Patrik Vankrunkelsven is a Belgian physician, politician, and anti-transgender activist.
Vankrunkelsven is affiliated with the Belgian Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBAM). Vankrunkelsven was an invited speaker at a 2023 conference organized by anti-trans hate groupSociety for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.
Background
Patrik Jules Maria Vankrunkelsven was born on May 2, 1957. Vankrunkelsven earned a doctorate in 1982 and had been associated with Catholic research university Katholieke Universiteit Leuven [KU Leuven] ever since.
Vankrunkelsven was mayor of Laakdal from 1994 to 2006. During that time, Vankrunkelsven was president of the Volksunie [People’s Union] from 1998 until shortly before it was dissolved in 2001. After briefly aligning with Sociaal-Liberale Partijl [SPIRIT], Vankrunkelsven served as a senator from Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten [VLD] from 2007 until 2011.
Vankrunkelsven then left politics to focus on academia. Vankrunkelsven and spouse Marleen Finoulst are the driving force behind CEBAM, founded in 2013.
Anti-trans activism
Vankrunkelsven is a prominent Belgian critic of gender affirming care for minors. Vankrunkelsven believes that “puberty blockers are a trap that traps children, preventing them from having a chance to change their minds.”
In 2025, Vankrunkelsven and Trudy Bekkering commented on the Trump Administration’s 2025 US HHS report attacking gender affirming care. They noted: “The review used robust methods. […] We have no major remarks on the study design, nor on the conclusions.”
Vankrunkelsven P, Casteels K, De Vleminck J (2025). Opinion: How to Provide the Best Care for Young People with Gender Dysphoria [Hoe kunnen we de beste zorg geven aan jongeren die te maken hebben met genderincongruentie?]. Belgian Journal of Paediatrics, 27(1), 35–38. https://www.belgjpaediatrics.com/index.php/bjp/article/view/340
Dianne Berg is an American psychologist. Berg’s work has focused on transgender and gender diverse adults and youth. Berg also studies compulsive sexual behavior and nonconsensual sexual behaviors.
Dianne Ranae Berg was born in 1964 and grew up in Moose Lake, Minnesota. Berg was a standout volleyball player at University of Missouri, where and earned s bachelor’s degree there in 1985. Berg earned a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health.
Berg serves as an Assistant Professor at University of Minnesota. Berg and Katie Spencer are Co-Directors of the National Center for Gender Spectrum Health, a division of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health. They developed the Gender Affirmative Lifespan Approach (GALA).
2018 Atlantic article
Berg was quoted in a 2018 Atlantic article by Jesse Singal on the ex-transgender movement. Similar to the ex-gay movement, the people who promote the medicalized concepts of “desistance” and “detransition” believe that being trans is a disease that can resolve on it own or through medical intervention. Proponents of these loaded terms make several assumptions that are not value-neutral and therefore not scientific.
Singal presents Berg and fellow clinicians Laura Edwards-Leeper and Erica Anderson as therapists who have “concerns” that more affirming care for minors may lead to negative transition outcomes:
Clinicians are still wrestling with how to define affirming care, and how to balance affirmation and caution when treating adolescents. “I don’t want to be a gatekeeper,” Dianne Berg, a co-director of the National Center for Gender Spectrum Health, at the University of Minnesota, told me. “But I also worry that in opening the gates, we’re going to have more adolescents that don’t engage in the reflective work needed in order to make sound decisions, and there might end up being more people when they are older that are like, Oh, hmm—now I am not sure about this.”
[…]
“Under the motivation to be supportive and to be affirming and to be nonstigmatizing, I think the pendulum has swung so far that now we’re maybe not looking as critically at the issues as we should be,” the National Center for Gender Spectrum Health’s Dianne Berg told me.
Becker-Warner R, Candelario-Pérez L, Rider GN, Berg, D (2021). “Childhood gender nonconformity.” In H. L. Armstrong (Ed.), Encyclopedia of sex and sexuality: Understanding biology, psychology, and culture (pp. 110-112). ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-61069-874-0
Spencer KG, Berg DR, Bradford NJ, Vencill J, Tellawi G, Rider GN (2021). The Gender Affirmative Lifespan Approach: A developmental model for clinical work with transgender and gender diverse children, adolescents, and adults. Psychotherapy, 58(1), 37-49. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000363
Munns R Dickenson J, Candelario-Perez L, Kovic A, Rider GN, Berg D, Coleman E, Girard A (2021). Psychotherapies in the treatment of CSBD. In R. Balon & P. Briken (Eds.), Compulsive sexual behavior disorder: Understanding, assessment, and treatment (pp. 109-128). American Psychiatric Association. ISBN 978-1615372195
McGuire J, Berg D, Catalpa J, Morrow QJ, Fish JN, Rider GN, Steensma T, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Spencer K (2020). Utrecht Gender Dysphoria Scale – Gender Spectrum (UGDS-GS): Construct validity among transgender, nonbinary, and LGBQ samples. International Journal of Transgender Health, 21(2), 194-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2020.1723460
Bradford NJ, Dewitt J, Decker J, Berg DR, Spencer KG, Ross MW (2019). Sex education and transgender youth: “Trust means material by and for queer and trans people.” Sex Education, 19(1), 84-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2018.1478808
Strang JF, Janssen A, Tishelman A, Leibowitz SF, Kenworthy L, McGuire JK, Edwards-Leeper L, Mazefsky CA, Rofey D, Bascom J, Caplan R, Gomez-Lobo V, Berg D, Zaks Z, Wallace GL, Wimms H, Pine-Twaddell E, Shumer D, Register-Brown K, Sadikova E, Anthony LG (2018). Letter to the Editor. Revisiting the link: Evidence of the rates of autism in studies of gender diverse individuals. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(11), 885-887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.04.023
Bradford NJ, Rider GN, Catalpa J, Morrow QJ, Berg DR, Spencer, KG, McGuire J (2019). Creating gender: A thematic analysis of genderqueer narratives. International Journal of Transgenderism, online ahead of print May 25, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2018.1474516
Catalpa JM, McGuire JK, Fish JN, Bradford NJ, Rider GN, Berg, DR (2019). Predictive validity of the genderqueer identity scale (GQI): Differences between genderqueer and transgender individuals. International Journal of Transgenderism. 10.1080/15532739.2018.1528196
Milhausen RR et al, Eds. (2019). Handbook of sexuality-related measures (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1138740846
D Berg, L Edwards-Leeper Child and family assessment. American Psychological Association https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=HQLhAQQAAAAJ&citation_for_view=HQLhAQQAAAAJ:MXK_kJrjxJIC
Resources
University of Minnesota School of Medicine (med.umn.edu)
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Paul Embery is a British firefighter and union leader who frequently makes anti-transgender comments. Embery has written for anti-trans group blogs UnHerd, The The Spectator, Spiked, and Compact.
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 Spikedarticle by Brendan O’Neill 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.”
Lindsay Shepherd is a Canadian writer and anti-transgender activist. Shepherd is part of the so-called intellectual dark web, described as a gateway to the far right.
Background
Lindsay Shepherd was born on December 7, 1994 and grew up in Burnaby, British Columbia. Shepherd earned a bachelor’s degree form Simon Fraser University, followed by a master’s degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2018.
Anti-transgender activism
Shepherd became a cause célèbre among anti-trans media figures from the “academic freedom” faction after a 2017 classroom controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University. Shepherd showed students two clips of Jordan Peterson criticizing Canada’s Bill C-16, which added gender identity and expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the list of characteristics of identifiable groups protected from hate propaganda in the Canadian Criminal Code.
Shepherd was called into a meeting with administrators after a student complaint, and Shepherd’s supervisor agreed to review Shepherd’s future class materials. Shepherd secretly recorded the meeting and released it to the press, which led to apologies from Shepherd’s supervisor and the college president. The university opened an independent inquiry that found no wrongdoing by Shepherd. The incident led to lawsuits by Shepherd and Peterson, as well as countersuits against Shepherd.
Shepherd appeared in the 2019 film No Safe Spaces to discuss the incident.
The Boston Heraldidentified Shepherd as a member of the intellectual dark web. Praising “intellectually curious podcast hosts like Dave Rubin and Joe Rogan,” the anonymous editorial lists “victims of these progressive mobs”:
Sarah Vaci aka “Lordy” is an Anglo-Hungarian artist and anti-transgender activist. Vaci is associated with anti-trans hate groupGenspect.
Vaci’s anti-trans activism focuses on the ex-transgender movement. Similar to the ex-gay movement of the 20th century, ex-trans activists and their supporters often believe people can be cured of being transgender through “desistance” or “detransition.”
Background
Sarah Vaci was born on September 22, 1977. According to Vaci’s LinkedIn profile, after graduating James Allen’s Girls’ School, Vaci earned a bachelor of technology degree from Ravensbourne University London in 1996 and a bachelor’s degree from Kent Institute of Art and Design in 1999. In 1999, Vaci was a production assistant for Media Merchants on Art Attack.
From 2001 to 2010. Vaci held several roles at The Film and Video Workshop, including animation project leader and party planner (2001–2010), animation and video workshop leader (2002–2010), and video director/camera operator/editor (2005–2010). In 2001 to 2002, Vaci was a volunteer with The Caxton Youth Trust in a club for young people with disabilities. In 2003, Vaci worked for RCH as a production manager, then as a videography specialist.
From 2020 to 2024, Vaci worked for Outschools. According to Vaci’s Outschools profile:
Since 2001 I have led film, animation and art workshops with children age 6 to adult with a specialism in SEN in schools, hospitals and SEN schools in the UK and USA. I also ran historical animation workshops for family groups at The British Museum in London for many years. My degree is in video installation art and I have an MA/MSc in Community Arts and SEN/inclusion studies where I focussed on creating animation with autistic children. As well as videography, I’ve studied kids’ TV presenting and stand-up comedy. I’m also an expert in 2D needle-felting and known internationally for my work.
I have two children (aged 8 and 12) and we love making films with my fantastic puppets and lego animations together. I home educate my kids and love injecting creativity into teaching more serious subjects such as mathematical graphs or spelling.
Vaci earned master’s degrees in 2008 from Goldsmiths, University of London and from the Institute of Education. From 2008 to 2014, Vaci ran digital workshops at The British Museum. Vaci then opened a studio to work independently.
Vaci is based in Devon and uses the nickname “Lordy.”
Anti-transgender activism
On March 12, 2022, Vaci began a project called Metamorphosis 100, profiling people whose gender identity or expression has shifted more than once and who identified as women at the time Vaci profiled them.
Vaci joined anti-trans hate groupGenspect as a digital content creator in 2023, producing videos.
Metamorphosis 100
Because transition regret is so rare, Vaci has faced challenges completing 100 profiles of ex-trans activists. Because so many of Vaci’s profiles use fake names, it’s not possible to verify if they are real or have retransitioned. A number of people profiled have withdrawn or asked to be removed, so the current number of about 60 profiles is misleading. The project stalled out after profile number 62.
Pamela Paul is an American writer and anti-transgender activist who laundered anti-trans extremism into the New York Times until 2025. Paul then joined the Wall Street Journal and continued writing anti-trans pieces.
While editor of The New York Times Book Review, Paul hired anti-trans activist Jesse Singal to write a glowing review of anti-trans activist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, helping spark a newsroom crisis about anti-trans coverage that culminated in 2023. The day after the crisis reached its peak, Paul published a piece defending anti-trans activist J.K. Rowling.
Paul has published many opinion columns for the Times repeating anti-trans talking points and defending other anti-trans activists.
Background
Pamela Lindsey Paul was born on March 2, 1971. Paul graduated from Brown University, then was an editor at American Demographics. Paul’s first marriage to conservative Times columnist Bret Stephens ended in 1998. Paul married hedge fund manager Michael Stern in 2004.
Paul has authored several books.
New York Times
Paul was named children’s book editor of The New York Times Book Review in 2011 and editor in 2013. Paul became an opinion columnist at the Times in 2022. Maris Kreizman wrote: “Looking at the Opinion section and once again marveling over the fact that this terrible, hackneyed, boring writer was once the most important person in all of book publishing.”
Patrick Ness says the original line of a review said “The culture wars have come for your transgender children.” The Times made Ness change it to something “less political.” A Times spokesperson later said Paul was not involved.
Erik Hane wrote: “As Pamela Paul starts churning out low-effort reactionary garbage piece and after piece in her new job in the op-ed section, spare a thought for how this person may have affected the NYT Books section she ran for many years.”
I think that we’re entering a period when the most meaningful political distinction will be fascist and anti-fascist. It’s really important to understand that transphobia is one of the most potent entry points to fascism today – and act accordingly.
The novel The Men by Sandra Newman is one of many sci-fi works in which all men or all women suddenly disappear. The concept can easily steer toward anti-trans sentiments, and some objected to Newman’s book. Paul defended Newman with a lot of anti-trans dogwhistles:
But apparently Newman got too creative — or too real — for some. That a fictional world would assert the salience of biological sex, however fanciful the context, was enough to upset a vocal number of transgender activists online. They would argue that “men” is a cultural category to which anyone can choose to belong, as opposed to “maleness,” which is defined by genetics and biology.
In this case, we can set aside contentious questions around gender identity and transgender politics. Even if you don’t believe the sex binary is as fundamental to human beings as it is to all other mammals, a fiction writer ought to be free to imagine her own universe, whether as utopian ideal, dystopian horror or some complicated vision in between.
In another piece, Paul claims these anti-trans views are a middle ground or a centrist political position. Rather than seeing reproductive rights and bodily autonomy as a shared goal of trans people and pro-choice activists, Paul sees trans people as engaging in “erasure” of women by proposing inclusive and value-neutral language around reproduction. Paul describes “female biological function,” meaning reproductive function and reduces women to their reproductive function and organs in order to exclude trans women.
Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own.
Daniel Froomkin notes that Paul builds on the anti-trans work of other Times writers, including Emily Bazelon, Michael Powell, and Anemona Hartocollis.
Both-sidesing would have been a step up for this column, which devoted only 52 words out of 1,300 to the right’s decades-long campaign to strip women of their rights. The rest was about how “the fringe left” is “jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda.”
The central thesis of Paul’s argument was an exaggerated summary of a scaremongering news article from last month by Michael Powell, one of the two star reporters the Times has assigned to the woke-panic/cancel-culture beat –the other being Anemona Hartocollis, who just a few days ago gave us this already infamous piece of soft-focus cancel porn.
Powell, Paul wrote, had concluded that “the word ‘women’ has become verboten.”
This conspiracy has become known as “Pamela Paul’s great replacement theory,” which Melissa Gira Grant described as “lightly laundered anti-trans propaganda, presented as a sensible centrist argument.”
2024 column on the ex-trans movement
Paul continued promoting anti-trans talking points in 2024 with a piece on the ex-trans movement. Activists cited included:
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.
Since the ex-trans movement is a single-digit minority, the next 90+ articles should be on gender diverse youth who have benefited from the care that is the current US medical consensus.
2025 article on the LGB separatist movement
In a Wall Street Journal piece, Paul promoted a number of key figures in the LGB separatist movement. Paul reportedly conducted “more than three dozen in-depth interviews with gay men, lesbian women, bisexuals and transgender people.” Paul mentioned or links to LGB Alliance, Ben Appel, The Homoarchy, John Boyne, Arielle Scarcella, Ronan McCrea, Jose Arango, Ann Menasche, Arianne Geringer, and Nevline Nnaji. Paul also mentions politician Seth Moulton, who was criticized after suggesting Democrats revise their positions on trans issues.
While Lambda Legal and the Trevor Project chose not to participate, Barney Frank and Cathy Renna were presented for “balance.”
Paul also includes conservative trans people Brianna Wu and “Stefan,” author of the blog Gender Crossroads.
Fischer, Molly (January 24, 2023). The rules according to Pamela Paul. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rules-according-to-pamela-paul
Fedorov, Andrew; Krichevsky, Sophie (August 18, 2022). What Is Pamela Paul Thinking?The Fine Print https://thefineprintnyc.com/article/pamela-paul-biography-career/
Grant, Melissa Gira (July 6, 2022). Pamela Paul’s Great Replacement Theory. The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/166991/pamela-paul-new-york-times-trans-great-replacement-theory
Finnegan, Leah (May 23, 2022). Pamela Paul is the new worst columnist at the New York Times. Gawker https://www.gawker.com/media/pamela-paul-is-the-new-worst-columnist-at-the-new-york-times [archive]
PamelaPaulNYT (closed by Paul and later suspended after it was out of Paul’s control)
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Julia Malott is a Canadian software manager and conservative transgender activist. Malott has published opinion pieces in conservative publications and has attended anti-trans rallies and conferences.
Background
Malott was born in 1990 and grew up in a conservative Christian family in Hanover, Ontario, a rural community west of Toronto:
Throughout my teens and twenties, I was plagued with two mental health issues—the first was the gender dysphoria I knew I had but the second was the baggage of intense shame I internalized by NOT dealing with my dysphoria from childhood. That second one is such an important part and has huge implications on how my teenage years and adulthood played out. I think it’s easy for us to ignore the latter and focus only on the dysphoria.
When I was 14 years old, before even meeting my future wife, I made the decision that I was not going to transition. I knew I was beyond the age where puberty blockers would have prevented the masculinization of aspects of my body such as height, bone density, and my voice lowering, so my chances of passing as female were slim.
Nothing in the realm of hormones and surgeries were financially subsidized and I knew just how huge of an expense this would be throughout my late teens and twenties.
[…] The biggest deterrent of them all—I would have had to face telling my Christian parents how I felt about my gender. I knew they would never support me in pursuing a transition, and I knew that doing so would devastate them and humiliate me.
Malott and future spouse met when Malott was 16 years old. Two years later, Malott came out but claimed not to want to make a gender transition. They got married and did not have any children together.
Malott earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Waterloo in 2015, then did database management and software development for Open Text, Manulife Financial, Desire2Learn, and Brock Solutions. Malott handled web accessibility for the City of Woodstock from 2015 to 2019, then held product management roles at eSolutionsGroup, OCAS, and Bonfire Interactive.
Malott had a change of heart about transition after a few years. After they separated in 2018, Malott made a gender transition soon after and now lives in Kitchener.
Activism
Malott quickly found a conservative and anti-trans audience eager to uplift someone whose views reflected theirs, including
In 2023, Mallot began the podcast Alotta Thoughts. Guests include:
April 10 & 20: Catherine Kronas and Chanel Pfahl
May 12: Catherine Kronas, Eva Kurilova, Neil Dorin, and Lois Cardinal
June 7: Audra Facinelli
2023 Genspect conference
In 2023 Malott attended a conference held by anti-trans hate groupGenspect and seemed surprised that many attendees and online observers made cruel comments about Malott’s presence, appearance, and sexuality. Both Malott and “autogynephilia” activist “Phil Illy” were called “autogynephiles” and told they should not be parading their sexual fetish in front of attendees. Some attendees said they had a trauma response from being exposed to Malott without consent, as they felt they were being forced to participate in Malott’s sexual script. Some of Malott’s critics identify as “trans widows” whose oath-breaking spouses left them to transition, exactly as Malott did. The presence of Malott and “Phil Illy” was dubbed “AGPgate” and discussed widely in transphobic circles.
Chris Elston is a Canadian anti-transgender activist. Elston is best known for purchasing or wearing signs with anti-transgender messages. Elston gets money and attention by trying to provoke responses from trans and gender-diverse people and their supporters. Elston has been arrested, banned from venues, and involved in numerous legal disputes.
Elston is one of several “parental rights” activists who appear in public holding or wearing anti-transgender signs, including January Littlejohn and “Sidewalk Steve.”
Background
Christopher David Elston was born in 1976. Elston has used a number of nicknames, including
Christoph Elston
Christophe Elston
Chris Elston
Billboard Chris
Elston’s spouse Sheree Lynn (Peacock) Elston earned a bachelor’s degree from Simon Fraser University in 2003, followed by a master’s degree in education from Simon Fraser in 2007. Sheree Elston was a schoolteacher before becoming an administrator at Semiahmoo Trail elementary school in South Surrey, British Columbia. The Elstons have been members of Village Church, an evangelical Christian church with a location in Surrey. Their older child Arya was born in 2010, followed by Mila. Both children are involved in the same local sport.
Scientology
Around age 20, Elston became involved in Scientology while traveling in Ireland. Elston joined the organization’s elite Sea Org, a group of Scientology’s most dedicated members, in March of 1996. Because of that zeal and fervor, Elston was soon assigned to the Church of Scientology’s Saint Hill Manor property in East Grinstead, West Sussex. The location is called Scientology’s Advanced Organization & Saint Hill United Kingdom. It is an 18th-century manor originally purchased by L. Ron Hubbard in 1959 and later renovated as a Scientology museum. Elston was reportedly assigned to run the Hubbard Communications Office (HCO) in the Continental Liaison Office (CLO).
In June 1997, Elston was a witness to the death of 17-year-old Sea Org member Russell Dienes. Elston was part of a car procession hurrying to work at Saint Hill. Dienes pulled in front of an oncoming truck, causing Dienes’ death and the serious injury of teen passengers Thilo Gnass and Frederik Zengel.
Elston remained with Scientology for almost two years:
I joined the Sea Org in March 96, worked their 100 hour weeks and escaped in the middle of the night Dec. 98 when I was told I couldn’t go home on a visit to see my parents. Passport and plane ticket had been seized.
Elston returned to Canada and reportedly was the subject of an “SP Declare,” a document outlining why Scientology designates Elston as a Suppressive Person, or Anti-Social Personality. Elston has been involved in anti-Scientology activism ever since.
Insurance career
After moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, Elston took a job as an investment advisor at Canaccord Capital (later named Canaccord Financial, now called Canaccord Genuity). Elston worked there from 2001 to 2008, then was a Financial Advisor at Raymond James from 2008 to 2014. After founding Elston Insurance Agency in 2014 and selling insurance, Elston began generating significant income and media coverage from anti-transgender activism. After Elston’s insurance license expired in 2022, Elston began doing anti-trans activism full-time.
Anti-transgender activism
Elston pivoted from anti-Scientology activism to anti-transgender activism following several controversies in the Vancouver area.
Jessica Yaniv aka Jessica Simpson
Elston got involved in several controversies related to Jessica Yaniv, now known as Jessica Simpson, a frequent litigant who used anti-discrimination laws to bring numerous complaints against local businesses. Simpson identifies as transgender and brought many complaints against waxing practitioners who would not wax Simpson’s genitals.
In December 2020, the Western Standard reported that the Langley Royal Canadian Mounted Police had charged Simpson with mischief and uttering threats in relation to an incident in October 2020 concerning Elston.
I ♥ JK ROWLING
Elston met nurse and anti-transgender extremist Amy Hamm at a Simpson hearing. They began purchasing billboards with the slogan “I ♥ JK ROWLING,” a reference to British author J. K. Rowling’s anti-transgender activism. British anti-trans extremist Posie Parker had purchased similar out-of-home ads. Elston’s first one was taken down following complaints. Elston got the nickname “Billboard Chris” soon after.
Elston has been arrested for disturbing the peace after showing up to pro-trans events wearing provocative anti-transgender messages like “Gender ideology does not belong in schools,” and “No child is born in the wrong body,” and “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.” Elston is no longer allowed on the street around the Vancouver art gallery where Elston was arrested.
Elston’s goal is to be verbally or physically assaulted, which has happened several times. Elston then uses video of those encounters to get money and attention.
“Christophe Elston, the transphobic insurance agent who hangs out with known fascist “John Southern,” showed up to yesterday’s Mi’kmaw solidarity rally for some reason. He was briefly detained by the VPD, and had his “I ♥ JK Rowling” sandwich board taken away.”
Christophe Elston, the transphobic insurance agent who hangs out with known fascist "John Southern," showed up to yesterday's Mi'kmaw solidarity rally for some reason.
Naylor, Dave (December 31, 2020). Transgender activist Yaniv wanted by police in BC. The Western Standard. Wildrose Media Corp. [archive] https://www.westernstandardonline.com/2020/12/transgender-actvist-yaniv-wanted-by-police-in-bc/
Cupp, Anne Renner (March 26, 2018). [Scientology discussion page] https://www.facebook.com/groups/1097697983669219/posts/1407298826042465/?comment_id=1407325562706458&reply_comment_id=1408239902615024
“Chris Elston ingratiates himself to people to gather personal information on them and the moment they cross him, it gets splashed across the internet. He’s a known serial offender and it’s always women. Always. Ginger has been hoodwinked by a master at his craft. I was too, once. […] Maybe her new BFF who is a financial advisor should coach her on that, when he’s not too busy harassing other women.”
Margaret Nichols is an American psychologist and sex therapist who specializes in LGBTQ+ clients, “including kink and consensual nonmonogamy (swinging, polyamory, etc.).”
Background
Margaret E. “Margie” Nichols Jacobson was born in 1947. Nichols attended Radcliffe College before earning a bachelor’s degree from New York University in 1970. Nichols earned a doctorate from Columbia University in 1981 and is a licensed therapist in New Jersey. Nichols did post-doctoral work in sex therapy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, now part of Rutgers School of Biomedical and Health Sciences.
In 1983 Nichols founded the Institute for Personal Growth. In 1985, Nichols was a founder and the first director of the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation. Nichols became a diplomate of the American Board of Sexology in 1985.
In 2003 Nichols became an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and became a Certified Sex Therapy Supervisor in 2011.
Review of Alice Dreger
In 2008, Nichols published a scathing commentary on a paper by Alice Dreger that attacked trans critics of The Man Who Would Be Queen. Nichols’ review describes and contextualizes Dreger’s activism within the history of disease models of gender identity and expression.
Nichols, Margaret (2016). The Great Escape: Welcome to the World of Gender Fluidity. Psychotherapy Networker, March/April 2016. http://ipgcounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Great-Escape-Welcome-to-the-World-of-Gender-Fluidity-By-Margaret-Nichols.pdf
Nichols M (2013). A Review of “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 40:1:71-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2013.854559
Nichols, Margaret; Shernoff, Michael (2006). Therapy with Sexual Minorities: Queering Practice. In In S. R. Leiblum (Ed.), Principles and practice of sex therapy (4th ed., pp. 379–415). The Guilford Press, ISBN 978-1593853495
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Alex Gutentag is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Gutentag is associated with anti-trans activist Michael Shellenberger.
Background
Alexandra Kyra Ryan-Gutentag was born on September 6, 1990 to Eduardo Gutentag (born 1947) and Constance “Connie” Ryan (born 1950). Gutentag grew up in Oakland, California and earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.
Gutentag worked in special education for eight years in New York City and was a Special Day Class teacher in Oakland Unified Schools before becoming a writer.
Gutentag has written for Tablet and Compact. Gutentag collaborated with Shellenberger at the organization Environmental Progress and on The Twitter Files reports into the platform’s COVID misinformation policies.
Anti-transgender activism
Gutentag has written anti-trans work for Public, a reflection of founder Michael Shellenberger’s immersion into anti-trans activism.
