Between Hegemony and Hope: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the New York Times's Coverage of Trump's 2025 Transgender Policies

Background and Purpose:
Donald Trump’s early 2025 policies introduced major changes to transgender rights, sparking significant controversy. While news media provide overviews of such developments, both policies and media operate as discursive constructions reflecting power dynamics, which deeply affect transgender communities and thus call for closer examination of how policy ideologies circulate to reinforce or challenge power structures.
This study explores how Trump’s early 47th-term policies were represented in The New York Times, the most widely read and influential U.S. newspaper, identifying how dominant discourses were reproduced and how transgender resilience was demonstrated. This study aims to expand critical media literacy and promote reinterpretation that supports trans agency in news discourse.

Methods:
Critical discourse analysis was used to examine related articles in The New York Times. A total of 129 articles, comprising approximately 155,000 words, were filtered from January 20, the day of Trump’s 2025 inauguration, to March 31, 2025. The analysis was guided by Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach, and Foucault’s theory of discourse and power. Articles were manually analyzed for key discursive features, including the reproduction of dominant ideologies and trans agency.

Findings:
The analysis reveals several recurring patterns reinforcing existing power hierarchies. First, while many journalists emphasize objectivity and balance, quoting is inherently political. Prioritizing quantitative over qualitative balance may marginalize transgender voices. Second, partisan labels and blurred yet emotional language are often used to take advantage of readers' personal context models, limiting nuanced engagement with transgender rights. Third, in efforts to simplify complex policy debates, most journalists avoid interrogating dominant frameworks of sex and gender identity, resulting in binary narratives that invite readers to choose sides rather than reflect on the practice of sex and gender identity in different social settings.
However, some articles still reveal moments of resilience. The journalistic norm of presenting contrasting viewpoints occasionally allows expressions of solidarity and resistance to emerge across diverse social positions. These glimpses may offer transgender readers a sense of shared struggle and empowerment, fostering opportunities for spiritual resilience to reframe their meaning of life and cultivate hope for the future. Several articles feature personal accounts of transgender individuals directly affected by the policies. These stories introduce emotional registers beyond anger, expanding the representation of transgender people and providing new perspectives for advocacy and self-reflection under ongoing policy shifts.

Conclusion and Implications:
This study underscores the significance of media discourse in shaping and reinforcing dominant power structures surrounding transgender issues, highlighting the need for critical media literacy that not only recognizes the inherently political nature of news coverage but also acknowledges the potential for subverting harmful narratives. While news often perpetuates polarizing and reductionist views, moments of resilience and solidarity still emerge, offering transgender communities a sense of agency and connection. This study advocates for critical engagement with the news by journalists, activists, and the public to identify underlying harm in such discourse, fostering emotional resilience and sustaining long-term advocacy for justice.