Their journalism is considered center to center-right, and the editorial page is considered right-wing/conservative. The opinion section frequently promotes and platforms major anti-trans voices, including Gerald Posner, J. Michael Bailey, Abigail Shrier, Leor Sapir, and Colin Wright.
Contributors
In 2023, the WSJ significantly increased its anti-transgender coverage.
Leor Sapir and Colin Wright wrote a piece attacking academic publisher Springer after it retracted an unethical paper by J. Michael Bailey in 2023. The previous year, Wright had invoked the “tomboy erasure” conspiracy theory that claims gender diverse cisgender children are being forced to transition as a form of anti-LGB conversion therapy.
Abigail Shrier was allowed to complain about “The Transgender War on Women.”
Joe Barrett covered state recognition of trans identity documents. Jathon Sapsford and Stephanie Armour quoted anti-trans activist Leor Sapir, and Republican politicians Dan Crenshaw and Chris Christie, with rebuttal by Democrat Frank Pallone Jr. Stephanie Armour also covered Medicaid coverage of trans health services.
Laura Kusisto and Louise Radnofsky covered sex-segregated competitive sports. Ben Chapman and Laine Higgins also covered this.
Mariah Timms covered anti-trans developments in Missouri under AG Andrew Bailey.
Lindsay Wise, Simon J. Levien, and Isaac Yu covered Republican attempts to control the reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy of others.
Elizabeth Findell, Adolfo Flores and Peter Champelli covered the Texas ban on trans healthcare.
Mariah Timms and Laura Kusisto covered Tennessee’s ban on trans healthcare for minors.
Talal Ansari covered Zooey Zephyr’s removal from the Montana House floor.
The editorial board opined about “Transgender Patients vs. Religious Doctors: The Franciscan Alliance might be the new Little Sisters of the Poor.”
2023 Endocrine Society attacks
After Roy Eappen and Ian Kingsbury of anti-trans group Do No Harm attacked the Endocrine Society, President Stephen R. Hammes responded with an outline of the medical consensus behind the Endocrine Society’s guidelines.
Hammes was then attacked by a group of anti-trans clinicians in a subsequent letter. The signatories are:
Clin. Prof. William Malone, M.D. Idaho College of Osteopathic MedicineDirector, Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine
Prof. Patrick K. Hunter, M.D. Florida State UniversityPediatrician and bioethicist
Hammes was also criticized by a group of parents that included Kathleen Dooley.
References
Conservative signatories (July 14, 2023). Youth Gender Transition Is Pushed Without Evidence.Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/trans-gender-affirming-care-transition-hormone-surgery-evidence-c1961e27
The American Spectator is a conservative American media organization that publishes consistently anti-transgender articles.
For the British newsmagazine that publishes a US version, see The Spectator.
Background
The American Spectator was founded in 1967 by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., who remains its editor-in-chief, with Wlady Pleszczynski its managing editor since 1980.
Contributors
The following authors have published anti-trans pieces.
Lou Aguilar
Elyse Apel
Bruce Bawer
Adam Carrington
Itxu Díaz
Daniel J. Flynn
Ellie Gardey
David Keltz
Libby Krieger
Melissa Mackenzie
Scott McKay
Mary Frances Myler
Evan Poellinger
Tom Raabe
Debra J. Saunders
Irit Tratt
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
References
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (ed.), Orthodoxy: The American Spectator’s 20th Anniversary Anthology, Harper & Row, 1987. ISBN0-06-015818-2
Michael G. Riley is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Under Riley’s editorship, academic trade publication The Chronicle of Higher Education favorably covered contributor Alice Dreger’s anti-trans activism on several occasions. This ethically questionable arrangement is part of the publication’s pattern of bias favoring academics in the academic exploitation of sex and gender minorities.
Background
Michael George “Mike” Riley was born on February 10, 1959. Riley earned a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University in 1981 and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 1985.
Riley’s first journalism job was at The Dispatch in Lexington, North Carolina. Riley was editor of The Roanoke Times, editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly, and editorial director of Bloomberg Government as well as senior correspondent and bureau chief for TIME magazine.
Riley lives in Arlington, Virginia with spouse Arline and their two children.
Riley was named president and editor in chief of The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2013.
Tom Bartlett is an American writer whose puff piece on Chronicle of Higher Education contributor Alice Dreger appeared in that same publication. This questionable ethical arrangement was apparently greenlit by editor Michael G. Riley.
In addition to helping sexologist J. Michael Bailey cover up the fabricated “Danny Ryan” case report that got Bailey tenure, Dreger is one of history’s foremost pathologizers of sex and gender minorities. Dreger is a key figure in promoting widely outlawed anti-transgender reparative “therapy” techniques developed by fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker. Dreger was named an inaugural member of the right-wing intellectual dark web for these anti-transgender views. Dreger later used connections at TheChronicle to renounce that association.
As is typical with biased reporters, Bartlett rarely reaches out to trans experts and academics for comment, choosing instead to frame any writing on trans issues within what biologist Julia Serano calls the Dregerian narrative.
Thomas Edwin Bartlett was born on July 20, 1974 and grew up in New Mexico. Bartlett earned a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in 1997 and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Bartlett lives in Austin with spouse Kellie Jo Maxwell Bartlett (born 1973), an artist who creates the Little Niddles and Happily comics and publishes a newsletter titled Pleasant Fluff.
Bartlett’s coverage of academic misconduct started with an article on sex allegations against Indiana State University professor Jerome August “Jerry” Cerny. Bartlett sought comment from J. Michael Bailey, who said, “There’s clearly a politically vocal group who think that sex should not be studied.”
Bartlett then covered Alice Dreger on several occasions, first with Dreger’s spin of ethics allegations against anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon. Bartlett then profiled Dreger as part of promotional press for Dreger’s 2015 book. Because Dreger’s self-promotion represents a sort of wish fulfillment for a certain type of academic or journalist, Dreger became a Chronicle contributor as well as a subject of their reporting. Dreger fell out of favor after requesting a retraction of a 2018 Chronicle article mocking the entire field of academic archivists. In the same way Dreger betrayed Bari Weiss and the intellectual dark web at the first sign of trouble, Dreger threw Chronicle editor Jenny Ruark under the bus when academics objected to Dreger’s attacks on archivists.
Reluctant Crusader: Why Alice Dreger’s writing on sex and science makes liberals so angry (2015)
[excerpt from Tom Bartlett’s article]
So how did Dreger, a person who ditched a tenured professorship to devote herself to full-time advocacy on behalf of those marginalized by the medical establishment, mutate into a torrent-unleashing hatemonger?
The short answer is J. Michael Bailey. Her support of his 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, embraced a disputed theory of transsexualism that divides male-to-female transsexuals more or less into two categories: those who identify as female and wish to attract men (women “trapped” in male bodies) and those who are sexually aroused by being perceived as female and wish to attract women as well as men. The latter, the theory goes, inhabit a category called autogynephilia, a term that is offensive to some transsexuals who see it as creating a division between “real” transsexuals and those who are merely turned on by the idea. “When they felt that Bailey was fundamentally threatening their selves and their social identities as women — well, it’s because he was,” Dreger writes. “That’s what talking openly about autogynephilia necessarily does.”
Dreger’s defense of Bailey — and of transgender women who see themselves as autogynephiles — put her in the cross hairs of those who believe that the theory Bailey helped popularize is bigoted junk science. For the record, Dreger did ding Bailey for insensitivity, including for using a photo on the cover of his book that depicts a man’s muscled legs in a pair of pumps. But she defended him initially on grounds of academic freedom, and has since become persuaded that he’s right on the science of autogynephilia. That was sufficient for some to deem her a transphobic right-winger.
The Bailey business was complicated by an accusation that he had slept with a research subject — though whether she was a research subject at the time and whether they actually slept together remain hazy. Dreger made an effort to pin down what happened, going so far as to examine emails sent on the night of their alleged congress and to contemplate whether it matters. The publication you’re reading now covered the hubbub back then, and it’s necessary to note that Dreger thought that the coverage missed the mark. Actually she hated those articles and thought they demonized Bailey, though I have to say, reading them now, I don’t see that. (Full disclosure: I’m friends with the reporter and think she’s extremely fair.)
Ancient quarreling aside, the overarching theme of the Bailey episode for Dreger was whether or not a scholar should be allowed to present evidence for a theory that some find profoundly threatening and deeply offensive. The critiques of Bailey often revolved around whether his book was “invalidating to transwomen” — which seemed like a separate question from whether the argument itself had any merit, a question that continues to be debated.
Glenn, David and Bartlett, Thomas (December 3, 2009). Rebuttal of Decade-Old Accusations Roils Anthropology Meeting Anew.Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/rebuttal-of-decade-old-accusations-against-researchers-roils-anthropology-meeting-anew/
Bartlett, Thomas (October 24, 2003). Did a University Let a Sex Researcher Go Too Far? Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/did-a-university-let-a-sex-researcher-go-too-far/
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Charlotte Allen is an American author and anti-transgender activist. A conservative Catholic, Allen has written articles critical of the transgender rights movement, including a puff piece on transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey for The Weekly Standard. Joseph Epstein from that publication had previously characterized Bailey as a “pimp” who arranges voyeuristic sex tours and demonstrations for people like Allen. Bailey earned Epstein’s opprobrium and Allen’s interest after arranging a live “fucksaw” demonstration for a since-cancelled human sexuality class.
Background
Charlotte Irene Low Allen was on born April 7, 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida. Allen’s parent Elmer Carlton Low (1907-2000) was born in New York City and practiced personal injury law there before moving to Pasadena in 1943. Low was president of the California Trial Lawyers Association and wrote two books and some opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times.
Allen’s spouse Donald Fraser Allen (born May 1, 1945) graduated from University of Toronto Faculty of Law and was a member of the California Bar from 1981 through 1997.
Charlotte Allen’s education and credentials:
Stanford University (B.A. 1965) classics and English
Harvard University (M.A. 1967)
University of Southern California (J.D. 1974)
State Bar of California (1974 through 1992)
Catholic University of America (Ph.D. 2011) medieval and Byzantine studies
Allen served as Law Editor for The Los Angeles Daily Journal from 1980 to 1985, then was appointed Senior Editor, Law at conservative publication Insight on the News at its founding in 1985. That publication closed in 2008. Allen has worked as a freelance writer for publications including:
Los Angeles Daily Journal
Insight on the News
Weekly Standard
Lingua Franca
Washington Post
Wall Street Journal
Atlantic Monthly
Commentary
New Republic
American Spectator
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
Washington Times
Insight
City Journal
Washington Monthly
First Things
Allen’s 2011 dissertation is titled Thirteenth-Century English Religious Lyrics, Religious Women, And the Cistercian Imagination. Allen is author of the 1998 book The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.
My 2015 letter to Allen’s editors
Dear Weekly Standard editorial team:
Charlotte Allen contacted me for a story profiling J. Michael Bailey, a controversial psychologist with whom she was recently socializing in Chicago. You may recall a 2011 piece about Bailey in your publication which characterizes him as a “pimp” who arranges voyeuristic sex tours and demonstrations for interested parties like Ms. Allen. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/lower-education_554092.html?page=1
For your records, I told Ms. Allen that understanding and reporting her story hinges on speaking directly with Danny Ryan, a child whose case report Bailey published in his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.
My condition for participating was that Ms. Allen speak with Danny Ryan directly. I fear that is not going to happen. I’m concerned she’s going to mischaracterize both the controversy and my involvement in it, given that her attached questions to me contain inaccurate interpretations of events.
I provided her the attached article explaining why both Bailey and his book have been widely condemned. Bailey had published an earlier version of his book without incident, and the 2003 response happened because:
1) it was fraudulently marketed as science by the National Academy of Sciences.
2) it became a cure narrative about gender-nonconforming children.
Bailey’s attacks on my children in his book were just part of his concurrent attacks on gender-nonconforming children, which also included “academic” presentations where he displayed videos and images of young children without their knowledge or consent in a manner that generated laughter from his audiences. Bailey also boasts that he can categorize these children sexually and can tell the kinds of sexual partners they will like. Ms. Allen seems focused on a long-deleted satire in which I showed how Bailey’s leering depictions and two-type sexualized categorization of my children would seem inexcusable if done to his own.
Bailey’s colleagues believe that gender-nonconforming children require “curing” in order to prevent what they consider a “bad outcome,” a gender transition. Most children who display gender-non-conforming behavior do not seek a gender transition later, and this outcome occurs without any intervention. Bailey’s colleagues make money by selling anxious parents on services they claim will cure many children. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has stated such services are “no longer considered ethical.” Others are more pointed, condemning such services as “disturbingly close to reparative therapy for homosexuals” and “simply child abuse.”
Hundreds of children have been through these aversion programs championed by Bailey’s friend Kenneth Zucker, and not one has later come forward to talk about how it helped them. Danny Ryan is the most famous report of a cured child, yet no one has ever followed up directly with him to confirm Bailey’s published claims independently.
Danny Ryan has remarkable parallels to David Reimer, a case report by Bailey’s ideological nemesis John Money. The David Reimer case proved to be false when independently investigated. Some reporters continue to repeat Bailey’s claims about Danny Ryan uncritically, with no independent confirmation. Science and journalism proceed from evidence and facts, and there is no independent evidence that Bailey’s published facts about Danny Ryan are true.
Given that other case reports in Bailey’s book turned out to be inaccurate upon independent follow-up, the Weekly Standard has a unique opportunity to report this story accurately instead of taking Bailey at his word. Similar hard-hitting reporting on David Reimer brought John Money’s work into disrepute and made the career of the journalist who broke the story. A generation of children suffered because no one bothered to confirm Money’s claims, and I can’t sit by as another reporter is poised to miss the point of why Bailey has been criticized by people of every political persuasion.
Thanks for your time, and I would very much appreciate confirmation that you have received this note.
Sincerely, Andrea James [email protected] cc: Charlotte Allen Attachments (2):
2. Fair Comment, Foul Play: Populist Responses to J. Michael Bailey’s Exploitative “Controversies” (PDF)
Allen’s puff piece about Bailey ran with no mention of his exploitation of our children and a lawyerly defense of his “fucksaw” demonstration.
The Man Who Would Be Queen was deemed “salacious bigotry” by Andrea James, a 48-year-old Hollywood consultant who is the most persistently aggressive of the transgender activists. James spearheaded campaigns to have Northwestern censure and perhaps fire Bailey (unsuccessful), and to discredit Bailey as a credible academic expert on transgender subjects (extremely successful).
Allen claims I declined to be interviewed “in a prolific series of Bailey-dissing emails.” Allen notes my criticism of Anne Lawrence, Ray Blanchard, and Kenneth Zucker. Zucker was fired later that year, and the clinic where Zucker and Blanchard were employed was closed following an investigation spurred by legislation that made anti-transgender reparative therapy illegal.
Allen, Charlotte (March 2, 2015). The Transgender Triumph.Weekly Standard. https://www.weeklystandard.com/charlotte-allen/the-transgender-triumph
Allen, Charlotte (March 4, 2019). Trans men erase women.First Things https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/03/trans-men-erase-women
Hawkins, JA (January 1951). Elmer Low Family of Pasadena.Pasadena Museum of History https://calisphere.org/item/8de4632c37e661ae4ba402f4006bf984/
Hess, Amanda (March 12, 2008). Charlotte Allen Interview.Washington City Paper https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/blog/13054285/charlotte-allen-interview
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Jeffrey Paul Robbins (born circa 1950) is an American editor best known for editing and fact-checking one of the most transphobic books ever written, The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey.
My editor, Jeff Robbins, at Joseph Henry Press, made my writing better than I could. (pp. xii-xiii)
Correspondence
Below is the letter I sent Robbins on May 17, 2003.
Jeffrey Robbins, Senior Editor The Joseph Henry Press 36 Dartmouth St. #810 Malden, MA 02148 Tel. 781-324-4786 Fax 781-397-8255 E-mail: [email protected]
Mr. Robbins–
I maintain an “Our Bodies, Ourselves” type website for transsexual women called tsroadmap.com.
After my business partner’s boyfriend Barry Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat because he was dating her, I expanded my efforts from practical matters of gender transition to improving media depictions of our condition.
I am writing to you today because of your involvement in J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen. In it, Bailey states that you edited this book and “made my writing better than I could.” (xii-xiii)
Mr. Robbins, you are complicit in the publication of what many in my community believe is the most defamatory book on transsexualism written since 1979. You are responsible for allowing us to be associated with depraved murderers (p. 142) and to be described as little more than socially stunted deviants generally unable to form long-term relationships or even hold “conventional jobs.” (p. 188). Imagine if the following were said about women you know:
“[They] work as waitresses, hairdressers, receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in many other occupations.” (p. 142)
I intend to see that you remain clearly linked to this historical document and are held accountable for this outrage during the remainder of your career. I also plan to secure your shameful place in the history of our community’s struggle to enjoy the same basic rights afforded other women. Make no mistake: you will have helped to hurt a great many women and children before we get those rights, and I can assure you your efforts will not go unnoticed.
I will be re-reading the entire text as well and making a painstaking record of all the ways you and Bailey have hurt all of us by bringing out such bigotry in the name of “science.” I will be sending my full findings to the National Academies leadership later this year.
The fact that any publisher allowed this to be printed under the auspices of “science” raises serious concerns about the process by which books are subjected to review at Joseph Henry Press. I intend to assist with the full investigation into how you personally allowed this to happen.
Though I doubt you are, you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.
[signed]
cc: Barbara Kline Pope, Director Phone: 202-334-3328 E-mail: [email protected]
Robbins did not respond. Below is the form letter sent out by Suzanne Woolsey to anyone who wrote to them. I received my copy on May 22, 2003.
We have received your message about the book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, by J. Michael Bailey, and I am responding on behalf of the National Academies. We appreciate knowing of your concerns and recognize that the contents of this book are controversial. The copyright page of the book carries the following notice: “Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.” This statement applies to all books published by the Joseph Henry Press. Joseph Henry Press publications are not reports of the National Academies, but are individually authored works on topics related to science, engineering, and medicine.
In our opinion, the best response to writing with which one disagrees is more writing. Those who hold views contrary to those expressed in this book are encouraged to present and publish the evidence and reasoning in support of their conclusions.
Sincerely, Suzanne H. Woolsey, Ph.D. Chief Communications Officer
