“Mr. Menno” is the stage name of Menno Kuijper, a Dutch anti-transgender extremist and separatist based in the UK.
Background
Menno Kuijper was born June 19, 1976. Kuijper held numerous roles in marketing and social media from 1996 to 2012. From 2012 to 2021 Kuijper was head of design and production at mobile marketing firm Gappt.
Menno appeared in theatrical productions before focusing exclusively on anti-trans content. Performances include Brixton Batty Boy (2012).
Anti-trans activism
Since 2022 Kuijper has been director of communications for anti-trans group The Gay Men’s Network.
Kuijper considers the trans rights movement to be “gender woo woo,” promoting the outdated terminology “homosexual male” and other binary ideas about traits and behaviors.
Also in 2022, Kuijper showed up to an anti-trans “Save Our Sex Jubilee campaign” in a black morph suit and a diaper with a sign that said “Right Side of History.” Kuijper was apparently mocking black bloc protesters who interrupted the anti-trans “Standing for Women” protest in Manchester earlier that month. Transphobes mocked those protesters online as “Black Pampers,” a play on Black Panthers. Kuijper insisted it was not a blackface performance.
McIntyre, Douglas A. (January 24, 2017). America’s 100 Largest Newspapers. 24/7 Wall St. https://247wallst.com/media/2017/01/24/americas-100-largest-newspapers/
Wemple’s opinion piece is a case study in how anti-trans journalists misunderstand and misrepresent trans and gender diverse minorities in their coverage, and how attitudes like Wemple’s keep trans journalists out of mainstream legacy media.
Background
Erik Wemple joined the Washington Post in 2011 and was a media critic there in 2023. See the main Erik Wemple page for additional biographical background.
Unlike the Times, the Post has generally limited anti-trans pieces like Wemple’s to the Opinion section. As an example, in 2022 the Post published an opinion piece by conservative therapists Laura Edwards-Leeper and Erica Anderson promoting their beliefs that “gender dysphoria” is a legitimate disease and that therapists like them should get paid to control who gets access to trans health services, not physicians.
Despite a few small issues like deadnaming, Post reporter Sara Solovitch covered this controversy fairly well in 2018. Solovitch centered the piece on a trans teen and spoke with Diane Ehrensaft, Joshua Safer, and Stephen Rosenthal, who represent the medical consensus, with Anderson as the conservative holdout.
2023 Post editorial
This section is being written.
The piece leads off with two tweets Wemple considers alarmist for their phrasing:
“jeopardizing trans folks’ lives” [quoting Minton 2023]
“genocide” [quoting Bond 2023]
In a great example of cis journalist groupthink, A.G. Sulzberger used the same journalistic and rhetorical tactic to lead off in the CJR:
Jones, Imara (July 17, 2023). S02E05: Capturing The New York Times.The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality https://translash.org/transcript-capturing-the-new-york-times/
Doyle, Jude Allison S. (February 27, 2023). What went wrong at the New York Times? Xtra https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-went-wrong-at-the-new-york-times-246409
Sulzberger, A.G. (April 4, 2022). 2022 State of The Times Remarks.New York Times Company https://www.nytco.com/press/2022-state-of-the-times-remarks/
Razib Khan is a Bangladeshi-American writer and anti-transgender activist. Khan comes to anti-trans “sex science” via “race science” and is best known for laundering extremist views about race into mainstream media.
Khan hopes to usher in the “second age of eugenics” through genetic screening and manipulation to increase “good” traits and eliminate “bad” traits. Many of Khan’s like-minded colleagues consider being trans and gender diverse to be undesirable traits to be eliminated from the gene pool.
Newamul K. “Razib” Khan was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1977. Khan’s family moved to the US in 1982. Khan lived in upstate New York as a child before the family moved to Oregon.
Khan earned two bachelor’s degrees from University of Oregon in 2000 and 2006. While there, Khan wrote a blog called Razib’s Rants, which later became Gene Expression. Following graduate work at UC Davis, Khan was a software engineer before receiving money from Ron Unz to write about hereditarian and eugenic topics.
In 2010, Khan co-founded the group blog Brown Pundits with Zachary L. Zavidé and Omar Ali. Khan has also promoted an “intellectual brown web.”
In 2015, the New York Times announced they had contracted with Khan to write monthly pieces, but they rescinded the offer following protests.
Podcast
Khan has platformed a number of anti-trans guests, including:
Cussins, Jessica (June 26, 2014). Quantified and Analyzed, Before the First Breath. Center for Genetics and Society https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/quantified-and-analyzed-first-breath
Khan, Razib (June 18, 2008). Curing the Gay.Unz Review https://www.unz.com/gnxp/curing-the-gay/
They have had a few people on who have expressed support for progressive trans views, including Isaac Saul, Destiny, Sam Harris, David Pakman, Stephen Hicks, and Peter Tatchell.
Weinstein and Heying became conservative celebrities after resigning from Evergreen State College in 2017. After making numerous podcast appearances, they started their own.
During the 2020 COVID pandemic, they became key figures in vaccine skepticism and promotion of alternatives like ivermectin.
Episodes
Many episodes discuss current topics about trans issues, with several devoted primarily to sex and gender.
Corinna Cohn is an American software developer who identifies as transsexual and gender critical. Cohn frequently appears in media to share conservative opinions and criticize various aspects of the trans rights movement.
Corinna Ariel “Cori” Cohn was born on June 13, 1975 and transitioned in the 1990s.
Cohn ran a comic store and website called Otakurama from 2002 to 2005.
Cohn is a software engineer who has worked for Fusion Alliance and Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance.
Activism
Cohn is a longtime internet troll who participates in virulently anti-trans forums.
In 2018 Cohn was triggered by Twitter’s revised policies that prohibited deadnaming and misgendering trans and gender diverse people. Cohn began making media appearances soon after.
In 2021 Cohn and fellow gender critical activist Nina Paley began the podcast Heterodorx.
In 2022 Cohn published a regret narrative in the Washington Post, suggesting that minors and young adults considering transition should “slow down.” Cohn has expressed the following regrets:
“a lifetime set apart from my peers”
“I wasn’t old enough to make that decision”
“I have resigned myself to never finding a partner”
“became a medical patient and will remain one for the rest of my life”
“intercourse never became pleasurable”
“I’m still working out how much regret to feel”
Via Media Matters for America:
Cohn, who hosts the podcast Heterodorx, has recently begun to put her anti-trans views into action. In late January, Cohn spoke in front of the Indiana House of Representatives in favor of HB 1041, a legislative effort that Cohn claimed would “strengthen the rights for girls and young women competing in sport” by excluding trans student athletes from competition. In her testimony, Cohn defined herself as “a transsexual,” arguing that her “sex is male, and neither science nor medicine can change that.” In the months since, Cohn has served as an expert and a witness for legislative efforts to restrict gender-affirming care in both Alabama and Ohio.
Cohn signed her testimony to the Ohio General Assembly as the secretary and treasurer of Gender Care Consumer Advocacy Network. GCCAN was founded in 2019 under the stated mission “to empower recipients of gender transition-related care to become healthy and whole,” but it has rapidly aligned itself with the right-wing campaign against gender-affirming care policies, with Cohn serving as a board member.
Steve Hammer and Chuck Workman (September 3, 2003). 30 under 30: Innovators in the arts.Nuvo https://www.nuvo.net/arts/30-under-30-innovators-in-the-arts/article_c99ebd9c-ae71-5c71-93dd-4f0f26bc75bc.html
Coleman Hughes is an American writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Coleman Cruz Hughes was born February 25, 1996 and grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Hughes earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2020.
Like Glenn Loury, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and John McWhorter, Hughes has gained a reputation for criticizing progressive views and policies around race.
Bill Maher is an American comedian and anti-transgender activist.
Background
William “Bill” Maher was born on January 20, 1956 in New York City. Maher earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1978 and began a comedy career in 1979.
Maher hosted the panel show Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. In 2003 Maher began hosting the weekly show Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.
Maher has platformed many anti-trans figures over the course of the HBO show, including:
Molly Jong-Fast (May 26, 2022). Bill Maher Isn’t a Liberal Anymore.The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/05/bill-maher-anti-lgbtq-transgender-comments/676673/
Bill Maher takes on Trans kids in sports, gender affirming surgery in debate with Neil Degrasse Tyson. The Hill https://thehill.com/video/bill-maher-takes-on-trans-kids-in-sports-gender-affirming-surgery-in-debate-with-neil-degrasse-tyson/9151163/
Helen Pluckrose is a British writer and anti-transgender activist. Pluckrose was editor of anti-trans group blog Areomagazine from 2018 to 2021.
Pluckrose is critical of postmodernism and cultural constructivism. While claiming to take a centrist position that is generally trans-supportive, Pluckrose has espoused many anti-transgender views.
Background
Pluckrose was born in August 1974. Pluckrose earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of East London and a master’s degree from Queen Mary University of London.
Pluckrose was a social care worker from age 17 to 34.
In 2017 Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian, and James A. Lindsay carried out the “grievance studies” affair, where they submitted 20 hoax papers to academic journals in hopes of getting them published. One recommended that people challenge their transphobia by inserting sex toys into their anuses.
Pluckrose was editor of anti-trans group blog Areomagazine from 2018 to 2021, founding Areo Magazine Ltd in 2019. Pluckrose and Lindsay published the book Cynical Theories in 2020. Pluckrose founded Counterweight Support Limited in 2021.
Pluckrose and spouse David have one child.
Anti-transgender activism
Pluckrose asserts that “extreme trans activists” want to compel people to accept the following:
people must believe that trans people “straightforwardly are the gender they experience themselves to be”
people must use language that reflects a trans person’s gender
people must be trans-inclusive when choosing sexual partners
Pluckrose’s most significant anti-trans position is that “transitioning children is difficult to justify ethically.”
Pluckrose’s reasoning is a form of cisgender supremacy that prioritizes the well-being of cisgender children over the well-being of transgender children. According to Pluckrose, giving parental consent to medical transition for a trans youth “cannot justify permanently damaging the bodies” of young people who might not benefit in the long term from medical transition. In Pluckrose’s argument this “collateral damage” is worse than collateral damage to trans young people denied medical transition.
Pluckrose’s position is predicated on the potent “regret” narrative and its medicalized manifestations: “desistance” in minors and “detransition” in adults. Regret narratives are vastly overrepresented in mainstream media because it taps into parental anxiety and justifies suspicion about all trans people. Those who believe being trans is a medical problem like “social contagion” often believe there is a cure. Those who believe being trans is an ideology or cult often cling to the powerful fantasy of trans apostasy.
Ideologues who wish to involve themselves in the bodily autonomy of others often amplify regret narratives. For instance, though abortion regret is rare, abortion opponents amplify regret narratives to make abortion less accessible for those who might benefit, including minors.
During Pluckrose’s tenure at Areo, there were several articles critical of trans people (written by people like anti-trans activist Louise Perry), and no articles written by trans people.
In a 2020 Quillette interview, Pluckrose complained about trans activism:
People are being no-platformed, fired, and cancelled for disagreeing with these ideas. Here in the UK, the police have investigated somebody posting a limerick on Twitter that did not adhere to trans activism’s concept of gender identity and a journalist publishing an interview with a historian who said slavery was not genocide. Gender critical feminists are routinely threatened and intimidated for making arguments that self-ID is a threat to women’s sex-based rights.