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Eric Weinstein is an American mathematician and former hedge fund manager. Weinstein was a managing director of Thiel Capital from 2013 until 2022.
Weinstein coined the term intellectual dark web (IDW), a social movement associated with anti-transgender activism and extremism. Weinstein has expressed fairly nuanced views of trans issues compared to most people considered part of the intellectual dark web.
Background
Eric Ross Weinstein was born on October 26, 1965 and has a younger sibling, Bret Weinstein. They grew up in Southern California.
Eric Weinstein earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Pennsylvania, then attended Harvard, earning a master’s degree, then a doctorate in 1992.
After teaching at MIT and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Weinstein served as a managing director for Peter Thiel at Thiel Capital from 2013 until 2022.
Intellectual dark web
Weinstein coined the term intellectual dark web (IDW) in 2017 as a name for a loose alliance described as a “gateway to the far right.” Many are opponents of transgender rights. Members typically get money and attention by claiming to be “canceled” or silenced by the minorities and progressive movements they criticize (called DARVO in general; see also the Dregerian Narrative in relation to trans issues, named after IDW inaugural member Alice Dreger.
Podcast
Weinstein hosted a podcast called The Portal from 2019 to 2020. Guests included several critics of the transgender rights movement and their supporters, including Douglas Murray, J. D. Vance, Ross Douthat, James O’Keefe, Bret Weinstein, Anna Khachiyan, Tyler Cowen, Sam Harris, Bryan Callen, and Peter Thiel.
42: Cashing Out My Trump & IDW Positions
None 1 December 2020
41: Douglas Murray – Heroism 2020: Defense of Our Own Civilization
Douglas Murray 23 October 2020
40: Introducing The Portal Essay Club – What if everyone is simply insane?
None 12 August 2020
39: Admission To Sugar Baby U.
Kimberly de la Cruz 29 July 2020
38: Mass Media, Markets, and Human Malware: A Portal Q&A
None 10 July 2020
37: Surfing the Wake of The Woke
Andrew Marantz 1 July 2020
36: Dark Matter, Black Matters and All That Jazz
Stephon Alexander 11 June 2020
35: Balaji Srinivasan – The Heretic & The Virus
Balaji Srinivasan 21 May 2020
34: Zev Weinstein – On Parenting, Boys & Generation Z
Zev Weinstein 13 May 2020
33: Josh Wolfe – The Mind Financing The Future
Josh Wolfe 3 May 2020
32: J. D. Vance – American Dreams and Nightmares
J. D. Vance 29 April 2020
31: Ryan Holiday – Conspiracy, Manipulation & other Pastimes
Ryan Holiday 23 April 2020
30: Ross Douthat – The Rave Before the Fall
Ross Douthat 16 April 2020
29: Jamie Metzl – The Bio-Hacker will see you now, Ready or Not
Jamie Metzl 12 April 2020
Special A Portal Special Presentation- Geometric Unity: A First Look
None 2 April 2020
28: Eric Lewis – The Singular Genius of Elew
Eric Lewis 28 March 2020
27: Daniel Schmachtenberger – On Avoiding Apocalypses
Daniel Schmachtenberger 27 March 2020
26: James O’Keefe: What is (and isn’t) Journalism in the 21st century
James O’Keefe 19 March 2020
25: The Construct: Jeffrey Epstein
None 7 March 2020
24: Kai Lenny – To Play and Flirt with Giants
Kai Lenny 28 February 2020
23: Agnes Callard – Courage, Meta-cognitive detachment and their limits
Agnes Callard 24 February 2020
22: Ben Greenfield – Wheat From Chaff in Human Fitness
Ben Greenfield 15 February 2020
21: Ashley Mathews (aka Riley Reid) – The mogul and brains behind America’s Sweetheart
Ashley Mathews (aka Riley Reid) 31 January 2020
20: Sir Roger Penrose – Plotting the Twist of Einstein’s Legacy
Sir Roger Penrose 24 January 2020
19: Bret Weinstein – The Prediction and the DISC
Bret Weinstein 18 January 2020
18: Slipping the DISC: State of The Portal and Chapter 2020
None 15 January 2020
17: Anna Khachiyan – Reconstructing The Mystical Feminine From The Ashes Of “The Feminine Mystique”
Anna Khachiyan 20 December 2019
16: Tyler Cowen – The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized
Tyler Cowen 16 December 2019
15: Garrett Lisi – My Arch-nemesis, Myself
Garrett Lisi 6 December 2019
14: London Tsai – The Reclusive Dean of The New Escherians
London Tsai 30 November 2019
13: Garry Kasparov – Avoiding Zugzwang in AI and Politics
Garry Kasparov 23 November 2019
12: Vitalik Buterin – The Ethereal Prince and His Virtual Machine
Vitalik Buterin 21 November 2019
11: Sam Harris – Fighting with Friends
Sam Harris 15 November 2019
10: Julie Lindahl: Shaking the poisoned fruit of shame out of the family tree
Julie Lindahl 31 October 2019
9: Bryan Callen – Cracking Wise
Bryan Callen 30 October 2019
8: Andrew Yang – The Dangerously Different Candidate the Media Wants You to Ignore
Andrew Yang 2 October 2019
7: Bret Easton Ellis – The Dark Laureate of Generation X
Bret Easton Ellis 29 September 2019
6: Jocko Willink – The Way of the Violent Intellectual
Jocko Willink 7 September 2019
5: Rabbi Wolpe – “So a Rabbi and an atheist walk into a podcast…”
Rabbi David Wolpe 31 August 2019
4: Timur Kuran – The Economics of Revolution and Mass Deception
Jamie Reed is an American anti-transgender extremist who wants to eliminate gender-affirming healthcare for adolescents and young adults. Reed is also part of the LGB separatist movement, founding the anti-trans organization LGB Courage Coalition in 2023.
Jamie Lynn Smith was born in June 1980. After marrying Joshua David Rickly (born 1982), Jamie began using the name Jamie Lynn Smith-Rickly. During this time, Jamie was apparently using the email [email protected].
In 2009, Jamie Smith-Rickly, Zachary Smith, and Byron Case founded the Midwestern Liberty Foundation, but it was dissolved by the state of Missouri the following year for failure to submit required documents.
The couple had two children and later divorced.
Jamie then married librarian Tiger Reed, who at the time identified as a transgender man. They have Jamie’s two children from the first marriage as well as three foster children. In 2024, after announing a “detransition,” Tiger Reed began using the name Roxxanne Reed.
Reed earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri St. Louis and a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Reed began working at Washington in 2016.
Anti-trans activism
From 2018 until late 2022, Reed was a case manager at the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Reed became increasingly upset that the clinic was not doing more psychological and psychiatric gatekeeping. As with many providers, Washington relied on patients to find a local therapist who would recommend them for treatment to reduce backlogs and improve patient care.
Reed cited what led to making an anti-trans pivot:
Time to Think by Hannah Barnes (read after Reed left the gender clinic)
Reed was against prescribing hormone options for minors. Like many other people opposed to youth gender affirming care, Reed considers puberty blockers less problematic than hormones, but opposes those as well. Puberty blockers are a rarely-used short-term option prior to prescribing hormones. Some people opposed to gender-affirming care would prefer trans youth to stay on puberty blockers until they are adults, rather than start hormones and go through puberty with their non-transgender peers.
Like many other people opposed to gender-affirming care, Reed cites the conservative “Dutch protocol” that used extensive gatekeeping under a nationalized healthcare system.
2023 affidavit
In an affidavit presented to anti-trans Attorney General Andrew Bailey dated February 7, 2023, Reed stated:
I witnessed staff at the Center provide puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children without complete informed parental consent and without an appropriate or accurate assessment of the needs of the child. I witnessed children experience shocking injuries from the medication the Center prescribed. And I saw the Center make no attempt or effort to track adverse outcomes of patients after they left the Center.
[…]
One patient came to the Center identifying as a “communist, attack helicopter, human, female, maybe non binary.” The child was in very poor mental health and early on reported that they had no idea their gender identity.
[…]
Most children who come into the Center were assigned female at birth. Nearly all of them have serious comorbidities including, autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma histories, OCD, and serious eating disorders.
[…]
last year Dr. [Chris] Lewis and Dr. [Sarah] Garwood told the Missouri legislature, “at no point are surgeries on the table for anyone under 18” and also, “surgeries are not an option for anyone under 18 years of age.” This was a lie. The Center regularly refers minors for gender transition surgery. The Center routinely gives out the names and contact information of surgeons to those under the age of 18. At least one gender transition surgery was performed by Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in the last few years.
[…]
The Center had two in-house psychologists. They were Dr. Alex Maixner and Dr. Sarah Girresch-Ward as well as several outside therapists.
[…]
Doctors knew that many of our former patients had stopped taking cross-sex hormones and were detransitioning. Doctors did not share this information with parents or children.
[…]
Children come into the clinic using pronouns of inanimate objects like “mushroom,” “rock,” or “helicopter.” Children come into the clinic saying they want hormones because they do not want to be gay. Children come in changing their identities on a day-to-day basis. Children come in under clear pressure by a parent to identify in a way inconsistent with the child’s actual identity.
[…]
I created a “red flag” list of children where other staff and I had concerns. The doctors told me I had to stop raising these concerns. I was not allowed to maintain the red flag list after that. During the time I was creating the red flag list, noting my concern that these children were not good candidates for permanent, irreversible medication treatment, the doctors would simply send these children to our in-house therapists. Those therapists would inevitably provide letters to the doctors, and then the doctors would say there can’t be any concern over these children because another therapist was fine with prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
[…]
One doctor at the Center, Dr. Chris Lewis, is giving patients a drug called Bicalutamide. I know of at least one patient at the Center who was advised by the renal department to stop taking Bicalutamide because the child was experiencing liver damage. The child’s parent reported this to the Center through the patient’s online self-reporting medical chart (MyChart). The parent said they were not the type to sue, but “this could be a huge PR problem for you.”
[…]
the Center has prescribed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones hundreds of times where they should not have.
Particularly upsetting to Reed are young people whose identities are fluid:
Patient was on hormones and had decompensating mental health, outlandish name changes, self-diagnosis of multiple personalities (DID).
[…]
Patient has desisted in male identity to a vague non binary with their own self-diagnosis of autism. Patient has changed their name numerous times and is clearly struggling with thoughts about desistence,
[..]
Patient changed to non-binary identity, then changed preferred name and stated that their identity was shifting day to day.
Reed gave several other vivid anecdotes, including one about a youth sex offender, and others about youths with history of self-harm, sexual trauma, forced cross-dressing, factitious blindness, and “gender identities that were likely the result of social contagion.”
2023 Free Press piece
Two days after the affidavit was signed, Reed repeated these allegations in the Free Press for anti-trans activist Bari Weiss.
“clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals—and most of these teens haven’t even had sex yet.”
“Some weeks it felt as though almost our entire caseload was nothing but disturbed young people.”
“Another disturbing aspect of the center was its lack of regard for the rights of parents.”
“In 2019, a new group of people appeared on my radar: desisters and detransitioners.”
“I believe that to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria.”
Reed and the clinic’s nurse, Karen Hamon, kept a private spreadsheet, which they called the “red flag list.” Following a 2021 review that contained criticisms and a 2022 retreat where Reed was allegedly told “Get on board, or get out,” Reed transferred to a different department.
Jamie Reed on what needs to be done: no gender affirming care for people until we figure out how to tell which mice should transition pic.twitter.com/1Go2vJtNTo
Anti-trans activist Azeen Ghorayshi of the New York Times presented Reed as part of a long-running “cisgender person under siege” series the paper has been running since the early 2000s.
Ghorayshi mentioned the following people:
Jamie Reed, former case manager at a youth gender clinic at Washington University in St. Louis
Bari Weiss, anti-trans activist who first published Reed’s allegations in the Free Press
Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s anti-trans Attorney General
Colleen Schrappen, reporter at St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Annelise Hanshaw, reporter at Missouri Independent
Andrew D. Martin, Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor
Reporter Evan Urquhartwrote, “unlike other stories covering these allegations, the Times downplays the falsehoods and seeks to make a case that despite Reed’s lies there’s something to be taken seriously in her attacks on a highly-regarded, University-linked clinic serving transgender youth.”
LGBT Courage Coalition and purge of trans members
Reed founded LGBT Courage Coalition in 2023 as a Substack and later registered it as a nonprofit. About a year later, Reed purged all trans leadership and renamed in LGB Courage Coailition, installing Lauren Leggieri as co-executive director.
Lawsuits
In 2024 a subpoena was issued to Reed in the matter of Noe v. Parson (Missouri case # 23AC-CC04530). In it, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. and ACLU of Missouri Foundation requested communication between Reed and Karen Hamon, as well as any communication with Missouri officials and families at Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
The subpoena also requested “All communications, including any documents exchanged, concerning Gender-Affirming Care involving media or between you and any media outlet or any member of the media,” as well as specifically requesting communications with Jesse Singal. Those requests were later removed.
The subpoena also requested any communication with the following organizations:
Lovelace, Eric (September 30, 2024). St. Louis gender clinic whistleblower testifies in Noe v. Parson.KOMU https://www.komu.com/news/midmissourinews/st-louis-gender-clinic-whistleblower-testifies-in-noe-v-parson/article_2f612e3c-7f53-11ef-ad63-abba11ecb77e.html
Emily Bazelon is an American writer and anti-transgender activist whose work has been cited to support anti-trans legislation in America. Bazelon wrote a 2022 New York Times Magazine feature about trans healthcare for minors that anti-trans legislators use to justify bans and restrictions affecting healthcare and legal rights for people of all ages. This page documents Bazelon’s historic role in the oppression of trans and gender diverse people.
Background
Emily C. Bazelon was born March 4, 1971. Like many cisgender reporters on this subject, much of Bazelon’s life and many opinions were shaped by a medico-juridical worldview and by extraordinary privilege. Bazelon’s grandparent was federal judge David L. Bazelon, a pioneer in the field of mental health law and namesake of the nonprofit Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington DC. Bazelon’ parent Richard L. Bazelon (born 1943) is a lawyer, and parent Eileen A. Ferrin Bazelon (born 1944) is a psychiatrist. Both practice in Pennsylvania. Emily Bazelon has three siblings: Dana, Jill, and Lara.
Bazelon attended the elite Germantown Friends School, then graduated from Yale in 1993. Bazelon earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 2000 and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bazelon had a Dorot fellowship in 1993 and was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow in 2004. Bazelon clerked for Judge Kermit Lipez in 1997. Bazelon married Paul E. Sabin (born 1970). They have two children, Eli and Simon.
2022 New York Times piece
In June 2022, Bazelon published “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” in the New York Times. It is part of their long-running “cisgender person under siege” stories placing non-trans people at the center of their coverage of trans issues.
Bazelon’s piece is centered on cisgender psychiatrist Scott Leibowitz.
It also launders the extremist views of Genspect into the New York Times. Genspect defined the rise in transgender-identified children as a “gender cult” and mass craze, “suggesting that exposure to transgender kids, education about trans people, and trans ideas on the internet could spread transness to others.” Some parents from Genspect stated transgender people should not be able to transition until the age of 25. The article also referenced a Substack newsletter by an anonymous Genspect parent titled “It’s Strategy People!” about how the organization gets its perspective into the media by purposefully not referring to transgender children as “mentally ill” or “deluded.”
The article was criticized by transgender people, including Dr. Sunny Moraine, who described the article as “sanitizing wildly transphobic talking points,” and Instructor Alejandra Caraballo of Harvard Law School, who described it as having “only just further opened the door for eliminationist policies.”
PinkNews stated the article “uncritically platformed gender-critical group Genspect” and spread “vile rhetoric.”
The Texas Observer accused Bazelon of “elevat[ing] a handful of outliers and their discredited theories about trans people to prominence they do not enjoy among the medical community” for “the sake of ‘balance’ and objectivity” and that “the article echoes right-wing fear-mongering about whether trans kids should be allowed to transition and even suggests their existence could be dangerous to other young people.” The Observer notes, “All of this could have been avoided had Bazelon listened to more experts and included more transgender people. That includes Ky Schevers and Lee Leveille, who run a trans advocacy group called Health Liberation Now! Bazelon communicated extensively with them both while working on the article, conducting interviews that were ultimately discarded.” The Observer added that “the state of Texas is using it as evidence in an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as ‘child abuse’.” Schevers said “The NYT just platformed a group made up of transphobic parents & conversion therapists who’ve written about how they have the same end goals as hardline trans eliminationists but moderate their views to try to break into the mainstream.”
2023 attack on union leadership
Bazelon was also a signatory on the 2023 letter drafted by Jeremy W. Peters attacking their own union leadership. The Guild had raised concerns about the Times’ hostile work environment for trans journalists. A Times employee told the San Francisco Chronicle there were still no trans reporters on staff in 2023.
2023 Missouri Attorney General ruling
Below is an example of how Bazelon’s 2022 piece is used to deny healthcare and other rights to trans and gender diverse people living in Missouri.
15 CSR 60-17.010 Experimental Interventions to Treat Gender Dysphoria
(2) It is an unfair, deceptive, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful practice for any person or health organization to provide a covered gender transition intervention to a patient (or refer a patient for such an intervention) if the person or health organization:
(D) Fails to ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions (at least 10 of which must be with the same therapist) over the course of not fewer than 18 months to explore the developmental influences on the patient’s current gender identity and to determine, among other things, whether the person has any mental health comorbidities; 32
32 Compare Bazelon, “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” The New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2022, updated March 17, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html (noting certain researchers admit and assert that only the Amsterdam clinic, “with its comprehensive assessments,” has procured results showing strong psychological benefits for individuals who medically transitioned in adolescence, and observing the Amsterdam clinic currently requires “at least six monthly [mental health] sessions” following “a longer period on a waiting list” prior to beginning treatment) [PDF]
Responses by Bazelon
2022 tweets [preserved record of Bazelon’s deleted tweets]
Bazelon joined psychiatrist Scott Leibowitz to discuss the piece.
Brand, Madeline (June 15, 2022). Why are doctors pulling away from gender-affirming health care? Press Play with Madeline Brand, KCRW https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/senate-nevada-lgbtq-jennifer-grey/trans-gender-health-care
Staff report (March 4, 1966). Eileen Ferrin Engaged To Richard L. Bazelon.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1966/03/05/archives/eileen-ferrin-engaged-to-richard-l-bazelon.html
Bazelon, Emily (15 June 2022). The Battle Over Gender Therapy.The New York Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20220616095935/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Azeen Ghorayshi is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Ghorayshi is a key historical figure in the oppression of trans and gender diverse youth.
Ghorayshi has written about transgender healthcare for youth and other trans topics in several publications. In 2021, Ghorayshi became the point person laundering anti-transgender extremism into the New York Times, similar to Times health reporter Jane Brody, whose consistently anti-trans coverage in the 1970s helped get adult care shut down as “experimental” by the end of that decade.
Ghorayshi believes that affirmative models of care for trans and gender diverse youth are an unfolding medical scandal, echoing Times colleagues and contributors in the late 1970s who helped set the trans rights movement back for 25 years. The real medical scandal is that trans and gender diverse youth have never been able to receive appropriate care, and Ghorayshi’s reporting is a major factor in making this care unavailable to hundreds of thousands of minors.
Each year, thousands of American cisgender youth receive gender-affirming treatments like surgeries for unwanted breast tissue, but Ghorayshi is focused exclusively on banning the same procedures for transgender youth.
Ghorayshi’s anti-trans views are colored by disease models of gender identity, particularly psychopathology models. Ghorayshi is a strong proponent of gatekeeping trans healthcare via psychology and psychiatry, especially for minors. Ghorayshi also disproportionately covers cases of regret and “detransition,”presenting people like Jamie Reed as brave truth-tellers instead of politically motivated anti-trans extremists.
Background
Azeen M. Ghorayshi was born in October 1988 and earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley in 2010. While there, Ghorayshi interned in UC Berkeley’s notoriously conservative and transphobic psychology department and in the neurobiology department. Ghorayshi then earned a master’s degree from Imperial College London.
Ghorayshi began writing as an Editorial Fellow at Mother Jones, then worked at the weekly East Bay Express in the Bay Area. Ghorayshi freelanced from 2013 to 2015, placing stories in New Scientist, The Guardian, Newsweek, Wired UK, and other outlets.
Ghorayshi co-founded Method Quarterly, a publication about science with Christina Agapakis. Other personnel included:
Ellie Harmon (editor in 2014)
Rose Eveleth (editor – presence scrubbed from site)
Ghorayshi joined BuzzFeed in 2015 as a science reporter, rising to science editor prior to departing.
Shortly after expressing this love, Ghorayshi presented Dreger as a “liberal” academic instead of an inaugural member of the intellectual dark web, a gateway to the far right. In a “both sides” piece about trans healthcare for youth, Ghorayshi also presented transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey and geneticist Eric Vilain as objective or centrist scientists in the middle of the non-affirming coalition, and the transphobic American College of Pediatricians as “religious conservatives”:
But some doctors — as well as an unexpected mix of liberal academics, scientists, and religious conservatives — argue that we have no way of knowing with certainty which prepubescent kids who behave outside of gender norms will come to identify as trans, and which ones will not. Some worry that this approach could steer kids who are just going through a phase into a transgender “track” long before the kids know whether those feelings will really stick. Others say it reinforces outdated stereotypes — giving worried parents the false assurance that their girly boy is actually just a girl who was born in the wrong body. Conservative critics peg the increase in trans kids today to a dangerous new fad in parenting.
Ghorayshi also uncritically presented Jesse Singal’s false version of why Kenneth Zucker was fired (Zucker’s practices were outlawed in 2015 under Bill 77), and showcases Debra Soh’s claim that the affirmative model of care “reinforces outdated stereotypes.” Ghorayshi then cites a conservative Breitbart piece that quotes Zucker, summarizing their view that affirmative care is a dangerous new fad in parenting.
New York Times transgender articles
In the New York Times, Ghorayshi also published “cisgender person under siege” profiles featuring hospital CEO John Warner, surgeon Sidhbh Gallagher, and anti-trans extremist Jamie Reed.
The Warner piece was about the closure of Genecis Children’s Medical Center in Dallas following abortion clinic protest tactics targeting practitioners and leaders. Ghorayshi had described Genecis in the 2016 BuzzFeed piece.
The Gallagher piece was favorably shared by many fascist, gender critical, and cis journalist accounts, including white nationalist Richard Spencer and Daily Wire writer Christina Buttons, as well as anti-trans activists Katie Herzog, Jesse Singal, Kenneth Zucker, Cathy Brennan, Julia Mason, and Helen Lewis. It was also shared by a number of Ghorayshi’s current and former colleagues, including Virginia Hughes, Cliff Levy, Christina Jewett, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Ken Bensinger, Oliver Whang, Dan Saltzstein, Judy Rudin, Paul McLeod, Kadia Goba, Josh Barro, Ellie Hall, Derek Robertson, Alison Griffiths, Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, Tina S. Fondeles, Benjamin Goggin, Yeganeh Torbati, Steven Meiers, Jessica Garrison, Mark Yarm, Shannon Palus, Megan Twohey, and Michael Marshall.
In 2025, Ghorayshi promoted anti-trans groups Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender and LGB Courage Coalition as being from the left: “In the United States, a coalition of critics of youth gender medicine from both the right and the lefthave argued for banning the treatments.” The first group is a coalition of parents who do not accept their gender diverse children, and the second is an LGB separatist organization led by anti-trans extremist Jamie Reed that purged all of its conservative trans members in 2024.
“Low-quality evidence”
Ghorayshi wrote a piece about the American Academy of Pediatrics that prominently featured their critics, including anti-trans activist Julia Mason of the hate group Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Ghorayshi also parrots the “low-quality evidence” claim put forth by anti-trans activists, based on a scale devised by Gordon Guyatt. Federal judge Sarah E. Geraghty rejected these claims in a 2023 Georgia case where anti-trans activists Paul Hruz, Michael Laidlaw, and James Cantor testified against Yale University professor of pediatrics Meredithe McNamara:
The undisputed record shows that clinical medical decision-making, including in pediatric or adolescent medicine, often is not guided by evidence that would qualify as “high quality” on the scales used by Defendants’ experts. 30 (Doc. 70-1, McNamara Decl. ¶¶ 23–28; Tr. 74:11–75:1 (McNamara Testimony); Tr. 133:614 (Hruz Testimony).) In fact, the record shows that less than 15 percent of medical treatments are supported by “high-quality evidence,” or in other words that 85 percent of evidence that guides clinical care, across all areas of medicine, would be classified as “low-quality” under the scale used by Defendants’ experts. (Doc. 70-1, McNamara Decl. ¶ 25; Tr. 74:11–75:1.) Defendants do not refute Dr. McNamara’s testimony on this point, and indeed they “concede” that “low-quality” evidence “can be considered.” 31
Geraghty also noted the obvious biases of Hruz, Laidlaw and Cantor:
Defendants’ experts’ insistence on a very high threshold of evidence in the context of claims about hormone therapy’s safety and benefits, and on the other hand their tolerance of a much lower threshold of evidence for claims about its risks, the likelihood of desistance and/or regret, and their notions about the ideological bias of a medical establishment that largely disagrees with them. That is cause for some concern about the weight to be assigned to their views, although the Court does not doubt that those they express are genuinely held.
(“Dr. [Paul] Hruz fended and parried questions and generally testified as a deeply biased advocate, not as an expert sharing relevant evidence-based information and opinions. I do not credit his testimony.”); Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall, 603 F. Supp. 3d 1131, 1142–43 (M.D. Ala. 2022) (explaining that the court gave Dr. James Cantor’s “testimony regarding the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors very little weight”); C. P. by & through Pritchard v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, No. 3:20-CV-06145-RJB, 2022 WL 17092846, at *4 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 21, 2022) (noting that it was a “close question” as to whether Dr. Michael Laidlaw was qualified to testify about the medical necessity of gender-affirming care because he has treated only two patients with gender dysphoria and has done no original research on gender identity).
Ghorayshi also wrote an article centered on Jamie Reed, an activist who supports “a national moratorium on the medicalization of kids.” Reed is represented by anti-trans lawyer Vernadette Broyles, who has stated the transgender rights movement poses an “existential threat to our culture.”
2025 podcast series
Ghorayshi and Austin Mitchell produced a six-part podcast series titled The Protocol, which rehashes Ghorayshi’s opinion that healthcare for trans and gender diverse youth has become too easy to obtain, is based on “uncertainty in the scientific evidence,” and needs to return to the rigid gatekeeping that was practiced decades ago.
Francis, Matthew R. (June 5, 2025). Open Letter to Anti-Trans Science Journalists.Galileo’s Pendulum https://galileospendulum.org/2025/06/05/open-letter-to-anti-trans-science-journalists/
Urquhart, Evan (September 3, 2023). “You Betrayed Us, Azeen”: A story on the allegations of former St. Louis gender clinic staffer Jamie Reed left parents who spoke with NYT reporter Azeen Ghorayshi crushed. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/you-betrayed-us-azeen-parents-of-trans-youth-reeling-after-speaking-to-the-nyt
Clark-Callender, Rebecca (August 11, 2023). How the Times Covers Trans Rights. On the Media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/what-we-missed-how-press-covers-trans-rights-on-the-media
Ghorayshi, Azeen (November 2015). Conversations With Anne Fausto-Sterling.Method Quarterly http://www.methodquarterly.com/2015/11/conversations-with-anne-fausto-sterling/
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Benjamin Ryan is an American writer and anti-transgender activist.
Ryan opposes US medical consensus on healthcare for trans and gender diverse youth. Ryan frequently supports other anti-trans colleagues like Dan Savage, Jesse Singal, Jon Kay, and Jennifer Block as objective experts covering trans issues.
Ryan also supports sexologist and anti-transgender activist Kenneth Zucker, believing Singal’s version of why Zucker was fired in 2015. In 2023, Ryan began pitching a piece seeking “physicians who might have misgivings about the gender-affirming care model, or who otherwise have theories about why we have seen such a recent surge in trans-identifying young people.”
Background
Benjamin R. “Ben” Ryan was born in June 1978 to Sara “Sally” Stubbs Ryan (1944–1999), an educator, and John A. Ryan, Jr. (born ~1943) a general surgeon. Ryan has two siblings. Ryan attended The Bush School, an elite private school in Seattle, graduating in 1997, then earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2001. Ryan volunteered with the Northwest AIDS Foundation and New York’s Gay Health Advocacy Project prior to beginning a journalism career.
Ryan has been a guest on Sirius Satellite Radio, NPR, iHeart Radio’s Daily Dive, Dan Savage’sSavage Love podcast, Owen Jones’ podcast, and NBC News Now.
2023 pitch attacking gender affirming care
On April 14, 2023, Harvard lawyer Alejandra Caraballo revealed that Ryan was working on a story attacking gender-affirming care for youth, writing:
“The New York Times and Benjamin Ryan are writing another transphobic hit piece looking for providers who “have misgivings about gender affirming care.” Providers and advocates should ignore any outreach or requests for comment from Ryan as he is another Jesse Singal.”
From: Benjamin Ryan Date: Thu, Apr 6, 2023 Subject: New York Times article on how pediatricians are responding to rising rates of trans youth
I am writing an article for the New York Times about how pediatricians, family practitioners, psychologists and other front-line physicians who care for broad populations of children and adolescents are responding to the rising numbers of trans-identifying youths. What has it been like for these health care providers to care for such young people of late?
For one, I am interested in covering this subject from the perspective of a newly fractured legal landscape, in which various states have banned the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors with puberty blockers and hormones. What is it like for health care providers to care for trans-identifying kids in these states?
I am also interested in hearing from physicians who might have misgivings about the gender-affirming care treatment model, or who otherwise have theories about why we have seen such a recent surge in trans-identifying young people.
I would greatly appreciate your help in finding physicians for me to speak with. (Note that this article is not focusing on gender-care specialists.) I know this is a highly sensitive topic. So while I would prefer to get sources on the record, I am more than happy to accommodate anyone’s requests for anonymity.
Thanks very much for your help and your time.
All the best,
Ben Ryan
Benjamin Ryan benryan.net (917) [redacted] Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/benryanwriter
Because the New York Times handles all transphobic content in-house now, Ryan published a different piece for NBC News instead on June 23, 2023. Ryan’s published piece has no mention of physicians who might have misgivings about the gender-affirming care treatment model.
Ryan told Jesse Singal:
“I sent that email and other versions of it to over 200 doctors and press reps at medical institutions. I asked people to send it to others and to email it to listservs. I knew very well that it would probably end up on Twitter and that Alejandra would post it. So I am fine with it being out there.”
Author and journalism professor Steven Thrasher minced no words in condemning Ryan:
Notice how in all your own tweets, you have yet to challenge any of the facts that @jonkay said about Singal. You have just attempted to discredit Kay and the website he writes for.
If you cannot make any substantive criticisms about ajonkay’s specific arguments supporting the thesis that Signal has been unfairly tarred and feathered, then we’re done here.
Please show where Signal defended Kenneth Zucker’s practices and describe how that means that Singal believes that conversion therapy is a-okay.
2023 deleted tweets
March
A bombshell article by @WritingBlock challenges claims by activists that the science supporting the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors is “settled” and that the use of puberty blockers and hormones in transgender kids is “evidence based.” http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
Many argue that giving puberty blockers and hormones to trans minors is uncontroversial & backed by high-quality science. Block’s reporting disputes this. Swedish health authorities, for example, say the risks “currently outweigh the possible benefits”. 2/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
[March 2, deleted] The Dutch protocol came about some 15 years ago. And the rise of the use of puberty blockers for this purpose is quite recent. That said, a very small number of children actually currently receive them. But the trend is heading upward quickly. Or it was before these bans.
[deleted]
The prescription of hormones to trans-identifying minors is often framed as a choice of life on meds vs death by suicide. But researchers have not actually shown that hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria impacts death by suicide. 5/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
@HRC said in a press release today that “ALL gender-affirming care is age appropriate and medically necessary.” But in the UK, health experts found there’s “scarce & inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making” for kids with dysphoria. 6/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
Mark Helfand of Oregon Health & Science University criticized @WPATH’s recommendations for treating #transgender minors, including a lack of grading system to assess the quality of scientific evidence backing the guidelines. #trans 7/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
At an October meeting of the AAP, @WritingBlock reports, @DrScottHadland of Harvard Med said, “Ten thousand pediatricians stand in solidarity for trans and gender diverse kids & their families to receive evidence-based, lifesaving, individualized care.” 8/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
Gordon Guyatt (@GuyattGH) of McMaster University found “serious problems” with the Endocrine Society’s guidelines for treating #trans kids, such as making strong recommendations based on weak evidence–meaning they should not be called “evidence based”. 9/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
In contrast to @DrScottHadland, @GuyattGH said, “When there’s been a rigorous systematic review of the evidence” about treating #trans kids “and the bottom line is ‘we don’t know,’ anybody who then claims they *do* know is not being evidence based.” 10/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
While myriad medical organizations in the US back prescribing puberty blockers & hormones to trans-identifying minors, standards abroad are very different. Sweden did systematic reviews in ’15 and ’22, found evidence was “insufficient and inconclusive.”11/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
The Endocrine Society ( @TheEndoSociety) commissioned 2 systematic reviews for its clinical practice guideline for treating #trans adolescents with sex steroids and found the quality of the evidence regarding health risks was “low” or “very low”. 12/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
In sum, @WritingBlock’s reporting suggests that @WPATH and @TheEndoSociety’s guidelines for treating #trans adolescents are not truly “evidence based”, nor uncontroversial, nor do they balance the known and potential risks v benefits of such treatment. 13/ http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/transgender.pdf
@MattWalshBlog, who doesn’t so much debate the science behind care for trans minors as douse the field with gasoline & set it on fire, has made the topic so combustible in Tennessee, he teed up the politicization of #HIV prevention there, I reported: 14/
Kindly do not come to this thread disrespectfully. I will not tolerate malicious statements toward anyone and the misgendering of transgender people.
Also, for anyone coming to this thread who thinks they know who I am, what I think or believe or what I’m about, do take note that I do not share my personal opinions about many issues on Twitter. I invite you to read my reporting on LGBTQ issues: http://benryan.net/lgbtq.html
When @JesseSingal, @WritingBlock and I or others report about the science of treating gender dysphoria in minors, we are constantly subjected to overtures of violence, commands that we should kill ourselves, or in my own case, expressions of regret that cancer didn’t kill me. 1/
Meanwhile, press freedoms are also being threatened from the right as Florida Republicans in particular seek to clamp down on reporters’ abilities to freely do their jobs and to seek the truth about contentious and important questions. 2/
When @JesseSingal, @WritingBlock and I or others report about the science of treating gender dysphoria in minors, we are constantly subjected to overtures of violence, commands that we should kill ourselves, or in my own case, expressions of regret that cancer didn’t kill me. 1/ https://t.co/ih9Marj29J
Tucker Carlson is an American conservative media personality and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Tucker McNear Carlson was born May 16, 1969 in San Francisco to Lisa McNeal and Dick Carlson (born 1941), a broadcaster and lobbyist. Carlos has a younger sibling Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson. Carlson’s parents divorced in 1976, with Lisa moving to France. Dick Carlson then married Swanson Enterprises heir Patricia Caroline Swanson in 1979.
Carlson attended boarding school in Rhode Island and began dating future spouse Susan Andrews there. The yearbook says Carlson led the “Dan White Society.” White assassinated gay politican Harvey Milk.
Carlson worked for The Heritage Foundation at Policy Review, then wrote opinion pieces at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazett. Carlson joineed The Weekly Standard in 1995. A 1999 profile of George W. Bush for Talk magazine led to controversy as well as work at New York, Reader’s Digest, Esquire, Slate, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Daily Beast, and The Wall Street Journal.
In 2000 CNN hired Carlson to host The Spin Room and later Crossfire. In 2004, Jon Stewart harshly criticized Carlson and Paul Begala, which attributed to the show’s cancellation. Carlson adjusted to a different on-air tone after the incident.
In 2004, PBS aired Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered for about a year. In 2005 MSNBC aired Tucker until 2008.
From 2010 to 2020 Carlson was editor of The Daily Caller. In June 2020, Carlson sold his one-third stake in The Daily Caller following questions about the organization selling their mailing list the the Donald Trump campaign.
From 2009 to 2023 Carlson hosted an appeared on Fox News shows, including Red Eye, Hannity, Fox & Friends Weekend, and Tucker Carlson Tonight. In 2021 Fox entered into a multi-year contract to air and podcast and shows Tucker Carlson Originals and Tucker Carlson Today. Carlson was dismissed in 2023.
In 2023 Carlson relaunched on Twitter/X as host of Tucker on X.
Carlson has authored three books:
Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News (2003)
Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (2018)
The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism (2021)
Anti-transgender activism
Carlson hosted the 2022 two-part special “Transgressive: The Cult of Confusion,” showcasing the ex-transgender movement.
Susan Evans is a British psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Evans was a key critic of trans healthcare for gender diverse youth at the Tavistock. The clinic was later closed.
Evans and spouse Marcus Evans co-authored the 2021 book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults.
Evans worked for 12 years at the Tavistock in the Adult Department, Youth Gender Identity Service and for the Portman Clinic in Probation officer supervision and as Programme Organiser and senior clinical lecturer. Evans was also a Senior Fellow of the University of East London.
Evans has been a member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation, London Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Service, and the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC).
2021 book
The following people are mentioned in the acknowledgements:
We are grateful to the following people who have generously given their time and expertise to the development of this book: Annie Pesskin, Ian Williamson, Richard Stephens, Margot Waddell, Frances Grier, and Ema Syrulnik, as well as all our colleagues at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. We are grateful to Kate Pearce at Phoenix for offering to publish this book.
2022 Tavistock closure
Evans was involved in the attacks on gender affirming care for gender diverse you at the Tavistock clinic, a federally funded gatekeeping facility with unethically long wait times due to underfunding.
Evans’ version of things was reported via anti-trans activist Bari Weiss:
I was a nurse working on a team that recklessly prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. I blew the whistle in 2005. Now the government is finally listening.
References
Evans, Sue (August 4, 2022). How Tavistock Came Tumbling Down.The Free Press https://www.thefp.com/p/how-tavistock-came-tumbling-down
Stephanie Winn is a conservative American therapist and anti-transgender activist associated with the ex-transgender movement. Winn collaborated with sex offender David Arthur Kendall on promoting the 2023 anti-trans propaganda project No Way Back. Winn is an associate producer on the project.
This close association with someone convicted of sex crimes against minors makes Winn a poor therapeutic choice for parents with minor children.
If you are trans or gender diverse, do not go to Winn under any circumstances at any age. If you are a minor forced to see Winn, try to end the sessions and find supportive local resources. Your parent or guardian will want to know about Winn’s poor judgment and unsavory associations.
Stephanie Winn and convicted sex offender David Arthur Kendall discussing their anti-trans propaganda project, later renamed No Way Back
Background
Winn earned a diploma in Ayurveda from the Ayurveda Institute of America in 2005. In 2007 Winn earned a teaching certification from Yoga Works and took courses at Santa Monica College. Winn earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Santa Cruz in 2009 and a master’s degree from California Institute of Integral Studies in 2013. While studying, Winn worked as a tutor and an administrative assistant.
Winn was a counselor for Albany Unified School District in 2012 to 2013, then did intakes at Casa de la Vida in Oakland from 2013 to 2014. In 2015 and 2016 Winn was a therapist at Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc. (NARA). In 2016 Winn joined Western Psychological & Counseling Services as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT). Since 2020, Winn has been a LMFT at Real Talk Therapy PDX in Portland, Oregon.
Winn also hosts the podcast You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist.
Stephanie Davies-Arai is a British anti-transgender activist. Davies-Arai is director of Transgender Trend, a clinical advisor to anti-trans hate group Genspect, and has been involved in numerous anti-trans campaigns in the UK and beyond.
Background
According to Lily Maynard:
Stephanie & her twin sister Helen were born in Chester in the late 50s, hot on the heels of their older sister Gill. Their father was a bank manager and their mother a housewife and librarian, who managed and reorganised information systems for the Leicester police after their move to a small market town when the twins were seven.
Davies-Arai wrote: “I am a heterosexual woman who lived most of my childhood wanting to be a boy; for a few years my sister and I would answer to nothing except our ‘real’ names: Bill and Mike. I entered puberty kicking and screaming.” The twins dressed as schoolboys and engaged in “tomboy” activities until age 12. At puberty Davies-Arai reportedly became bulimic.
Davies-Arai trained as a sculptor after attending Wyggeston Grammar School for Girls in Leicester. Davies-Arai earned a bachelor’s degree from Gwent College of Higher Education in 1979, took courses at St. Martins College, and earned a master’s degree from Bidai University of Art & Design in 1990. While there, Davies-Arai gave birth to the first of four children. Davies-Arai’s sculptures began to be primarily about pregnancy and motherhood.
Davies-Arai and spouse moved back to England. Davies-Arai’s oldest child had behavioral problems. In 2000, Davies-Arai was a founder of Lewes New School, a small private school in East Sussex where that child might get specialized attention. Davies-Arai became a certified educational trainer in 2003.
Materials on how to deal with troubled children led to Davies-Arai’s “parental rights” activism:
“It was too child-centred. It kind of treated children as victims in a way, as if they always had a problem. It didn’t seem to give permission for parental authority.”
In 2008 Davies-Arai and spouse divorced. Davies-Arai began the training course Communicating with Kids, which was later developed into a 2014 book.
Anti-trans activism
As the four children reached adulthood, Davies-Arai was writing a weekly parenting blog.
Davies-Arai founded Transgender Trend in 2015 after being outraged by an article titled “Parenting a Transgender Child” by Sarah Virginia White. Davies said:
You’re validating a child’s false belief. You wouldn’t get that in any other area, in any parenting book. It’s not healthy when listening to your child becomes so key that it becomes ‘you must agree with your child’. If you believe that your child knows best, you’re then supposed to follow the child. The child becomes the adult and the adult becomes the child.”
After getting more and more into the transphobic “parental rights” movement, Davies-Arai produced an anti-trans schools guide “Supporting gender diverse and trans-identified students in schools” in 2018.
After Liz Truss announced plans to change the UK’s Gender Recognition Act in 2020, an open letter signed by about 8,000 cisgender women said “we are incredibly concerned that the language you have used is very similar to the anti-trans rhetoric used by transphobic hate groups and organisations such as Woman’s Place UK, Transgender Trend and the LGB Alliance.”
In 2022, Davies-Arai was awarded the British Empire Medal by Queen Elizabeth II.
Davis, Lisa Selin (June 13, 2022). From Tomboy to Transgender Trend. https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/from-tomboy-to-transgender-trend
White, Sarah Virginia (February 20, 2015). Parenting a Transgender Child. HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parenting-a-transgender-child_b_6709858
Davies-Arai, Stephanie (2015). Is My Child Transgender? https://stephaniedaviesarai.com/is-my-child-transgender/
