The Free Beacon was founded in 2012 by Michael Goldfarb (child of anti-trans activist Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm), Aaron Harrison, and Matthew Continetti (who is married to one of Bill Kristol’s children and was founding editor until 2019). Funding for the site originally came from billionaire Republican donors, which has drawn scrutiny and discussion regarding potential influence on editorial direction.
The site covers a wide range of topics, including federal government activities, congressional politics, elections, foreign policy, and national security. Its reporting has sometimes attracted attention for publishing stories critical of Democratic politicians, though it also occasionally covers controversies involving Republicans.
Over time, the outlet has expanded its staff and increased its coverage scope, including investigative journalism into lobbying, campaign finance, and policy decisions. While its content includes original reporting, it also features opinion columns from conservative commentators.
Aaron Julian Sibarium was born January 9, 1996. Sibarium’s parents are Michael Sibarium, a lawyer, and Laura Govoni-Sibarium, a nursing consultant and synagogue volunteer. Sibarium and sibling Ely (born January 24, 1999) both attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and Yale. Ely Sibarium has published work about gender diversity and neurodiversity with John Strang and Scott Leibowitz.
Sibarium earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 2018. Sibarium interned at the center-right American Enterprise Institute and was an editor at The American Interest prior to its closure. Sibarium is an associate editor at the Washington Free Beacon.
In 2023, Sibarium reported on instances of plagiarism by Harvard President Claudine Gay, which contributed to Gay’s resignation.
Anti-transgender activism
While working as an opinion columnist at the Yale Daily News in 2017, Sibarium was triggered by Yale’s move to the term first-years vs. freshmen.
Reason / Just Asking Questions with Zach Weissmueller, Liz Wolfe, and Aaron Sibarium (February 13, 2025). Aaron Sibarium: Is DEI over? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9W_YwEBCdo
Do No Harm podcast (September 17, 2024). S3E1b: Navigating the Voter Pulse on Pediatric Gender Medicine and DEI (Part 2/2) with Aaron Sibarium & Leor Sapir
Do No Harm podcast (September 10, 2024). S3E1: What Do Voters Think About on Identity Politics? (Part 1/2) with Aaron Sibarium & Leor Sapir
Wisdom of Crowds with Damir Marusic, Shadi Hamid, and Aaron Sibarium (January 8, 2024). Claudine Gay and the Culture Wars. https://wisdomofcrowds.live/p/claudine-gay-and-the-culture-wars
Subversive Podcast with Alex Kaschuta and Aaron Sibarium (May 31, 2021). Aaron Sibarium: Liberalism’s time to sober up. https://www.alexkaschuta.com/p/subversive-podcast-aaron-sibarium
Know Your Enemy with Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, and Aaron Sibarium (Dec 5, 2020). A Working Class GOP? (w/ Aaron Sibarium). https://www.patreon.com/posts/working-class-w-44702097
Richard Hanania is an American political scientist, right-wing eugenicist, and anti-transgender extremist.
In 2021 Hanania began hosting a podcast via Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI). It was called The Richard Hanania Show through 2023. and later renamed CSPI Podcast.
Abigail Shrier is an American author and anti-transgender extremist. Shrier is a key historical figure in the oppression of trans and gender diverse youth.
Shrier is author of the 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters and testified against the Equality Act before Congress in 2021. Shrier has contributed to numerous anti-trans publications, including The Wall Street Journal and group blogs Quillette and The Free Press. Shrier was affiliated with PragerU and is a fellow of Manhattan Institute, an anti-trans think tank.
Background
Abigail Brett Krauser Shrier was born June 21, 1978 and grew up in College Park, Maryland. Shrier’s parents are Sherrie L. Krauser, a judge of the Circuit Court of Maryland, and Peter B. Krauser, a judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party.
Shrier attended Sheridan School and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. After earning a bachelorâs degree from Columbia University in 2000, Shrier earned a bachelor’s degree from Oxford in 2002. Shrier then earned a law degree from Yale University in 2005. After clerking for Judith W. Rogers and Chief Justice Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel, Shrier was admitted to the New York Bar in 2006 and the California Bar in 2007. Shrier was an associate attorney at Irell & Manella from 2006 to 2008 before becoming a full-time writer in 2009. Shrier’s California license became inactive in 2009.
Shrier is a registered Republican and married wealth manager Zachary Loren Shrier in 2007.
claiming libraries and companies like Amazon and Target were censoring or banning the book
implying that the ACLU wanted to ban the book because of a tweet by ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio
Selected articles by Shrier:
(August 29, 2018) The Transgender Language War: California threatens to jail health workers who refuse to use âpreferredâ pronouns.
(January 6, 2019) When Your Daughter Defies Biology: The burden of mothers whose children suffer from ârapid onset gender dysphoria.â
(March 26, 2019) The Transgender War on Women: The Equality Act sacrifices female safety in restrooms, locker rooms and even domestic-violence shelters.
(May 3, 2019) Standing Against Psychiatryâs Crazes: In 1979 Dr. Paul McHugh closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the â80s he testified against phony ârecovered memories.â He hasnât given up the fight.
(November 15, 2020) Does the ACLU Want to Ban My Book? Target stopped selling it in response to two Twitter complaints. A professor even wants to burn it.
(May 14, 2021) To Be Young and Pessimistic in America: Generation Z is lonelier than millennials and more reluctant to embrace the responsibilities and joys of adulthood. Life online seems to be a reason.
(May 31, 2021) Male Inmates in Womenâs Prisons: If Congress passes the Equality Act, Californiaâs dangerous policy would go nationwide.
In January 2019, Shrier published a opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal promoting “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Titled “When Your Daughter Defies Biology: The burden of mothers whose children suffer from ârapid onset gender dysphoria,” that article claims that increase in trans visibility is part of a “social contagion.” The piece received so much response that Shrier turned it into a book for conservative publisher Regnery. The op-ed was first promoted by Shrier’s PragerU colleague Candace Owens, followed by Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire and Benjamin A. Boyce at Calmversations.
The book’s cover depicts a young girl with a void where her reproductive organs would be. One historian linked it to Nazi propaganda. The book was blurbed by other key anti-trans extremists, including:
Following the book’s release on June 30, 2020, Shrier appeared on BlazeTV with Steve Deace and on the podcast Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy. Amazon declined to run ads for the book on their site, which led to claims of censorship.
Shrier and the book got an enormous boost on July 16 after Shrier appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. Philip Ellis noted in Men’s Health:
“Shrier invalidated the lived experience of trans and nonbinary kids and teens, and made numerous dangerous, entirely unsound false equivalencies. She compared transitioning among teenagers to historic adolescent phenomena such as eating disorders, self-harm, and (bafflingly) the occult, calling this age group ‘the same population that gets involved in cutting, demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia, bulimia.’ She even described wanting to transition as a ‘contagion’ with the potential to infect other children with the same ideas, drawing yet more scientifically baseless parallels with eating disorders.”
Target briefly pulled the book in response to concerns, which led to more claims of censorship. Several book launches were canceled, leading to more claims of censorship. Several local libraries faced backlash after including it. After lawyer Chase Strangio posted support for banning the book, conservatives claimed this was the view of Strangio’s employer, the ACLU. Some translators refused to translate the book into other languages. In July 2021, the American Booksellers Association apologized after including the book in a monthly mailing.
The book is notable for how a network of anti-trans academics and media figures worked together to present Shrier as a free speech martyr being “candeled” by the “trans mob,” similar to how the 2003 anti-trans book The Man Who Woould Be Queen was promoted.
Quillette (2020âpresent)
Around the time Irreversible Damage was released, Shrier began posting self-promotional pieces on anti-trans group blog Quillette, including:
Shrier’s friend Bari Weiss hired Shrier to write for anti-trans group blog The Free Press in 2021. On October 5 of that year, Shrier published a piece featuring Erica Anderson and Marci Bowers where they “sound off on puberty blockers, ‘affirmative’ care, the inhibition of sexual pleasure, and the suppression of dissent in their field.” Many of Bowers’ peers were stunned by the report, and both WPATH and USPATH released a statement in the wake of negative community response.
Hsu, V. J. (2022). Irreducible Damage: The Affective Drift of Race, Gender, and Disability in Anti-Trans Rhetorics. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 52(1), 62â77. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2021.1990381
Novella, Steven (June 30, 2021). The Science of Transgender Treatment.Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-of-transgender-treatment/
Gil, Vincent E. (January 2023). Review: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. On Knowing Humanity Journal 7(1), January 2023 https://doi.org/10.18251/okh.v7i1.182
Beattie, Tina (March 10, 2021). No Turning Back.The Tablet https://www.thetablet.co.uk/books/10/19579/no-turning-back-polemicist-abigail-shrier-on-transgenderism
Riley, Naomi Schaefer (June 16, 2020). The Trans Cult.Commentary https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/naomi-schaefer-riley/transgender-children-craze/
Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University (February 15, 2021). C-SPAN Book TV: Irreversible Damage. https://www.c-span.org/program/book-tv/irreversible-damage/589785
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
UnHerd is a British group blog that publishes consistently anti-transgender content.
Background
UnHerd was founded in 2017 by conservative British political activist Tim Montgomerie with funding from Paul Marshall. Montgomerie had previously founded ConservativeHome. In 2018 anti-trans activist Sally Chatterton took over editing from Montgomerie, leading to significantly increased anti-trans coverage.
They are known for publishing “the kind of people who are generally ‘unheard’ because people edge away from them at parties.”
The only exception is balanced writing on religion and trans issues, including work by Christopher Rhodes and Alexander Faludy.
UnHerd produces the show Undercurrents with Emily Jashinsky.
Originally available without a paywall, they have since added one. In 2023, they set up UnHerd Club, a gathering place for contributors and their orbiters.
UnHerd partnered with Ground News, FIRE, and ThirdRail to hold an event in New York City called “Dissident Dialogues.” It was produced by talent agency This Is 42, which handled logistics.
Panels included anti-trans activists speaking on “What is the future of feminism?” and “The end of ‘gender medicine.'”
Gloria Steinem is an American author and activist. Steinem is a key historic figure in second-wave feminism.
After publishing anti-transgender writings in the 1970s, Steinem revised some of those views and now supports trans-inclusive feminism.
Background
Gloria Marie Steinem was born March 25, 1934 in Toledo to Leo Steinem, a Jewish traveling antiques dealer, and Ruth Nuneviller Steinem, a Presbyterian homemaker. Steinem’s parents split in 1944.
Ruth Steinem grew increasingly unstable, leading Steinem to move in with older sibling Susanne Steinem Patch in Washington DC. After graduating from high school there, Steinem earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1956.
In 1957, Steinem had an abortion in London while traveling to India. After two years in India, Steinem returned to the United States and began researching and writing, publishing work in Help! Show, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and New York.
In 1972, Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine. In July 1974, the magazine published an excerpt from trans travel writer Jan Morris, which led to backlash.
Throughout the 1970s, Steinem played a central role in the women’s rights movement and became a favored author and source on the subject.
In 2013, Steinem addressed “words circulated out of time and context” from those previous writings:
So now I want to be unequivocal in my words: I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make. And what I wrote decades ago does not reflect what we know today as we move away from only the binary boxes of “masculine” or “feminine” and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.
In 2021, Steinem signed an open letter supporting trans women and girls, saying, “I am proud to sign this letter because we all must fight against the unnecessary barriers placed on trans women and girls by lawmakers and those who co-opt the feminist label in the name of division and hatred.”
Steinem, Gloria (October 2, 2013). Op-ed: On Working Together Over Time.The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2013/10/02/op-ed-working-together-over-time
Steinem, Gloria (1983). Transsexualism. in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. pp. 224â226. Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 978-0030632365
Steinem, Gloria (February 1977). If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Change the Foot. Ms. p. 76ff.
Martina Navratilova is a Czech-American tennis player and anti-transgender activist.
Navratilova is a sex segregationist whose primary concern is maintaining segregationism that keeps women and girls in inferior roles in society. Of particular interest is maintaining womenâs subordinate place via sex-segregated competitive sport, primarily by attacking transgender athletes.
Martina Ć ubertovĂĄ was born October 18, 1956 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to an athletic family. Martina’s stepparent Miroslav NavrĂĄtil coached Martina in tennis. Martina took that surname and went pro in 1975. Navratilova dominated professional tennis for the next three decades and is considered one of the greatest players of all time.
Michael Powell is an American writer and anti-transgender activist involved in the New York Times anti-transgender coverage crisis of the 2020s. In 2024, Powell moved to anti-trans publication The Atlantic.
Background
Michael Henry Powell was born on January 20, 1957. Powell earned a bachelor’s degree from The State University of New York at Purchase in 1978 and then attended Columbia University.
In 1982 Powell married Evelyn M. Intondi (born March 14, 1956), a midwife and reproductive health specialist. They have two adult children.
Powell worked at New York Newsday from 1988 to 1995. Powell next moved to The Washington Postin 1996. Powell was with The New York Observer before joining the New York Times in 2007. After writing on the “Gotham” column, Powell moved to Sports in 2014.
âWe needed somebody who was deeply experienced at covering controversies in a panoramic way, who was experienced enough that they wouldnât get intimidated or really shaken by some of the criticisms on Twitter and elsewhere.â
In June, Powell ended work on the “Sports of The Times” column and began writing about “free speech and thought, identity, campuses and so on.”
In 2023 Powell moved to the even more transphobic Atlantic, which has not had a trans journalist on their masthead since their founding in 1857.
Anti-transgender activism
In 2014 Powell boasted about interviewing “transvestite prostitutes from Ecuador.” No reputable journalist was using the term transvestite in 2014.
Lia Thomas non-interview
In a 2022 story on transgender athletes, Powell wrote one of thousands of articles that used Lia Thomas as outrage bait, even though Powell failed to interview Thomas for the piece. Where an earlier piece in the Times by Billy Witz adhered to objective reporting, Powell chose to frame transgender people as debates to be solved. Powell claims the debates center on “science, fairness and inclusiveness, and cut to the core of distinctions between gender identity and biological sex.”
Many people across the political spectrum are deeply invested in maintaining sex segregation and shoring up the study of “sex differences,” and Powell uncritically presents their pettifogging about rules and measurements and what-not.
To Powell’s credit, the story briefly mentions Anna Posbergh among the usual suspects fixated on minutiae within a fatally flawed and fundamentally unfair institution. Posbergh is one of many who believe that there is no ethical future for sex-segregated competitive sport, which largely exists to further the belief that one half of the human population is “inferior” to the other half.
Powell polishes the classic “science vs. activism” chestnut, suggesting only “activists” believe biology is socially constructed:
Even nomenclature is contentious. Descriptive phrases such as âbiological womanâ and âbiological manâ might be seen as central to discussing differences in performance. Many trans rights activists say such expressions are transphobic and insist biology and gender identity are largely social constructs.
Powell concludes, “The solution, a balance of gender and biology, looks distant.” While the solution is distant, it is not a balance of gender and biology. It is a recognition that sex-segregated sport, just like any sex-segregated institution, has no place in an ethical society.
Background on the Thomas non-interview
Powell contacted GLAAD in the course of the story, and after they told Powell that Martina Navratilova holds views they consider objectionable, Powell naturally included Navratilova because it violates some sort of perceived taboo.
Press room (July 18, 2023). The Atlantic Hires Michael Powell and Zoë Schlanger as Staff Writers. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2023/07/atlantic-hires-michael-powell-and-zoe-schlanger/674739/
Derrick Jensen is an American environmentalist and author. Jensen is a founder of environmental organization Deep Green Resistance, a radical feminist group that has been criticized for anti-transgender views.
Background
Jensen was born on December 19, 1960. Jensen earned a bachelor’s degree from Colorado School of Mines in 1983 and a master’s degree from Eastern Washington University in 1991.
In 2011, Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Aric McBay founded Deep Green Resistance. McBay left due to the organization’s positions on transgender people.
Anti-transgender views
Jensen’s concerns center around postmodernism and queer theory. Jensen believes these theories are attempts to justify nonconsensual sex with minors. Jensen also claims any dissent from acceptable views will lead to cancelation:
This is the cult-like behavior of the postmodern left: if you disagree with any of the Holy Commandments of postmodernism/queer theory/transgender ideology, you must be silenced on not only that but on every other subject. Welcome to the death of discourse, brought to you by the postmodern left.
Jensen has laid out these anti-trans views in a number of essays and posts:
The Emperor’s New Penis
Liberals and the New McCarthyism
Letter to a Publisher: On the Destruction of Discourse and the Cult of the Postmodern Left
Derrick Jensen Resistance Radio
Jensen is host of a show that has included many environmentalists, some trans-inclusive feminists, and anti-transgender activists:
Houlberg, Laura (2017). “The End of Gender or Deep Green Transmisogyny?”. Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-88657-2.
Pellow, David Naguib (2019). Eco-Defence, Radical Environmentalism and Environmental Justice. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 9781315619880.
