The Trump administration’s press office has regularly disengaged with reporter emails, but announced recently those who have listed identifying pronouns in their email body signatures will not be allowed access to the White House briefing room or any other White House media events. In the same manner that federal workers have been barred from listing their preferred pronouns as of last January, press aides within the White House are refusing to speak with any reporter that has them listed.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, spoke about this latest nonsense when responding to a New York Times journalist after being asked about the closing of a climate research observatory. “As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios,” Leavitt stated in her email response. In a different messaged response when being asked why that extra line of detail was so important, Leavitt reasoned, “Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story.”
This view has started to echo throughout other communications channels in the administration, showing that Donald Trump’s cabinet continues to walk largely in lockstep with his views relating to gender ideology.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, and Katie Miller, a senior adviser at the Department of Government Efficiency, have also spoken recently on the trend.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signatures as it shows they ignore scientific realities and therefore ignore facts,” Miller wrote in a response to another Times reporter, adding afterward “This applies to all reporters who have pronouns in their signature.”
“If The New York Times spent the same amount of time actually reporting the truth as they do being obsessed with pronouns, maybe they would be a half-decent publication,” Cheung accused the publication of scathingly.
In its own reply to much of the blocking The New York Times had been encountering, the publication said in a statement, “Evading tough questions certainly runs counter to transparent engagement with free and independent press reporting. But refusing to answer a straightforward request to explain the administration’s policies because of the formatting of an email signature is both a concerning and baffling choice, especially from the highest press office in the U.S. government.”