journalists who have changed their names.

The NY Post reports those are the issues topping the list of demand by the Gray Lady’s unionized editorial staffers as negotiations kick off for a new contract, Media Ink has learned. The previous union contract expired at the end of March.

So far, management is digging in its heels on the bathroom question as well as on revising bylines on past stories by transgender journalists.

The union also claims that the The Times is resisting its requests to set any hard-and-fast diversity guidelines on future hires, despite acknowledging earlier this year in a report from Deputy Managing Editor Carolyn Ryan that it has fallen woefully short in its efforts to diversify.

According to a memo circulated to members of the union by the Guild’s Bill Baker following an April 14 negotiating session, management “pushed back on our proposal to retroactively correct the bylines of transgender journalists who change their names.”