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Dan Carlin is an American podcaster and author considered by some to be part of the intellectual dark web.

Carlin has been conspicuously silent on the historic civil rights struggle of trans and gender diverse people.

Background

Daniel “Dan” Carlin was born November 14, 1965 to parents involved in film and TV production. Carlin earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Colorado, Boulder in 1989. Carlin worked as a journalist in Los Angeles.

Carlin began podcasting in 2005, eventually hosting three shows: Hardcore History, Hardcore History: Addendum, and Common Sense.

Intellectual dark web

Analysis of the DanCarlin subreddit suggests that the connection to the intellectual dark web is weak.

Carlin has been a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience. Nicholas Quah stated in Vulture that both “possess politics that can be fairly hard to describe, but typically run counter to the dominant strings of liberal politics.” 

In addition to connections to Joe Rogan, Carlin has collaborated with Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Tim Ferriss

References

Beres, Derek (March 5, 2018). These are the women behind the Intellectual Dark Web. Big Think https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/these-are-the-women-behind-the-intellectual-dark-web/

Quah, Nicholas (November 17, 2020). The Rise of Right-Wing Podcasts Is Upon Us. Vulture https://www.vulture.com/2020/11/rise-of-right-wing-podcasting.html

Mountjoy, Anthony (Jun 6, 2018). Crawling The Intellectual Dark Web. Verboten Publishing https://medium.com/verboten-publishing/deep-data-of-the-intellectual-dark-web-5c323ee782b4

Media

Lex Fridman (November 2, 2020) Dan Carlin: Hardcore History | Lex Fridman Podcast #136. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-ztNsBM54

Resources

Dan Carlin (dancarlin.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Patreon (patreon.com)

Substack (substack.com)

reddit (reddit.com)

Tim Ferriss is an American podcaster and lifestyle influencer. Although Ferriss is sometimes considered part of the intellectual dark web for having a few guests who are part of that movement, Ferriss has not engaged in anti-transgender activism.

Selected podcast guests

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Tim Ferriss (tim.blog)

Four Hour Workweek (fourhourworkweek.com)

Andrea Long Chu is an American writer and critic whose work frequently focuses on sex and gender.

Chu won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2023.

Background

Chu was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1992 and grew up in a Christian household in Asheville, North Carolina. Chu earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University in 2014 and a master’s degree from New York University in 2016.

Chu has written numerous book reviews and interviewed many notable public figures.

Writing on sex and gender

Much of Chu’s work is deliberately provocative. In 2018, Chu presented two works on sissy subculture and wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy.”

The thesis for Chu’s 2019 book Females is that “everyone is female and everyone hates it.”

Who’s Afraid of Gender? review (2024)

In 2024, Chu reviewed Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler in New York Magazine. Chu gives an excellent overview of the influence of Butler’s work on transgender rights. The piece is also notable for tracing the recent history of the anti-transgender movement. It lays part of the blame on those who embrace disease models of our community: “We must be able to defend this desire clearly, directly, and — crucially — without depending on the idea of gender.”

Chu notes the same tipping point in anti-trans activism that many trans people immediately noted:

In 2018, The Atlantic published a long cover story by the reporter Jesse Singal called “When Children Say They’re Trans,” focusing on the clinical disagreements over how to treat gender-questioning youth. The story provided a template for the coverage that would follow it. First, it took what was threatening to become a social issue, hence a question of rights, and turned it back into a medical issue, hence a question of evidence; it then quietly suggested that since the evidence was debatable, so were the rights.

Chu (2024)

Chu identifies three groups that compose the anti-trans bloc in America today:

  • the religious right
  • gender critical feminists (TERFs)
  • trans-agnostic reactionary liberals (TARLs)

Chu notes that the key outlet for the third group is the New York Times:

The Times is not alone; it is one of many respectable publications, including The Atlantic and The Economist, engaged in sanitizing the ideas promoted by TARLs in the more reactionary corners of the media landscape. Here one finds journalists like Singal, Matthew Yglesias, Matt Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan, Helen Lewis, Meghan Daum, and, of course, former Times staffer Bari Weiss. Many of these writers live in self-imposed exile on Substack, the newsletter platform, where they present themselves as brave survivors of cancellation by the woke elites. But they are not a marginal force.

Chu (2024)

We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex. It does not matter where this desire comes from. When the TARL insinuates again and again that the sudden increase of trans-identified youth is “unexplained,” he is trying to bait us into thinking trans rights lie just on the other side of a good explanation.

Chu (2024)

I am speaking here of a universal birthright: the freedom of sex. This freedom consists of two principal rights: the right to change one’s biological sex without appealing to gender and the right to assume a gender that is not determined by one’s sexual biology. One might exercise both of these rights toward a common goal — transition, for instance — but neither can be collapsed into the other. 

Chu (2024)

Selected publications

Chu AL (March 11, 2024). Freedom of Sex: The moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies. New York https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trans-rights-biological-sex-gender-judith-butler.html

  • Coleman, Madeleine Leung (March 15, 2024). Gender Identity Is Not Enough, [interview about Chu’s piece] The Critics / New York https://nymag.com/newsletter/2024/03/the-critics-march-15-2024.html

Chu AL (2019). The Impossibility of Feminism. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 30, no. 1 (Spring 2019). https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-7481232

Chu, Andrea Long (May 1, 2019). The Impossibility of Feminism. Differences. 30 (1): 63–81. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-7481232

Chu AL (November 24, 2018). My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/vaginoplasty-transgender-medicine.html

Chu AL (November 5, 2018). No One Wants It. Affidavit https://www.affidavit.art/articles/no-one-wants-it

Chu AL (2018). On Liking Women. n+1 30 (Winter 2018): 47–62. https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-30/essays/on-liking-women/

Chu AL (2018). Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans? Queer Disruptions 2 Columbia University, New York, NY March 1–2, 2018.

Chu AL (2018). Pornographic Spectatorship, or, Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans? 2018 annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association UCLA, Los Angeles, CA March 29–April 1, 2018.

Chu AL (2017). The Wrong Wrong Body: Notes on Trans Phenomenology. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 4, no. 1 (February 2017): 141–52. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3711613

References

Emre, Merve (January 30, 2024). I Want a Critic: Andrea Long Chu, interviewed by Merve Emre. The New York Review https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/01/30/i-want-critic-andrea-long-chu-merve-emre/

Staff report (October 27, 2021). Andrea Long Chu Joins New York Magazine as Book Critic. New York Press Room. https://nymag.com/press/2021/10/andrea-long-chu-joins-new-york-magazine-as-book-critic.html

Lorusso, Melissa (30 October 2019). In ‘Females,’ The State Is Less A Biological Condition Than An Existential One. NPR https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774365692/in-females-the-state-is-less-a-biological-condition-than-an-existential-one

Shapiro, Lila (October 16, 2019). Andrea Long Chu Wants More. Vulture https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/andrea-long-chu-on-her-debut-book-females.html

Thom, Kai Cheng (November 29, 2018). The Pain—and Joy—of Transition. Slate https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/11/andrea-long-chu-new-york-times-criticism-response-transgender.html

Blanchard, Sessi Kuwabara (September 11, 2018). Andrea Long Chu is the Cult Writer Changing Gender Theory. Vice https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev74m7/andrea-long-chu-interview-avital-ronell-gender

O’Brien, Michelle Esther (November 2, 2018). Interview with Andrea Long Chu. New York Public Library Community Oral History Project. http://oralhistory.nypl.org/interviews/andrea-long-chu-lpf5er

Resources

Andrea Long Chu (andrealongchu.com)

The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

New York University (nyu.edu)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Debbie Hayton is a conservative transgender British educator and critic of mainstream transgender activism. Hayton gets money and attention by siding with those opposed to rights for sex and gender minorities.

Hayton’s work frequently appears in anti-transgender publications, most notably UnHerd and The Spectator. Hayton’s views have also appeared in Daily Express, Global Research, The Critic Magazine, Fox News, TalkTV, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Guardian.

Background

Deborah “Debbie” Hayton was born April 23, 1968. Hayton grew up in Consett in North East England. After graduating Blackfyne Comprehensive School in 1986, Hayton entered Newcastle University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1989 and a doctorate in 1992. Hayton worked in research until 1995, then began a career as a physics teacher. Hayton taught at Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham from 1996 to 2002, then at King Henry VIII School in Coventry from 2002 to 2022. Beginning in 2016 Hayton began offering classroom timetable support and began freelance writing.

Hayton is based in Bristol, is married to Stephanie, and has three children. Hayton transitioned in 2012.

Activism and trolling

Hayton’s writing is a mix of first-person stories and gender critical views on several trans topics:

Hayton authored a letter supporting transphobic author Kathleen Stock. The letter was signed by like-minded gender critical trans people: Tina Daniels, Lily Geidelberg, Sophie Gibbons, Kristina Harrison, Seven Hex, Jennifer Kenyon, Claudia McLean, Sarah McDonnell, Fionne Orlander, Nyah Putzo, Toni Roche-Simmons, Katie Sangwell, Gillian Simpson, Sian Taylder, and Miranda Yardley.

Hayton appeared in the 2018 anti-trans propaganda piece Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk hosted by Stella O’Malley.

Hayton enjoys trolling and mocking the trans community members who hold differing views. Hayton is known for wearing a T-shirt that says “Trans women are men. Get over it.”

References

Hellen, Nicholas (December 22 2019). Trans woman Debbie Hayton faces ban for transphobia. The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-woman-debbie-hayton-faces-ban-for-transphobia-96tfkl5gc

Hayton, Debbie (May 9, 2022). My autogynephilia story. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/05/the-truth-about-autogynephilia/

Stanford, Peter (October 16, 2021). The trans women who support women’s rights. The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/16/meet-trans-women-agree-publicly-question-gender-self-identification/

Resources

Debbie Hayton (debbiehayton.com)

Timetable Support (timetablesupport.uk)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

UnHerd (unherd.com)

Kathleen Kingsbury is an American editor responsible for the surge in anti-transgender opinion pieces in the New York Times during the 2020s. Kingsbury is also responsible for giving columns and space to staunch anti-trans activists like David French and Pamela Paul.

No transgender journalist has appeared on the New York Times masthead since its founding in 1851. In 2023 the San Francisco Chronicle cited a Times employee who said the organization has no trans reporters.

Background

Kathleen “Katie” Kingsbury was born in 1979 and grew up in Portland, Oregon. Kingsbury earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2001.

Kingsbury was a reporter at Metro Boston for a year, then a research assistant at Tufts University for a year. Kingsbury earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 2004. In 2004 Kingsbury worked at CNN and Time before working as a stringer for a year at BusinessWeek.

From 2009-2010, Kingsbury was a contributing writer at The Daily Beast, then served as a program officer at Open Society Foundations for a year. From 2009 to 2014 Kingsbury wrote for Reuters and Time. Kingsbury joined the editorial team at the Boston Globe, moving into management roles from 2013 to 2017. Kingsbury joined the New York Times editorial page team in 2017 and was promoted to Editorial Page Editor in 2020.

Criticism by journalism watchdog FAIR

Opinion page editor Kathleen Kingsbury (4/26/21) once wrote of the Times Opinion team, “We have our thumb on our scale in the name of progress, fairness and shared humanity.” In this political moment, when control over trans lives has become an increasingly central political and legal debate, and with no trans writers among their stable of columnists or contributing writers, the Paper of Record is paying a cisgender white woman to regularly voice anti-trans arguments. Their thumb is on the scale, all right—but not in the way Kingsbury would like us to believe.

Hollar (2022)

2023 response to over 1,000 trans-supportive colleagues

On February 15, 2023, over 1,000 New York Times contributors signed an open letter objecting to the Times’ increasingly hostile coverage of transgender issues.

On the same day, GLAAD delivered a second letter and organized a protest in front of Times headquarters.

Kingsbury chose to publish a piece by anti-trans activist Pamela Paul defending anti-trans activist J.K. Rowling the very next day.

The next day, Executive Editor Joe Kahn and Kingsbury warned their colleagues they were violating company policy. Their warning conflates the two letters and dismisses the ethical concerns of their colleagues as “advocacy.”

Colleagues,

Yesterday, the New York Times received a letter delivered by GLAAD, an advocacy group, criticizing coverage in The Times of transgender issues. 

It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to seek to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of our staff and contributors to The Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name. 

Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy. That policy prohibits our journalists from aligning themselves with advocacy groups and joining protest actions on matters of public policy. We also have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another’s journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks. 

Our coverage of transgender issues, including specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written. The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats. The letter also ignores The Times’ strong commitment to covering all aspects of transgender issues, including the life experience of transgender people and the prejudice and violence against them in our society. A full list of our coverage can be viewed here, and any review shows that the allegations this group is making are demonstrably false. 

We realize these are difficult issues that profoundly affect many colleagues personally, including some colleagues who are themselves transgender. We have welcomed and will continue to invite discussion, criticism and robust debate about our coverage. Even when we don’t agree, constructive criticism from colleagues who care, delivered respectfully and through the right channels, strengthens our report. 

We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums. 

We live in an era when journalists regularly come under fire for doing solid and essential work. We are committed to protecting and supporting them. Their work distinguishes this institution, and makes us proud. 

Joe & Katie

2024 piece justifying another Pamela Paul article

In defending Paul, Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the disproportionate number of anti-trans articles the section publishes by citing three articles that are purportedly not anti-trans:

Given the state legislative fights over trans Americans and their civil liberties and access to medical and psychological care, we have published many columns and guest essays from health professionals and activists on issues affecting trans people, as well as a focus group last year hearing from trans Americans about their lives. 

Kingsbury (2024)

Since the ex-trans movement is a single-digit minority, Kingsbury’s next 90+ greenlit articles should be on gender diverse youth who have benefited from the care that is the current US medical consensus.

References

Ho, Soliel (August 31, 2023). Inside the New York Times’ trans coverage: ‘I wonder if people at the top fully believe in trans people’s humanity’ San Francisco Chronicle https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/new-york-times-trans-18214925.php

Hollar, Julie (December 16, 2022). Pamela Paul’s Gender Agenda. FAIR https://fair.org/home/pamela-pauls-gender-agenda/

Reilly, Patrick (February 15, 2023). New York Times accused of ‘editorial bias’ in coverage of transgender issues. New York Post https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/new-york-times-blasted-for-editorial-bias-in-transgender-coverage/

Bolies, Corbin (March 7, 2023). The New York Times’ Trans Coverage Debacle Was Years in the Making. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-new-york-times-trans-coverage-debacle-was-years-in-the-making

Bolies, Corbin; Cartwright, Lachlan (February 16, 2023). New York Times blasts staffers who condemned paper’s trans coverage. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-blast-staffers-who-condemned-papers-trans-coverage

Eckert, AJ. What the New York Times gets wrong about puberty blockers for transgender youth. Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-new-york-times-gets-wrong-about-puberty-blockers-for-transgender-youth/

USPATH and WPATH respond to NY Times article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost? published on November 14, 2022 (PDF). https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/USPATHWPATH%20Statement%20re%20Nov%2014%202022%20NYT%20Article%20Nov%2022%202022.pdf

Urquhart, Evan (November 17, 2022). The NYT’s big piece on puberty blockers mucked up the most important point about them. Slate https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/puberty-blockers-side-effects-controversy.html

Oladipo, Gloria (February 18, 2023). Nearly 1,000 contributors protest New York Times’ coverage of trans people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage

Migdon, Brooke (February 15, 2023). NYT contributors blast paper’s coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3859501-nyt-contributors-blast-papers-coverage-of-transgender-people/

Yurcaba, Jo (February 16, 2023). N.Y. Times contributors and LGBTQ advocates send open letters criticizing paper’s trans coverage. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ny-contributors-lgbtq-advocates-send-open-letters-criticizing-papers-t-rcna70800

Paul, Larisha (February 15, 2023). Gabrielle Union, Tommy Dorfman, more accuse NYT of ‘Harmful’ coverage of trans people. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/new-york-times-coverage-of-trans-people-open-letter-1234680299/

Kalish, Lil. These New York Times contributors say the paper’s coverage of gender issues is hurting trans people. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lilkalish/trans-writers-open-letter-nyt-biased-coverage

Hays, Gabriel (February 15, 2023). Celebs rip into New York Times for ‘irresponsible’ transgender coverage: Demand end to ‘both sides’ focus. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/media/celebs-rip-new-york-times-irresponsible-transgender-coverage-demand-end-both-sides-focus

Dunlap, David W. (June 19, 2017). How The Times gave ‘gay’ its own voice (again). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

Klein, Charlotte (February 15, 2023). Nearly 200 New York Times contributors are denouncing the paper’s anti-trans coverage. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage

Davies, Rachel (February 16, 2023). The NYT knew what it was doing with its ‘Defense of J.K. Rowling’. The Mary Sue. https://www.themarysue.com/the-nyt-knew-what-it-was-doing-with-its-defense-of-j-k-rowling/

Warrington, James (February 16, 2023). How the New York Times was engulfed by a trans culture war. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/15/new-york-times-accused-writers-anti-trans-bigotry/

Mastrangelo, Dominick (February 16, 2023). NYT editors: Paper ‘will not tolerate’ its journalists protesting coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/3862101-nyt-editors-paper-will-not-tolerate-its-journalists-protesting-coverage-of-transgender-people/amp/

Resources

NYT Contributors’ Letter (nytletter.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

New York Times Company (nytco.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Jesse Singal is an American podcaster, cultural critic, and anti-transgender activist. Singal launders anti-transgender extremism into mainstream media and is a prominent figure in America’s transphobic moral panic.

See this biography for background. After initially working at progressive publications, Singal found success criticizing progressive public policy, media, and medicine. Singal then began getting even more money and attention by attacking transgender people, especially gender diverse youth.

Singal’s activism against the trans rights movement centers on several anti-transgender tactics:

Singal seeks to influence healthcare decisions about our minors with the same rhetoric and tactics used by activists who seek to restrict reproductive healthcare options like contraception and abortion. Singal attempts to disrupt conversations between healthcare providers and the families they serve by demanding more gatekeeping.

Singal focuses on childhood “desistance” and adult “detransition,” two disputed conceptualizations of people whose gender identity or expression shifts over time. These cure narratives and regret narratives are collectively known as the ex-trans movement. These narratives are vastly over-represented in media coverage of trans issues, but Singal’s coverage often suggests to credulous audiences that these narratives don’t get represented enough.

Singal frequently gets money and attention by exploiting anxiety about trans and gender diverse minors, which gets framed as “concern.” Singal then gets more money and attention by implying that opponents and critics are incompetent, dishonest, or even dangerous. Biologist Julia Serano has described this as the “Dregerian narrative,” named after Singal’s role model, anti-transgender historian Alice Dreger.

Singal has gained a reputation for “sealioning,” or persistent and aggressive challenges to criticism. Singal typically focuses on a critic’s minor error, omission, or word choice and uses that detail to derail the larger points made about Singal’s work. Singal uncritically promotes any supporters, defending these ideological allies by challenging their critics with the same persistent and aggressive tactics.

Singal’s tactics have been especially harmful to trans journalists, writers, cultural critics, and experts. Through immense privilege and nepotistic connections, Singal has access to opportunities and backchannel conversations where trans people are often excluded. Singal holds forth in these trans-exclusionary spaces as an expert on “tricky science stuff,” while implying that trans people cannot competenetly discuss trans issues. Singal claims to be an edgy iconoclast willing to speak up against “activists,” which Singal uses as a thought-terminating pejorative against any trans critic.

Bad-faith cultural critics often become part of the story they attempt to cover. In The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, journalist Imara Jones outlined Singal’s historically significant role in attacks on hundreds of thousands of trans and gender diverse children. Singal is the inspiration for this site’s decade-long Transphobia Project. That project seeks to show that there are many ethical journalists, public intellectuals, cultural critics, and other creators of knowledge and culture who are capable of addressing controversial gender issues in fair and value-neutral ways.

Singal is a compulsive X/Twitter user who self-published over 125,000 posts, an average of about 35 posts a day for ten years. Singal’s reputation for online histrionics and causing harm to the trans community grew, and Singal soon began exploring other self-publishing options. In November 2017, Singal started a Medium account that mostly addressed topics related to trans people and to Twitter. In January 2019, Singal started a Substack newsletter titled Singal-Minded. In March 2020 Singal began a lucrative “drama” podcast called Blocked and Reported with anti-transgender troll Katie Herzog. These platforms generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue each year and allow Singal to continue this pattern of behavior without any editorial oversight or accountability.

In 2024, Singal joined Bluesky and quickly became the most blocked user in this history of the platform due to anti-trans trolling. Users made several efforts to get Singal banned from the platform.

Anti-trans activists like Jesse Singal are an enormous resource drain for a persecuted minority like the trans community. Singal is a once-in-a-generation problem for our children. We owe it to them to focus our limited resources on minimizing the profound harm Singal is causing. It is literally Singal’s business to derail the trans rights movement, and business is booming.

This information will be significantly expanded over the next decade. In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

In this section

Katie Herzog is an American podcaster best known for gender critical views and anti-transgender activism. Herzog co-hosts the anti-trans “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported with Jesse Singal. Herzog’s work includes

  • promoting disease models:
  • promoting the “ex-trans” movement:
  • never correcting or updating reporting on former ex-trans activist Ky Schevers
  • sex segregationism regarding sports, incarceration, and other remaining sex-segregated institutions
  • criticizing value-neutral and gender-neutral language like pronouns and inclusive medical terminology
    • claiming that medical schools are “denying biological sex”
  • promoting separatist and binary ideas of sex and sexuality
  • criticizing nuanced and nonbinary ideas of sex and sexuality
  • promoting the “lesbian erasure” conspiracy theory

Note: for the trans-supportive artist born in 1979, see Katie Herzog and transgender people.

Background

Catherine Ronan “Katie” Herzog was born on May 18, 1983 in Asheville, North Carolina. Herzog’s parents are both emeritus professors who taught at Western Carolina University: Harold Albert “Hal” Herzog served as a psychology professor, and Mary Jean Ronan Herzog served as an education professor. Katie Herzog graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. Herzog has siblings.

Herzog has published writing in numerous outlets, listed below. Herzog identifies as lesbian and lives in Washington state and North Carolina with spouse Janna Krein, a nurse.

Views on transgender people

Herzog worked for Dan Savage as a freelancer for The Stranger, later serving as a staff writer from 2017 to 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Herzog was furloughed and was no longer employed there as of 2020.

In 2017, Herzog wrote “The Detransitioners,” a piece critics considered a biased and flawed article supporting the ex-trans movement. The piece mentioned several people:

  • Brynn Tannehill, a trans journalist whose criticism of the ex-trans movement appears to have motivated Herzog’s piece
  • Marlo Mack, How to Be a Girl podcaster and supportive parent of a gender diverse child
  • John Otto, a happily transitioned trans man

Supporting Herzog’s views were several activists promoting the ex-trans movement:

  • James Cantor, a fellow gender critical troll in Toronto and promoter of many disease models of gender identity and expression
  • “Jackie” aka “Jackal,” a Seattle area resident who was 25 in 2017 and moderated detransinfo.tumblr.com
  • “Jane,” a Southern California resident who was 53 in 2017 and who joined the ex-trans movement after discovering radfem forums online
  • “Ryan,” who was 43 in 2017 and who underwent medical transition steps but was not socially transitioned at the time
  • “Cass,” who later came out as ex-trans whistleblower Ky Schevers

Schevers was deeply involved in the “gender critical” movement connected to trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF):

While hanging out among ourselves, I and other younger members of this scene would jokingly refer to ourselves and each other as “TERFs”, reclaiming what we viewed as a slur. Many of us got a kick out of having a secret life in a subculture outsiders (correctly) viewed as a hate group. We thought such people were ridiculous and misogynistic for seeing us as hateful and we frequently mocked them, acting as if they were ignorant, misled and/or overly sensitive. We would gather at a lesbian-owned coffee shop and complain about how trans activists were a threat to lesbian culture, talk about dangerous and disgusting “autogynephiles” trying to infiltrate “female-only” spaces, and the social forces supposedly pushing lesbians to “dis-identify from femaleness” and identify as trans. 

Schevers 2021

Herzog never updated the original piece or covered the subsequent developments. No one has ever independently confirmed Herzog’s claims about “Jackie,” “Jane,” or “Ryan,” and the only one independently confirmed has come out against Herzog’s article and its thesis. This is probably the prime example that Herzog is not an objective source for information on trans issues.

In response, some critics burned copies of The Stranger and distributed stickers that said “Katie Herzog (writer at the stranger) Is A Transphobe.” Herzog claims to have been ostracized by some friends. The New York Times and The New Republic described the reaction to “The Detransitioners” as an example of “cancel culture.”

In 2024, The Stranger allowed Schevers to set the record straight on Herzog’s coverage, but none of Herzog’s other sources have been independently verified.

After leaving The Stranger

Since leaving The Stranger, Herzog has become more outspoken on anti-transgender topics. Herzog has spoken frequently about the alleged cultural shift away from “lesbian” as an identity, promoted the disputed diagnosis “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” and suggested that the increase in trans-identified people is part of a “social contagion.” Herzog has also gotten money and attention for claiming that medical schools are “denying biological sex” by presenting more inclusive and value-neutral scientific terminology. Herzog’s posts on the topic via intellectual dark web promoter Bari Weiss were tagged as unreliable self-published sources by the r/medicine forum on reddit, causing the usual suspects to claim they were being censored.

In 2020, Herzog founded Permabanned Media LLC and began the podcast Blocked and Reported with co-host Jesse Singal, also a prominent figure in anti-transgender extremism. That year, Herzog co-signed “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” for Harper’s. That letter was debated for being signed by a disproportionate number of anti-transgender extremists.

As with most people who claim to be “canceled,” Herzog has seen an enormous increase in media appearances on conservative and anti-transgender shows and platforms since 2017. They include Bill Maher, Andrew Sullivan, Tim Dillon, Bret Weinstein, Megyn Kelly, Heather Heying, Glenn Greenwald, Dan Savage, David Fuller, Alexander Beiner, Coleman Hughes, Meghan Murphy, Matt Taibbi, Kat Rosenfield, Michael Tracey, Brendan O’Neill, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, Andrew Doyle, Aryeh Cohen-Wade, Andrew Gold, Matt Lewis, Thaddeus Russell, Benjamin Boyce, Bridget Phetasy, Scott Barry Kaufman, Helen Lewis, Bari Weiss, Mick Hume, Ben Domenech, Aaron Kimberly, Aaron Terrell, Jamie Kirchick, and Lou Perez.

References

Schevers, Ky (June 24, 2024). The Reality Behind the Story I Told The Stranger. The Stranger https://www.thestranger.com/queer-issue-2024/2024/06/05/79545098/the-reality-behind-the-story-i-told-the-stranger

Schevers, Ky (March 25, 2021). The Reality Behind the Story I Told: What My Life was Like When I was Interviewed for the Stranger. Medium https://kyschevers.medium.com/the-reality-behind-the-story-i-told-what-my-life-was-like-when-i-was-interviewed-for-the-stranger-2508d595689d

Doyle, Jude Ellison Sady (March 24, 2021). What’s So Scary About Detransitioning? GEN. https://gen.medium.com/whats-so-scary-about-detransitioning-a8340daf3132

Urquhart, Evan (February 1, 2021). An “Ex-Detransitioner” Disavows the Anti-Trans Movement She Helped Spark. Slate. https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/02/detransition-movement-star-ex-gay-explained.html

Grant, Melissa Gira (November 6, 2019). Fixating on “Cancel Culture” in an Age of Transphobia. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/155606/fxating-cancel-culture-age-transphobia

McDermott, John (November 2, 2019). Those People We Tried to Cancel? They’re All Hanging Out Together. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/style/what-is-cancel-culture.html

Resources

Katie Herzog (katieherzog.info) [no SSL – archive]

Drink Your Way Sober (drinkyourwaysober.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

Substack (moosenuggets.substack.com)

  • Chapter One: “And then I met Janna, the woman who would become my wife, and not only did I change my mind about dog fanatics, I’m ashamed to say I even became one myself.”

The Stranger (thestranger.com)

Medium / Arc Digital (medium.com / arcdigital.media)

Portland Mercury (portlandmercury.com)

The Atlantic (theatlantic.com)

Salon (salon.com)

Mother Jones (motherjones.com)

Buzzfeed News (buzzfeednews.com)

The Guardian (theguardian.com)

Slate (slate.com)

Grist (grist.org)

Reason (reason.com)

Selected media appearances

Podcasts/audio

Singal, Jesse (Apr 19, 2019) Singal-Minded, The Interview: Katie Herzog. Substack / Singal-Minded. https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/singal-minded-the-interview-katie

Rantz, Jason (June 11, 2020). Katie Herzog (Blocked and Reported host) on “cancel culture” in Seattle and at the New York Times. My Northwest. https://mynorthwest.com/1935924/cancel-culture-seattle-herzog/?

Kaufman, Scott Barry (July 9, 2020). Uncancellable with Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal. The Psychology Podcast. https://scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/uncancellable-with-katie-herzog-and-jesse-singal/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4yALKu3RrE

Russell, Thaddeus (January 11, 2019). Episode 74: Katie Herzog. YouTube / Unregistered Podcast. http://www.thaddeusrussell.com/podcast/74

Weinstein, Bret (November 14, 2019). Katie Herzog. YouTube / DarkHorse Podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjELREOrtDc

Lewis, Matt K. (November 9, 2020). Katie Herzog on What the Media and the Left Get Wrong YouTube / Matt Lewis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1i_8k2g5E

Phetasy, Bridget (September 3, 2020). Katie Herzog Never Expected the Concept of “Theybies” to Spread the Way It Haâ€Șs‬ Walk-Ins Welcome. https://ricochet.com/podcast/walk-ins-welcome-bridget-phetasy/katie-herzog-never-expected-the-concept-of-theybies-to-spread-the-way-it-has/

Video

Murphy, Meghan (February 7, 2019). Taking the white pill: Katie Herzog refuses to be put into a box. YouTube / Meghan Murphy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR5DmKCjgVg

Boyce, Benjamin A. (April 1, 2020). Quarantine Conversations: Katie Herzog. YouTube / Benjamin A Boyce. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLoXgrfiio

Taibbi, Matt and Halper, Katie (March 22, 2021). Substack Cancel Wars With Jesse Singal & Katie Herzog. YouTube / Useful Idiots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB6BIhnQJuo

Dillon, Tim (June 13, 2020). #204 – Katie Herzog | The Tim Dillon Show YouTube / The Tim Dillon Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75N9DV8kGPg

Greenwald, Glenn (March 18, 2021). The Role of Claimed LGBT Identity in Political Discourse. YouTube / System Update. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8BZzLFpzA

Rosenfeld, Kat and Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (March 12, 2020). Critiquing “Ugh-Men” Feminism. YouTube / Feminine Chaos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4593zo615iE

Tracey, Michael (June 11, 2020). When did all left-wing activists become trans? YouTube / M. Tracey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGo4glpvGYc

Doyle, Andrew (October 22, 2020). America is exhausted, with Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog YouTube / Spiked [Culture Wars]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxVd-UyaSQg

Perez, Lou (February 7, 2020). Live in Portland with Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying, and Katie Herzog. YouTube / We the Internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1sqivHa3sA

Fuller, David and Beiner, Alexander (June 19, 2020). The Death of Journalism? YouTube / Rebel Wisdom / Sensemaking Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9AVo3jXjN8

Cohen-Wade, Aryeh (July 29, 2018). Jordan Peterson and Detransitioning. YouTube / Culturally Determined / Meaningoflife.tv. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IRAKuB1JI8

PhilosophyInsights (June 19, 2020). The Moral Panic and the Corruption of Journalism. YouTube / PhilosophyInsights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjT9NVOQW10

This profile originally misstated Herzog’s birthday. In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

Paul Thomas is a government employee and co-founder of The Leeds Salon. Thomas has complained in UnHerd about “the collaboration between the unions and management” regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the University and College Union’s “disgraceful lack of support for Kathleen Stock.”

References

Thomas, Paul (October 15, 2021). How my union betrayed me: Shop stewards are collaborating over unconscious bias training. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/10/how-my-union-betrayed-me/

Resources

X/Twitter (x.com)

The Leeds Salon (https://www.leedssalon.org.uk)

Paul Embery is a British firefighter and union leader who has made several anti-transgender comments.

Background

Embery was born and raised in Dagenham. Embery served as a firefighter in London. Embery won a case after being dismissed from his union for supporting Brexit. In 2020, Embery published Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class..

Anti-transgender activism

Embery’s central thesis is that the Labour Party has abandoned workers in favor of “trans rights” and other social issues:

It has over recent years become blindingly apparent that only a handful in the party ever venture to discuss these sorts of macroeconomic questions. Matters of employment, growth and prosperity can jolly well take their place behind the campaign for trans rights and Palestine in the queue of priorities.

As it happens, the publication of the report coincided with the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. You can guess which took precedence on the Twitter feeds of Labour MPs during those 24 hours.

Embery has made a number of anti-trans statements.

In 2017 Embery wrote on Twitter, “There’s something Orwellian about allowing someone to insert a lie on their birth certificate & forcing society to accept the lie as truth.”

Embery added, “Coming next: short people may identify as tall, fat people may identify as thin, and ugly people may pretend to be George Clooney.”

In 2022 Embery quoted a Spiked article titled “Eddie Izzard was born male and he will die male,” then said, “Pretty much sums it up.”

In 2023, Embery denied the UK’s relentless attacks on trans people, writing, “There is no “war” on trans people. There is simply resistance to increasingly strident and unscientific demands.”

References

Jackman, Josh (July 27, 2017). Union refuses to condemn high-ranking official for transphobic remarks. PinkNews https://www.thepinknews.com/2017/07/27/union-refuses-to-condemn-high-ranking-official-for-transphobic-remarks/

Embery, Paul (May 26, 2020). Whose side is Labour on? UnHerd https://unherd.com/2020/05/whose-side-is-labour-on/

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

UnHerd (https://unherd.com/)

Andrew Doyle is a writer and anti-transgender activist who created the Titania McGrath character, a satire of social justice warriors.

Background

Doyle was born in Derry, Northern Ireland and grew up Catholic. Doyle cearned a bachelor’s degree at Aberystwyth University, a master’s degree at University of York, and a doctorate from University of Oxford.

Doyle co-wrote satiric news reporter Jonathan Pie and has published two books as Titania McGrath: Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019) and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020).  

Doyle joined GB News in 2021 as host of Free Speech Nation.

Anti-trans activism

UnHerd published an overview of Doyle’s anti-transgender views, which center on the “gay erasure” conspiracy theory that claims trans people are a plot to eliminate gay people like Doyle:

certain Left-leaning activists are doing their utmost to advance a social constructionist view of both sex and gender. The result has been a curious theoretical alliance between gender ideologues — for whom outmoded stereotypes are taken to signify an authentic self — and traditionalists who similarly feel that male and female behaviour ought to be strictly defined.

[…]

In her new book Time to Think, Hannah Barnes has revealed that between 80-90% of adolescents who were referred to the Tavistock paediatric gender clinic were same-sex attracted. Other writers, such as Helen Joyce, have already drawn on studies that confirm a strong correlation between gender non-conformity in youth and homosexuality in adult life. Members of the staff at the Tavistock itself joked that soon “there would be no gay people left” and whistle-blowers revealed that homophobia was endemic.

[…]

It is significant that activists who insist that stereotypes of male and female behaviour are suggestive of an innate “gender identity” should also seek to deny the reality of sexual dimorphism. The view that sex is a “spectrum” has even infiltrated major academic literature, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. 

References

Doyle, Andrew (March 24, 2022). Have we reached peak trans? UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/03/have-we-reached-peak-trans/

Doyle, Andrew (February 19, 2023). JK Rowling is NOT a transphobe, says Andrew Doyle. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sPytU-qgq8

Doyle, Andrew (January 29, 2023). Nicola Sturgeon ‘not being honest’ over transgender bill, Andrew Doyle says. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxTy5ZXMN1U

Doyle, Andrew (March 20, 2022). Andrew Doyle on trans debate: If murderers get upset about being misgendered my sympathy is limited. GBNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW5TuawAjig

Doyle, Andrew (March 1, 2023). The gender wars started in 1531. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2023/03/the-gender-wars-started-in-1531/

Resources

Andrew Doyle (andrewdoyle.co.uk)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

X/Twitter (x.com)