Debbie Hayton is a conservative transgender British educator and critic of mainstream transgender activism. Hayton gets money and attention by siding with those opposed to rights for sex and gender minorities.
Hayton’s work frequently appears in anti-transgender publications, most notably UnHerd and The Spectator. Hayton’s views have also appeared in Daily Express, Global Research, The Critic Magazine, Fox News, TalkTV, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Guardian.
Background
Deborah “Debbie” Hayton was born April 23, 1968. Hayton grew up in Consett in North East England. After graduating Blackfyne Comprehensive School in 1986, Hayton entered Newcastle University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1989 and a doctorate in 1992. Hayton worked in research until 1995, then began a career as a physics teacher. Hayton taught at Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham from 1996 to 2002, then at King Henry VIII School in Coventry from 2002 to 2022. Beginning in 2016 Hayton began offering classroom timetable support and began freelance writing.
Hayton is based in Bristol, is married to Stephanie, and has three children. Hayton transitioned in 2012.
Activism and trolling
Hayton’s writing is a mix of first-person stories and gender critical views on several trans topics:
Hayton authored a letter supporting transphobic author Kathleen Stock. The letter was signed by like-minded gender critical trans people: Tina Daniels, Lily Geidelberg, Sophie Gibbons, Kristina Harrison, Seven Hex, Jennifer Kenyon, Claudia McLean, Sarah McDonnell, Fionne Orlander, Nyah Putzo, Toni Roche-Simmons, Katie Sangwell, Gillian Simpson, Sian Taylder, and Miranda Yardley.
Hayton appeared in the 2018 anti-trans propaganda piece Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk hosted by Stella O’Malley.
Hayton enjoys trolling and mocking the trans community members who hold differing views. Hayton is known for wearing a T-shirt that says “Trans women are men. Get over it.”
References
Hellen, Nicholas (December 22 2019). Trans woman Debbie Hayton faces ban for transphobia. The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-woman-debbie-hayton-faces-ban-for-transphobia-96tfkl5gc
Hayton, Debbie (May 9, 2022). My autogynephilia story. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/05/the-truth-about-autogynephilia/
Stanford, Peter (October 16, 2021). The trans women who support women’s rights. The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/16/meet-trans-women-agree-publicly-question-gender-self-identification/
Resources
Debbie Hayton (debbiehayton.com)
Timetable Support (timetablesupport.uk)
Facebook (facebook.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Muck Rack (muckrack.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
UnHerd (unherd.com)
Kathleen Kingsbury is an American editor responsible for the surge in anti-transgender opinion pieces in the New York Times during the 2020s. Kingsbury is also responsible for giving columns and space to staunch anti-trans activists like David French and Pamela Paul.
No transgender journalist has appeared on the New York Times masthead since its founding in 1851. In 2023 the San Francisco Chronicle cited a Times employee who said the organization has no trans reporters.
Background
Kathleen “Katie” Kingsbury was born in 1979 and grew up in Portland, Oregon. Kingsbury earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2001.
Kingsbury was a reporter at Metro Boston for a year, then a research assistant at Tufts University for a year. Kingsbury earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 2004. In 2004 Kingsbury worked at CNN and Time before working as a stringer for a year at BusinessWeek.
From 2009-2010, Kingsbury was a contributing writer at The Daily Beast, then served as a program officer at Open Society Foundations for a year. From 2009 to 2014 Kingsbury wrote for Reuters and Time. Kingsbury joined the editorial team at the Boston Globe, moving into management roles from 2013 to 2017. Kingsbury joined the New York Times editorial page team in 2017 and was promoted to Editorial Page Editor in 2020.
Criticism by journalism watchdog FAIR
Opinion page editor Kathleen Kingsbury (4/26/21) once wrote of the Times Opinion team, “We have our thumb on our scale in the name of progress, fairness and shared humanity.” In this political moment, when control over trans lives has become an increasingly central political and legal debate, and with no trans writers among their stable of columnists or contributing writers, the Paper of Record is paying a cisgender white woman to regularly voice anti-trans arguments. Their thumb is on the scale, all right—but not in the way Kingsbury would like us to believe.
Hollar (2022)
2023 response to over 1,000 trans-supportive colleagues
On February 15, 2023, over 1,000 New York Times contributors signed an open letter objecting to the Times’ increasingly hostile coverage of transgender issues.
On the same day, GLAAD delivered a second letter and organized a protest in front of Times headquarters.
Kingsbury chose to publish a piece by anti-trans activist Pamela Paul defending anti-trans activist J.K. Rowling the very next day.
The next day, Executive Editor Joe Kahn and Kingsbury warned their colleagues they were violating company policy. Their warning conflates the two letters and dismisses the ethical concerns of their colleagues as “advocacy.”
Colleagues,
Yesterday, the New York Times received a letter delivered by GLAAD, an advocacy group, criticizing coverage in The Times of transgender issues.
It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to seek to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of our staff and contributors to The Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name.
Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy. That policy prohibits our journalists from aligning themselves with advocacy groups and joining protest actions on matters of public policy. We also have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another’s journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks.
Our coverage of transgender issues, including specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written. The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats. The letter also ignores The Times’ strong commitment to covering all aspects of transgender issues, including the life experience of transgender people and the prejudice and violence against them in our society. A full list of our coverage can be viewed here, and any review shows that the allegations this group is making are demonstrably false.
We realize these are difficult issues that profoundly affect many colleagues personally, including some colleagues who are themselves transgender. We have welcomed and will continue to invite discussion, criticism and robust debate about our coverage. Even when we don’t agree, constructive criticism from colleagues who care, delivered respectfully and through the right channels, strengthens our report.
We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.
We live in an era when journalists regularly come under fire for doing solid and essential work. We are committed to protecting and supporting them. Their work distinguishes this institution, and makes us proud.
Joe & Katie
2024 piece justifying another Pamela Paul article
In defending Paul, Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the disproportionate number of anti-trans articles the section publishes by citing three articles that are purportedly not anti-trans:
Given the state legislative fights over trans Americans and their civil liberties and access to medical and psychological care, we have published many columns and guest essays from health professionals and activists on issues affecting trans people, as well as a focus group last year hearing from trans Americans about their lives.
Kingsbury (2024)
Since the ex-trans movement is a single-digit minority, Kingsbury’s next 90+ greenlit articles should be on gender diverse youth who have benefited from the care that is the current US medical consensus.
References
Ho, Soliel (August 31, 2023). Inside the New York Times’ trans coverage: ‘I wonder if people at the top fully believe in trans people’s humanity’ San Francisco Chronicle https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/new-york-times-trans-18214925.php
Hollar, Julie (December 16, 2022). Pamela Paul’s Gender Agenda. FAIR https://fair.org/home/pamela-pauls-gender-agenda/
Reilly, Patrick (February 15, 2023). New York Times accused of ‘editorial bias’ in coverage of transgender issues. New York Post https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/new-york-times-blasted-for-editorial-bias-in-transgender-coverage/
Bolies, Corbin (March 7, 2023). The New York Times’ Trans Coverage Debacle Was Years in the Making. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-new-york-times-trans-coverage-debacle-was-years-in-the-making
Bolies, Corbin; Cartwright, Lachlan (February 16, 2023). New York Times blasts staffers who condemned paper’s trans coverage. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-blast-staffers-who-condemned-papers-trans-coverage
Eckert, AJ. What the New York Times gets wrong about puberty blockers for transgender youth. Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-new-york-times-gets-wrong-about-puberty-blockers-for-transgender-youth/
USPATH and WPATH respond to NY Times article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost? published on November 14, 2022 (PDF). https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/USPATHWPATH%20Statement%20re%20Nov%2014%202022%20NYT%20Article%20Nov%2022%202022.pdf
Urquhart, Evan (November 17, 2022). The NYT’s big piece on puberty blockers mucked up the most important point about them. Slate https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/puberty-blockers-side-effects-controversy.html
Oladipo, Gloria (February 18, 2023). Nearly 1,000 contributors protest New York Times’ coverage of trans people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage
Migdon, Brooke (February 15, 2023). NYT contributors blast paper’s coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3859501-nyt-contributors-blast-papers-coverage-of-transgender-people/
Yurcaba, Jo (February 16, 2023). N.Y. Times contributors and LGBTQ advocates send open letters criticizing paper’s trans coverage. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ny-contributors-lgbtq-advocates-send-open-letters-criticizing-papers-t-rcna70800
Paul, Larisha (February 15, 2023). Gabrielle Union, Tommy Dorfman, more accuse NYT of ‘Harmful’ coverage of trans people. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/new-york-times-coverage-of-trans-people-open-letter-1234680299/
Kalish, Lil. These New York Times contributors say the paper’s coverage of gender issues is hurting trans people. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lilkalish/trans-writers-open-letter-nyt-biased-coverage
Hays, Gabriel (February 15, 2023). Celebs rip into New York Times for ‘irresponsible’ transgender coverage: Demand end to ‘both sides’ focus. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/media/celebs-rip-new-york-times-irresponsible-transgender-coverage-demand-end-both-sides-focus
Dunlap, David W. (June 19, 2017). How The Times gave ‘gay’ its own voice (again). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
Klein, Charlotte (February 15, 2023). Nearly 200 New York Times contributors are denouncing the paper’s anti-trans coverage. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage
Davies, Rachel (February 16, 2023). The NYT knew what it was doing with its ‘Defense of J.K. Rowling’. The Mary Sue. https://www.themarysue.com/the-nyt-knew-what-it-was-doing-with-its-defense-of-j-k-rowling/
Warrington, James (February 16, 2023). How the New York Times was engulfed by a trans culture war. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/15/new-york-times-accused-writers-anti-trans-bigotry/
Mastrangelo, Dominick (February 16, 2023). NYT editors: Paper ‘will not tolerate’ its journalists protesting coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/3862101-nyt-editors-paper-will-not-tolerate-its-journalists-protesting-coverage-of-transgender-people/amp/
Resources
NYT Contributors’ Letter (nytletter.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
New York Times Company (nytco.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Jesse Singal is an American podcaster, cultural critic, and anti-transgender activist. Singal launders anti-transgender extremism into mainstream media and is a prominent figure in America’s transphobic moral panic.
See this biography for background. After initially working at progressive publications, Singal found success criticizing progressive public policy, media, and medicine. Singal then began getting even more money and attention by attacking transgender people, especially gender diverse youth.
Singal’s activism against the trans rights movement centers on several anti-transgender tactics:
Singal seeks to influence healthcare decisions about our minors with the same rhetoric and tactics used by activists who seek to restrict reproductive healthcare options like contraception and abortion. Singal attempts to disrupt conversations between healthcare providers and the families they serve by demanding more gatekeeping.
Singal focuses on childhood “desistance” and adult “detransition,” two disputed conceptualizations of people whose gender identity or expression shifts over time. These cure narratives and regret narratives are collectively known as the ex-trans movement. These narratives are vastly over-represented in media coverage of trans issues, but Singal’s coverage often suggests to credulous audiences that these narratives don’t get represented enough.
Singal frequently gets money and attention by exploiting anxiety about trans and gender diverse minors, which gets framed as “concern.” Singal then gets more money and attention by implying that opponents and critics are incompetent, dishonest, or even dangerous. Biologist Julia Serano has described this as the “Dregerian narrative,” named after Singal’s role model, anti-transgender historian Alice Dreger.
Singal has gained a reputation for “sealioning,” or persistent and aggressive challenges to criticism. Singal typically focuses on a critic’s minor error, omission, or word choice and uses that detail to derail the larger points made about Singal’s work. Singal uncritically promotes any supporters, defending these ideological allies by challenging their critics with the same persistent and aggressive tactics.
Singal’s tactics have been especially harmful to trans journalists, writers, cultural critics, and experts. Through immense privilege and nepotistic connections, Singal has access to opportunities and backchannel conversations where trans people are often excluded. Singal holds forth in these trans-exclusionary spaces as an expert on “tricky science stuff,” while implying that trans people cannot competenetly discuss trans issues. Singal claims to be an edgy iconoclast willing to speak up against “activists,” which Singal uses as a thought-terminating pejorative against any trans critic.
Bad-faith cultural critics often become part of the story they attempt to cover. In The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, journalist Imara Jones outlined Singal’s historically significant role in attacks on hundreds of thousands of trans and gender diverse children. Singal is the inspiration for this site’s decade-long Transphobia Project. That project seeks to show that there are many ethical journalists, public intellectuals, cultural critics, and other creators of knowledge and culture who are capable of addressing controversial gender issues in fair and value-neutral ways.
Singal is a compulsive X/Twitter user who self-published over 125,000 posts, an average of about 35 posts a day for ten years. Singal’s reputation for online histrionics and causing harm to the trans community grew, and Singal soon began exploring other self-publishing options. In November 2017, Singal started a Medium account that mostly addressed topics related to trans people and to Twitter. In January 2019, Singal started a Substack newsletter titled Singal-Minded. In March 2020 Singal began a lucrative “drama” podcast called Blocked and Reported with anti-transgender troll Katie Herzog. These platforms generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue each year and allow Singal to continue this pattern of behavior without any editorial oversight or accountability.
In 2024, Singal joined Bluesky and quickly became the most blocked user in this history of the platform due to anti-trans trolling. Users made several efforts to get Singal banned from the platform.
Anti-trans activists like Jesse Singal are an enormous resource drain for a persecuted minority like the trans community. Singal is a once-in-a-generation problem for our children. We owe it to them to focus our limited resources on minimizing the profound harm Singal is causing. It is literally Singal’s business to derail the trans rights movement, and business is booming.
This information will be significantly expanded over the next decade. In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
In this section
Paul Thomas is a government employee and co-founder of The Leeds Salon. Thomas has complained in UnHerd about “the collaboration between the unions and management” regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the University and College Union’s “disgraceful lack of support for Kathleen Stock.”
References
Thomas, Paul (October 15, 2021). How my union betrayed me: Shop stewards are collaborating over unconscious bias training. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/10/how-my-union-betrayed-me/
Resources
X/Twitter (x.com)
The Leeds Salon (https://www.leedssalon.org.uk)
Paul Embery is a British firefighter and union leader who has made several anti-transgender comments.
Background
Embery was born and raised in Dagenham. Embery served as a firefighter in London. Embery won a case after being dismissed from his union for supporting Brexit. In 2020, Embery published Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class..
Anti-transgender activism
Embery’s central thesis is that the Labour Party has abandoned workers in favor of “trans rights” and other social issues:
It has over recent years become blindingly apparent that only a handful in the party ever venture to discuss these sorts of macroeconomic questions. Matters of employment, growth and prosperity can jolly well take their place behind the campaign for trans rights and Palestine in the queue of priorities.
As it happens, the publication of the report coincided with the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. You can guess which took precedence on the Twitter feeds of Labour MPs during those 24 hours.
Embery has made a number of anti-trans statements.
In 2017 Embery wrote on Twitter, “There’s something Orwellian about allowing someone to insert a lie on their birth certificate & forcing society to accept the lie as truth.”
Embery added, “Coming next: short people may identify as tall, fat people may identify as thin, and ugly people may pretend to be George Clooney.”
In 2022 Embery quoted a Spiked article titled “Eddie Izzard was born male and he will die male,” then said, “Pretty much sums it up.”
In 2023, Embery denied the UK’s relentless attacks on trans people, writing, “There is no “war” on trans people. There is simply resistance to increasingly strident and unscientific demands.”
References
Jackman, Josh (July 27, 2017). Union refuses to condemn high-ranking official for transphobic remarks. PinkNews https://www.thepinknews.com/2017/07/27/union-refuses-to-condemn-high-ranking-official-for-transphobic-remarks/
Embery, Paul (May 26, 2020). Whose side is Labour on? UnHerd https://unherd.com/2020/05/whose-side-is-labour-on/
Resources
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Muck Rack (muckrack.com)
X/Twitter (x.com)
UnHerd (https://unherd.com/)
Andrew Doyle is a writer and anti-transgender activist who created the Titania McGrath character, a satire of social justice warriors.
Background
Doyle was born in Derry, Northern Ireland and grew up Catholic. Doyle cearned a bachelor’s degree at Aberystwyth University, a master’s degree at University of York, and a doctorate from University of Oxford.
Doyle co-wrote satiric news reporter Jonathan Pie and has published two books as Titania McGrath: Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019) and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020).
Doyle joined GB News in 2021 as host of Free Speech Nation.
Anti-trans activism
UnHerd published an overview of Doyle’s anti-transgender views, which center on the “gay erasure” conspiracy theory that claims trans people are a plot to eliminate gay people like Doyle:
certain Left-leaning activists are doing their utmost to advance a social constructionist view of both sex and gender. The result has been a curious theoretical alliance between gender ideologues — for whom outmoded stereotypes are taken to signify an authentic self — and traditionalists who similarly feel that male and female behaviour ought to be strictly defined.
[…]
In her new book Time to Think, Hannah Barnes has revealed that between 80-90% of adolescents who were referred to the Tavistock paediatric gender clinic were same-sex attracted. Other writers, such as Helen Joyce, have already drawn on studies that confirm a strong correlation between gender non-conformity in youth and homosexuality in adult life. Members of the staff at the Tavistock itself joked that soon “there would be no gay people left” and whistle-blowers revealed that homophobia was endemic.
[…]
It is significant that activists who insist that stereotypes of male and female behaviour are suggestive of an innate “gender identity” should also seek to deny the reality of sexual dimorphism. The view that sex is a “spectrum” has even infiltrated major academic literature, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
References
Doyle, Andrew (March 24, 2022). Have we reached peak trans? UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/03/have-we-reached-peak-trans/
Doyle, Andrew (February 19, 2023). JK Rowling is NOT a transphobe, says Andrew Doyle. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sPytU-qgq8
Doyle, Andrew (January 29, 2023). Nicola Sturgeon ‘not being honest’ over transgender bill, Andrew Doyle says. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxTy5ZXMN1U
Doyle, Andrew (March 20, 2022). Andrew Doyle on trans debate: If murderers get upset about being misgendered my sympathy is limited. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW5TuawAjig
Doyle, Andrew (March 1, 2023). The gender wars started in 1531. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2023/03/the-gender-wars-started-in-1531/
Resources
Andrew Doyle (andrewdoyle.co.uk)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
X/Twitter (x.com)
Sarah Ditum is an English “mommy blogger,” opinion columnist, sex segregationist, and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Sarah Ruth Webster Ditum is a freelance writer and production editor based in Bath. Ditum contributes to UnHerd and other anti-trans publications.
As a teen, Ditum learned to identify with metaphors of disease and impairment, pretending to be ill to avoid school. After first year at university, Ditum transferred to be near a romantic partner and almost immediately got pregnant: “Whatever had made its home in my belly had made me a mother, and I would have to catch up with that. Even as the person who made that decision, I find it hard to reconcile the ambition I had at 20 with the will to throw my lot in with maternity.”
Ditum completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees, then dropped out of a doctoral program after getting pregnant again.
Ditum started self-publishing a “mommy blog” called Paperhouse. Early gigs were for Venue magazine, Yarn Forward, and Official PlayStation Magazine.
Ditum married Nathan Mark Ditum (born 1981). Ditum changed surnames because “there was already a Sarah Webster working as a writer.” They have two children, Maddy and Jay. Ditum is involved in the knitting community.
In 2023 Ditum incorporated Burn Book Ltd in the UK.
Anti-transgender activism
Ditum has been criticized for views on transgender issues.
Ditum got press for a 2018 Genderquake panel with Germaine Greer, Munroe Bergdorf and Caitlyn Jenner.
In 2019, Ditum criticized all-gender bathrooms at The Old Vic. The Stage later removed the piece following backlash.
Ditum is an “autogynephilia” activist, in the same way that some people believe in “nymphomania” as a legitimate disease.
References
Ditum, Sarah (May 16, 2016). What is gender, anyway? New Statesman
Ditum, Sarah (March 10, 2022). The taboo trans question. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/03/the-taboo-trans-question/
Ditum, Sarah (July 6, 2021). Who loses when trans women win? https://unherd.com/2021/07/who-loses-when-trans-women-win/
Ditum, Sarah (July 6, 2021). Why I had a baby at university. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/06/lessons-of-a-student-mother/
Ditum, Sarah (February 14, 2023). The tragedy of becoming a woman. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2023/02/the-tragedy-of-becoming-a-woman/
Ditum, Sarah (June 17, 2020). How the Left betrayed feminism. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2020/06/how-the-left-betrayed-feminism/
Valentine, Vic (July 12, 2018). Trans-inclusive feminist voices are being ignored. The Economist https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/12/trans-inclusive-feminist-voices-are-being-ignored
https://yogscast.fandom.com/wiki/Nathan_Ditum
Al-Kadhi, Amrou (May 9, 2018). Opinion: The Genderquake debate did more harm than good for transgender people and for feminists. The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/genderquake-channel-4-debate-genderqueer-transgender-caitlin-jenner-munroe-bergdorg-sarah-ditum-germaine-greer-a8342771.html
Glass, Jess (May 10, 2018). Exclusive: Genderquake audience were allegedly ‘encouraged to heckle’ trans panellists. PinkNews https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/05/10/genderquake-debate-heckling-transphobia-munroe-bergdorf-caitlyn-jenner/
https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/17156155.a-level-students-make-plans-for-the-future/
Tobitt, Charlotte (October 7, 2019). The Stage accused of ‘cowardice’ after removing comment articles on theatre’s gender-neutral toilets. Press Gazette https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/the-stage-accused-of-cowardice-after-removing-comment-articles-on-theatres-gender-neutral-toilets/
Parsons, Vic (April 3, 2020). Neo-Nazis and homophobes are among the supporters of the ‘anti-trans’ group LGB Alliance. PinkNews https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/04/03/lgb-alliance-neo-nazi-homophobia-spinster-death-head-charity-commission/
Resources
Sarah Ditum / Paperhouse (sarahditum.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
X/Twitter (x.com)
Substack (substack.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
UnHerd (unherd.com)
The Guardian (theguardian.com)
Ravelry (ravelry.com)
WordPress (wordpress.com)
Jess de Wahls is an East German-born artist and anti-transgender activist based in London.
Background
Jess de Wahls was born in 1983 and grew up in East Berlin and moved to the UK in 2004. de Wahls’ medium is embroidery.
According to de Wahls, one parent crossdresses: “My father doesn’t do labels other than sometimes jokingly calling himself a paradise bird.”
Anti-transgender activism
in 2019, de Wahls published a long statement accompanying an embroidered artwork. In it, de Wahls revealed bring deeply involved in anti-transgender activism.
In 2021 de Wahls became a cause célèbre for anti-transgender activists when the Royal Academy pulled de Wahls’ work from their gift shop after complaints about de Wahls’ transphobia. They later apologized.
de Wahls has gone on to write for anti-transgender publications, including UnHerd and The Spectator.
References
de Wahls, Jess (August 5, 2019). Somewhere over the Rainbow, something went terribly wrong… https://www.jessdewahls.com/blog/2019/8/5/somewhere-over-the-rainbow-something-went-terribly-wrong
Perry, Louise (29 June 2021). “The Jess De Wahls debacle shows you can only really be cancelled by your friends”. New Statesman. London. Archived
RA (23 June 2021). “Media Statement from the Royal Academy of Arts” (PDF). Royal Academy of Arts. Archived
Whitworth, Damian (22 June 2021). “Jess de Wahls: Death wishes and fear after the Royal Academy cancelled me”. The Times UK. Archived
de Walhls, Jess (December 31, 2021). The heretics will not be silenced. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/12/the-heretics-will-not-be-silenced/
de Walhls, Jess (June 15, 2022). How the RA uncancelled me. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/06/how-the-royal-academy-uncancelled-me/
Resources
Jess de Wahls (jessdewahls.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Instagram (instagram.com)
X/Twitter (x.com)
Tom Chivers is a British science writer and anti-transgender activist. Chivers was the science editor at UnHerd when they published numerous unscientific articles about sex, gender, and biology. Chivers and podcast co-host Stuart Ritchie frequently logroll for anti-trans activist Jesse Singal.
Note: for the British poet and archaeologist born in 1983, see thisisyogic.com
Background
Thomas “Tom” Chivers began writing for the Telegraph in 2007. Chivers was science editor at UnHerd from 2018 to 2022, then became the science writer at the i newspaper.
Chivers has written for the Times, the Telegraph, the Observer, the Guardian, politics.co.uk, New Scientist, CNN, Wired, Smithsonian Air & Space, BuzzFeed UK.
Chivers is author of The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy (2019), How to Read Numbers (2021), and Everything is Predictable (2024).
Anti-trans activism
Setting aside some questionable pieces on “Thai transvestites” and what-not, Chivers’ first salvo in anti-transgender activism was a 2014 piece using Laverne Cox to assert that trans women are not women. Chivers then characterizes biologists who use value-neutral terms and conceptualizations as engaging in “science denial.” Chivers defends the term “biological sex ” and supports anti-transgender reparative therapy.
Chivers is situated within the right-wing media landscape in the UK:
The UK has an increasing number of small but influential online-only media, in addition to the websites, apps and podcasts of many of the titles listed above. On the political right, sites like Conservative Home, Spiked, UnHerd, CapX, Reaction and The Spectator’s Coffee House blog are sources of right-wing opinion and debate but play relatively little role in breaking news stories.
CMDS (2021)
In 2024, Chivers promoted the anti-trans Cass Review on The Studies Show.
References
Chivers, Tom; Ritchie, Stuart (April 23, 2024). Paid-only Episode 7: Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review. The Studies Show https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/paid-only-episode-7-youth-gender
Chivers, Tom (December 7, 2021). Trans counselling is not conversion therapy. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/12/trans-counselling-is-not-conversion-therapy/
Center for Media, Data and Society (November 2021). Media Influence Matrix: United Kingdom. https://cmds.ceu.edu/sites/cmcs.ceu.hu/files/attachment/basicpage/1923/mimukfinalreport_0.pdf
Chivers, Tom (December 10, 2019). Of course biological sex exists. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2019/12/yes-of-course-biological-sex-exists/
Chivers, Tom (December 10, 2019). The Left’s science denial. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/09/the-lefts-science-denial/
Chivers, Tom (April 2, 2015). 25 Quite Unexpected Facts About Sex. Buzzfeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/facts-about-sex
Chivers, Tommy (June 1, 2014). Whether or not Laverne Cox is a woman is not a question of biology; it’s a question of language. https://tommychivers.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/whether-or-not-laverne-cox-is-a-woman-is-not-a-question-of-biology-its-a-question-of-language/
Tom Chivers (June 1, 2008). Thai transvestites compete in Miss Tiffany Universe. The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2061631/Thai-transvestites-compete-in-Miss-Tiffany-Universe.html
Resources
Tom Chivers (tomchivers.com)
WordPress (wordpress.com)
X/Twitter (x.com)
i news (inews.co.uk)
Substack (substack.com)
Julie Burchill is a writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Julie Burchill was born on July 3, 1959 in Bristol. After graduating Brislington Comprehensive School, she began writing for New Musical Express in 1976. Her future husband Tony Parsons took an interest in the 17-year-old. They soon married, and she then started freelancing as a culture writer. They divorced in 1984.
She did a lot of drugs and wrote a lot of obnoxious things through the 1980s. She married Cosmo Landesman in 1985; that lasted 7 years. She co-founded Modern Review and had a brief affair with Charlotte Raven in the 1990s. She also lost a big libel case and several writing gigs. From 1998 to 2003 she had a weekly column at The Guardian, where she wrote anti-Irish pieces and supported the invasion of Iraq. She made Channel 4’s 2003 poll of 100 Worst Britons. She continued to fail upward, landing a gig at The Times until she was fired in 2007, returning to the Guardian, then a gig at The Independent for 18 months.
Anti-transgender activism
In 2013, Burchill wrote an article for The Observer defending a transphobic piece by Suzanne Moore. Burchill quipped it showed “chutzpah” to have one’s “cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women.”
Burchill has since gone on to write many other anti-trans pieces.
References
Burchill, Julie (13 January 2013). “Transsexuals should cut it out”. The Observer.
^ Kaveney, Roz (13 January 2013). “Julie Burchill has ended up bullying the trans community”. The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2013.
^ Pearce, Ruth. “Transphobia in The Guardian: no excuse for hate speech”. Lesbilicious. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2013.
Philipson, Alice (13 January 2013). “Lynne Featherstone calls for Observer’s Julie Burchill to be sacked following ‘disgusting rant’ against transsexuals”. The Telegraph. London. Archived
Stephen Pritchard “Julie Burchill and the Observer, The readers’ editor on why the paper was wrong to publish slurs against trans people” The Guardian, 18 January 2013Archived
Burchill, Julie (19 April 2018) I knew I was right… The Spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-knew-i-was-right/
Tatlock, John (January 14, 2013). “Nasty Idiotic Tripe”: Stand Against Julie Burchill’s Years Of Transphobia. The Quietus https://thequietus.com/articles/11108-julie-burchill-suzanne-moore-transphobia
Bindel, Julie (March 19, 2018). Why you can’t rely on the news media to understand… trans issues. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2018/03/cant-rely-news-media-understand-trans-issues/
Burchill, Julie (October 12, 2022). What incels and trans activists have in common. Spiked https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/12/what-incels-and-trans-activists-have-in-common/
Resources
Substack (substack.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
X/Twitter (x.com)
