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NY Times Tries to Rewrite Masculinity and Fatherhood
Description
In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down The New York Times’ recent coordinated coverage of masculinity and fatherhood. They analyze four pieces that attempt to redefine what it means to be a dad — including a cartoon about a trans father on Father’s Day, a childless writer’s take on “modern” fatherhood, an attack on Scott Galloway’s views on paternity leave, and Ezra Klein’s conversation with Helen Lewis framing the “New Right’s very old vision of men.”
The Collinses argue these articles reveal deep cultural elite contempt for actual fathers and promote unsustainable, self-indulgent views of parenting that prioritize personal identity and emotional affirmation over duty, sacrifice, and long-term human thriving. They explain why pronatalist, traditional approaches to masculinity and fatherhood will inherit the future while progressive narratives collapse under their own contradictions.
Expect sharp cultural analysis, personal parenting stories, and a direct challenge to the mainstream media’s attempt to gaslight men about what fatherhood really is.
Show Notes
Cannot make this up, either.
@nytimes opinion has had four recent pieces about fatherhood and masculinity, with six authors:
Three women
A trans “man”
Two childless men
Not one father. The cultural elite contempt for dads runs so deep we don’t even get to speak for ourselves.
The four pieces appear to be these recent New York Times Opinion items on fatherhood/masculinity:
* “To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated” (guest essay in comic-strip form, by Zach Ellams, a trans-identifying parent writing about being a “trans dad” and fatherhood).
* “The Most Important Way That Fatherhood Has Changed” (Father’s Day–timed essay on changing perspectives on fatherhood).
* “This Masculinity Influencer Is Loud and Wrong About Paternity Leave” (criticizing a male influencer’s stance on paternity leave and broader masculinity issues).
* “The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men” (Opinion video/transcript focusing on men, masculinity and the New Right, featuring journalist Helen Lewis).
“To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r1A.oWDB.tcG4utZreGgZ&smid=url-share
This shows a series of cartoon panels about a trans father who underwent surgery at 18 and has lived as a father of a daughter, mostly quite out, for some time.
It’s about how he found self acceptance through parenting (and I love that, because I—Simone—have also experienced that and can totally relate)
The panels include things like:
* His daughter yelling: “HOW DID YOU GROW A MUSTACHE IF YOU WERE A LADY?” at a public school
* His daughter asking about a pre-transition picture of him in an album and asking:
* “Who’s that?”
* “It’s me”
* “Oh. You look cool.”
* “Then or now?”
* “Then.”
* Him worrying about his daughter outing him at school
* “I don’t actually tell everyone I’m trans. I save that for special people”
* Eventually she outs him, saying she wants to grow a beard