Uwe Steinhoff is an academic and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Steinhoff earned a degree in philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt. After graduation Steinhoff travelled for nine months in Central America. Steinhoff earned a doctorate in Würzburg. Steinhoff has held roles at Humboldt-University Berlin and Oxford University.
Steinhoff teaches in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong.
References
Steinhoff, Uwe (June 11, 2022). The Transgender Craze and the Babble about “Self-Identifying as a Woman”: Why Men Who Think They’re Women Are Psychotic and the Politicians Humoring Them Are Opportunistic https://uwesteinhoff.com/2022/06/11/the-transgender-craze-and-the-babble-about-self-identifying-as-a-woman-why-men-who-think-theyre-women-are-psychotic-and-the-politicians-humoring-them-are-opportunistic/
Steinhoff, Uwe (20 Jul 2022) Gender Ideology Comes to Germany. Quillette https://quillette.com/2022/07/20/gender-ideology-comes-to-germany/
Allan Stratton is a Canadian playwright and novelist. Stratton has been critical of several aspects of the trans rights movement.
Background
Stratton was born in 1951 in Stratford, Ontario. Stratton attended University of Toronto, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1973 and a master’s degree in 1974.
Beginning in 1977, Stratton has written several plays and novels. Stratton’s 2017 novel The Way Back Home features a transgender character named Zoe Bird.
Stratton is gay and married.
References
Stratton, Allan (August 29, 2022). A call for nuance and clarity on trans terminology. The Line https://theline.substack.com/p/allan-stratton-a-call-for-nuance
Stratton, Allan (22 June 2021 ). The ‘Gender Supremacist’ Threat to the Progressive Alliance: Part One of a Three-Part Series https://quillette.com/2021/06/22/the-gender-supremacist-threat-to-the-progressive-alliance-part-one-of-a-three-part-series/
Stratton, Allan (27 Jul 2021). Rescuing the Radicalized Discourse on Sex and Gender: Part Two of a Three-Part Series https://quillette.com/2021/07/27/rescuing-the-radicalized-discourse-on-sex-and-gender-part-two-of-a-three-part-series/
Stratton, Allan (21 Sep 2021). The Progressive Case for Renouncing Gender Extremism: Last of a Three-Part Series https://quillette.com/2021/09/21/the-progressive-case-for-renouncing-gender-extremism-last-of-a-three-part-series/
Stratton, Allan (April 29, 2022). If You Care About Trans Rights, Don’t Let Predators Pick Their Pronouns https://quillette.com/2022/04/29/predators-dont-get-to-pick-their-pronouns/
Stratton, Allan (June 16, 2022). Ricky Gervais Knows No Fear https://quillette.com/2022/06/16/ricky-gervais-knows-no-fear/
Stratton, Allan (3 Aug 2022). Dave Chappelle vs. the New Puritans. https://quillette.com/2022/08/03/dave-chappelle-vs-the-new-puritans/
Cathy Young is a writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Yekaterina Jung was born on February 10, 1963 in Russia to Marina (born 1936) and Alexander Jung (1935–2011). Young’s family moved to the United States in 1980. Young became a naturalized US citizen in 1987 as Catherine Alicia Young and earned a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 1988.
Young is a writer at The Bulwark, a cultural studies fellow at the Cato Institute, a columnist for Newsday, and a contributing editor to Reason.
Young has authored two books.
References
Young, Cathy (October 5, 2023). Toxic culture on the right or left is wrong.Newsday https://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/culture-wars-transphobia-lgbt-gender-transgender-anthropology-i0un1yec
Young, Cathy (February 16, 2023). Transgender rights is a complex topic.Newsday https://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/transgender-rights-glaad-i0un1yec
Young, Cathy (June 21, 2022). Transgender rights require a more civil debate.Newsday https://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/transgender-rights-athletes-lia-thomas-swimming-i0un1yec
Sabine Hossenfelder was born September 18, 1976 in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany. Hossenfelder attended Goethe University Frankfurt, earning an undergraduate degree in mathematics in 1997 and a doctorate in physics in 2004. Hossenfelder has researched and taught at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, University of Arizona, University of California, the Perimeter Institute, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Sweden, and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.
Hossenfelder began working as a popular science writer in 2006. Hossenfelder’s first Youtube video was in 2011.
Hossenfelder married Stefan Scherer in 2006. They have twins born in 2010.
Views on trans and gender diverse people
Hossenfelder views trans youth as a scientific debate rather than a debate about science and its historic misuses.
Hossenfelder uncritically uses many disease models created by behavior scientists to describe sex and gender minorities. Diseases were once widely accepted among scientists to describe gay and lesbian people, until they were forced to stop by activists. It is still socially acceptable among people like Hossenfelder to describe trans, intersex, and gender diverse people using disorders, diseases, and metaphors of impairment and disability.
Among the contested diseases and terms Hossenfelder uses are:
comorbidities: trans people have other mental disorders
gender affirming care
“trapped in the wrong body”
“cutting off parts of the anatomy”
“some people are making a lot of money with this”
discusses puberty blockers risks, no discussion of benefits
“there are at present no high-quality studies that conclusively demonstrate these treatments are beneficial”
the shift in gender ratio among trans youth
“we don’t understand the long-term consequences”
YouTube
Videos include clickbait “just asking questions” titles:
“Trans athletes in women’s sports: Is this fair?” (2022)
This video looks at the field of sex science the way others use sports to make claims about race science. It does at least step back and take a big-picture look. Hossenfelder and I both believe that there is no long-term future for sex-segregated competitive sports.
“Is being trans a social fad among teenagers?” (2023)
This video is too caught up in a lot of unscientific assumptions about trans people being disordered and diseased.
Lionel Shriver is an American writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Shriver was born on May 18, 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina. Shriver is a self-described tomboy who grew up with an older and a younger sibling. Shriver took social transition steps as a minor, including a name change at 15. Shriver earned a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and a master’s degree from Columbia University. Shriver has written eight novels and has been a columnist.
Anti-trans activism
Shriver frequently logrolls for other anti-trans activists and appears on conservative media outlets:
“Western media has moved on to an enthrallment with transgenderism bizarrely out of proportion to the statistical rarity of true gender dysphoria—though children and people generally being so suggestible, the condition will doubtless grow more common.”
Shriver praised trans eliminationist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: “Reasonable, methodical, sane, and utterly unintimidated by extremist orthodoxy, Trans is a riveting read.”
Via Washington Post:
Writing about transgender people either sends her down slippery-slope thinking — “We seem to be entering an era in which everything about ourselves that we don’t like is subject to revision” — or infantile cracks about pronouns and LGBTQ+ culture. (“A three-year-old bashing the keyboard would produce a more functional shorthand.”)
From a Times profile:
Shriver is “mystified” by the way in which the transgender debate has become so fraught, with death threats to writers and MPs. “The transgender thing just seems to make people completely crazy,” she says. “I just don’t think that what sex you are is that important. My sense of myself is not crucially female.”
As a teenager Shriver changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she was determined not to be eclipsed by her elder brother. “Women are supposed to be soft and nurturing and pliable and driven to please and looking out for others. Men are strong and determined, and goal driven and powerful. If you look at the stereotypes, anyone with any self-respect would want to be a man. I reject the stereotypes . . . I’m all for chucking them and one of my biggest problems with the transgender movement is it’s all about nailing them down.”
Meghan Emily Murphy was born November 30, 1978 and grew up in Vancouver. Murphy’s family was reportedly “not just left, but most left.” Murphy’s parents were a Marxist labour activist who served as a shop steward at Canada Post and a feminist who worked in arts administration. Murphy has a sibling.
Murphy said, “I have left the left because I don’t wish to be part of a cult.”
Rejecting femininity was fine, except that it developed into a disdain for “wives” and “mothers” who had predictively and passively capitulated to the patriarchy, choosing mundane lives for reasons I could not possibly imagine.
Murphy says this rightward political trajectory felt like being excommunicated:
The left disavowed me long ago for insisting that pornography and prostitution was not an empowering choice sexually liberated women make for fun and wealth, then again for understanding that penises are male and girls who cut their hair short and replace pink frilly dresses with bowler hats and mismatched high top converse are not “non-binary” or “trans” or “boys,” but simply little girls who don’t want to play by old-fashioned rules.
Murphy, Meghan (September 7, 2016). Are we women or are we menstruators?Feminist Current https://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/09/07/are-we-women-or-are-we-menstruators/ [archive]
Hadley Freeman is an American-British journalist best known for manipulating notable authors into making statements about trans issues that they later must disavow. Freeman’s interviews with Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume both required the authors to issue statements.
Background
Hadley Clare Freeman was born May 15, 1978 in New York City. As an adolescent, Freeman was hospitalized several times for self-imposed food restrictions. Freeman read English literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford.
Freeman wrote for The Guardian starting in 2000 and is a contributor of anti-trans publication UnHerd.
Freeman and sports writer Andy Bull have three children.
Mayes, Ian (14 February 2004). A change, of course. The Guardian.https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/14/pressandpublishing.comment
Minou, C. L. (1 February 2010). Julie Bindel’s dangerous transphobia. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/01/julie-bindel-transphobia
Ardehali, Rod (14 October 2015). ‘Stepford student’ culture threatening free speech. The Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/11930441/Stepford-student-culture-threatening-free-speech.html
The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian publication with consistently anti-transgender coverage.
Background
The Post Millennial was founded in 2017 by Matthew Azrieli and Ali Taghva. In May 2022, The Post Millennial was acquired by Human Events Media Group, which also owns Human Events, an American conservative news website.