UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY, COMRADES: New York Times describes women as “non-transgender women:” The New York Times’ erasure of biological women is the latest sign of its ideological capture.

The New York Times once had a reputation for being unafraid to air a wide range of different opinions, even for challenging the views of the so-called “progressive” Left. No longer. And the ideological capture of the publication is beginning to show even in the language its journalists and editors use.

In a recent piece on transgender athletes, it managed to use three words when one would have done. The story goes like this: the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for college sports in the United States, has ruled on trans-identified volleyball players and testosterone levels. But the NYT chose a bizarre form of language to report the already extraordinary fact that a biological male with four times the level of testosterone as a biological woman is allowed to compete in women’s sport. It described women as “non-transgender women”.

It’s the latest sign that the publication remains under the cosh of blue-fringed ideologues who consider feelings to be more important than facts. And more so, who prioritise a miniscule population of trans-identified males over half the population of the planet.

Feminist campaigners against gender ideology who object to the erasure of women immediately hit out when the story was posted on X. One of those was the tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who, as an out lesbian since the early 1980s, has done more to fight for the rights of women than most in her field.

“NYT- you stink,” she posted. “We are women, not NOT TRANSGENDER WOMEN. Just WOMEN will do in the future.”

Related: “To prevent the ‘not-un’ formulation,  Orwell suggest memorizing this phrase: ‘a not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.’ For their part, the ‘not transgender woman’ crowd might buy a can of spray paint and find a retaining wall for their writing. That’s the level they’re on.”