“Michelle Alleva” is the stage name of Michelle Zacchigna, a Canadian ex-transgender activist. Zacchigna gets money and attention by making it more difficult for others to get trans healthcare.
Zacchigna is a member of ex-trans group Beyond Trans.
Zacchigna has used a number of aliases and handles:
“Scarlett P”
“Michelle Alleva”
somenuanceplease
sumenuancepls
Zacchigna transitioned as an adult and made additional identity and expression changes ten years later.
Background
Zacchigna was born in 1988. Zacchigna reports being bullied in school, especially from ages 8 to 13. After a close adolescent friendship ended, Zacchigna experienced even more social isolation. Zacchigna alleges having the following problems as a teen:
developmental trauma
dissociation
low self-esteem
self-harm
anxiety
depression
2008 suicide attempt
dated older people “who didn’t seem to have my best interests at heart”
At age 20, Zacchigna identified as asexual:
Although I had never had gender dysphoria before, the more I thought about gender and how I wanted to present myself, the more self-aware I became about my body, and the more I wanted to change it. I thought about my past and became convinced that I had been bullied because I was trans and just didn’t know it.
In spring 2010, at age 21, Zacchigna went to the Gender Journeys support group at Toronto’s Sherbourne Health. Two years later, in 2012, Zacchigna saved up and then paid out of pocket for elective top surgery in Florida.
Because transition doesn’t make you a new person or change who you are, Zacchigna felt better for a while, but then reported problems started again:
social anxiety
still difficult to make friends
depression
gender dysphoria
couldn’t cry anymore “because of the hormones”
uncontrolled acne
poor self-care
gained about 70-80 pounds
fired for “inconsistent” work output
irregular sleep schedule
stopped caring about appearance
became low income
moved back in with family
failed out of college
autism spectrum disorder
ADHD
post-traumatic stress symptoms
major depressive disorder
medical trauma
low voice
male-pattern balding
facial hair
an enlarged clitoris
a flat chest
the inability to ever become pregnant
“among other things”
Following a 2017 evaluation that added to Zacchigna’s long list of problems, in 2018 Zacchigna had a “medically unnecessary” partial hysterectomy because “it was covered by provincial insurance, and I liked the idea of not having any more periods or pap exams.”
Zacchigna is upset and angry “that I wasn’t screened for the diagnoses I later received before I was prescribed hormones.” Zacchigna was screened prior to the hysterectomy but still blames others for that decision made at age 30.
Anti-transgender activism
Now based in Orillia, Ontario, Zacchigna’s income is now supplemented by making it harder for other adults to get trans healthcare:
“I have spent the last 18 months involved in health care advocacy related to this topic. I’ve presented at webinars, spoken at universities, been featured in news articles, appeared on Podcasts, and written blogs semi-regularly sharing my experiences and my thoughts about how this could have happened.”
In 2022 Zacchigna announced a planned lawsuit:
“I’ve been holding this card close to my chest for a while, and I’m ready to show it. In November 2022, I commenced legal action against the Canadian healthcare providers that facilitated my medical transition in Ontario,”
Zacchigna is now a source for a number of anti-trans activists and outlets, including Michael Shellenberger, the National Post, and Western Standard. Zacchigna is also active in the anti-trans “parental rights” movement, appearing in Lighthouse and the 2023 film No Way Back.
Stephanie Winn is a conservative American therapist and anti-transgender activist associated with the ex-transgender movement. Winn collaborated with sex offender David Arthur Kendall on promoting the 2023 anti-trans propaganda project No Way Back. Winn is an associate producer on the project.
This close association with someone convicted of sex crimes against minors makes Winn a poor therapeutic choice for parents with minor children.
If you are trans or gender diverse, do not go to Winn under any circumstances at any age. If you are a minor forced to see Winn, try to end the sessions and find supportive local resources. Your parent or guardian will want to know about Winn’s poor judgment and unsavory associations.
Stephanie Winn and convicted sex offender David Arthur Kendall discussing their anti-trans propaganda project, later renamed No Way Back
Background
Winn earned a diploma in Ayurveda from the Ayurveda Institute of America in 2005. In 2007 Winn earned a teaching certification from Yoga Works and took courses at Santa Monica College. Winn earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Santa Cruz in 2009 and a master’s degree from California Institute of Integral Studies in 2013. While studying, Winn worked as a tutor and an administrative assistant.
Winn was a counselor for Albany Unified School District in 2012 to 2013, then did intakes at Casa de la Vida in Oakland from 2013 to 2014. In 2015 and 2016 Winn was a therapist at Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc. (NARA). In 2016 Winn joined Western Psychological & Counseling Services as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT). Since 2020, Winn has been a LMFT at Real Talk Therapy PDX in Portland, Oregon.
Winn also hosts the podcast You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist.
Diana Fleischman is a Brazilian-American evolutionary psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Anti-trans activism is a family business; Fleischman’s spouse Geoffrey Miller also holds harmful views about sex and gender minorities.
Background
Diana Santos Fleischman was born in São Paulo, Brazil and grew up in the United States. Fleischman earned a bachelor’s degree from Oglethorpe University. Under advisor David Buss, Fleischman earned a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin 2009, then did postdoctorate work at UNC Chapel Hill.
In addition to evolutionary psychology, Fleischman is also a proponent of effective altruism, a philanthropic movement with a disproportionate number of anti-trans activists. The movement is best exemplified by cryptocurrency scammer Sam Bankman-Fried.
Fleischman is also a proponent of various aspects of eugenics, including polygenic embryo screening. Fleischman characterizes this as an aspect of transhumanism.
Fleischman and Geoffrey Miller married in 2019 and have one child.
Sex segregationism
Fleischman’s life’s work is shoring up the idea of a sex binary in humans. In a 2021 online course on “sex differences,” the syllabus included most of the key sex segregationists in academia.
The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality with Tom Booth and Paul Irwing
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints with David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt
Peter Fitzgerald
Biological sex differences relevant to mental health with Timothy G. Dinan
Diana Fleischman:
“Most people miss this reason women don’t want casual sex”
(2014). Women’s disgust adaptations. In Weekes-Shackelford VA, & Shackelford TK (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on human sexual psychology and behavior
David C. Geary
The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. with Gijsbert Stoet
Sex Differences in Children’s Play
Sex differences in social development from Male, Female by David Geary
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints – Marco Del Giudice, David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt
Unlike most of these people, Fleischman at least mentions a few people who disagree with this ideology, most notably Cordelia Fine, Daphna Joel, and Gina Rippon.
Pronatalism
Pronatalism is a cultural value, ideology, or government policy that encourages human reproduction and advocates for high birth rates. In 2025, Gaby Del Valle of Poliical Research Associates reported on the right-wing pronatalist movement, mentioning Fleischman’s involvement in the annual Natal Conference:
Other conference participants were sympathetic to the notion that intelligence is biologically determined, an idea common to the scientific racism behind assertions of White superiority. Diana Fleischman, an evolutionary psychologist who spoke at the 2023 conference and is scheduled to speak at this year’s, referred obliquely to “good quality children.”[28] She also assured the audience that their “genes are more important than drag queen story hour”—implying that nature always triumphs over nurture, even when “wokeness” goes too far. Fleischman is a regular contributor to Aporia, a “pro-evolution” digital magazine that describes itself as refusing to “cower beneath the god of political correctness.” In practice, this means publishing pseudoscientific screeds about the scourge of wokeness, the biological basis of the “black-white IQ gap,” and the need for high-IQ people to have more children.[29] Fleishman’s own contributions include such articles as “You’re probably a eugenicist” and “Embryo Selection: Toward a healthier society.”[30]
Anti-LGBT activism
Fleischman is associated with Aporia, formerly known as Ideas Sleep Furiously. Matthew Archer helped found it in 2021. In 2023 Bo Winegard joined after a long run as a Quillette contributor, and Fleischman became a podcast host.
Fularsız Entellik / Casual Intellectual with Immanueal Tolstoyevski and Diana Fleischman (July 8, 2020). Evo Psychology with Dr Diana Fleischman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR9aT0zpRI
Putanumonit with Jacob Falkovich and Diana Fleischman (July 8, 2019). Diana Fleischman and Geoffrey Miller – Interview. https://putanumonit.com/2019/07/08/diana-fleischman-and-geoffrey-miller-interview/
Sierra Weir is an American ex-transgender activist who posts gender critical content online using the handle “Exulansic.” Weir gets money and attention by making it harder for others to access trans health services.
If you are transgender, gender diverse, or supportive of the LGBTQ community, do not support Weir’s business. There are many better voice practice and voice therapy options.
Background
Sierra Dullea Weir was born in April 1987.
In 2008, Weir studied Turkish for a year at Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Weir earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 2011. Weir then earned a master’s degree from San Jose State University in 2015. Weir identified as transgender for about four years, then as non-binary:
I lived as a trans man for several years, in community with other gender non-conforming people in the Bay Area, where the culture is open to non-traditional expressions of identity. I went to UC Berkeley, where Judith Butler, author of the seminal Gender Trouble, teaches, and where I majored in Gender and Women’s Studies. At one point, a significant other and I (both trans men at the time) attended a brunch with a group that included Julia Serano, a trans woman biologist whose book Whipping Girl argues that transphobia is a form of misogyny and that rights for trans people must be central to feminism.
Weir practiced speech therapy at Jewett & Associates, at a middle school via Staffing Options and Solutions, and at Nova Health Therapies. Weir founded Say the Word Speech Therapy in 2018.
Anti-transgender activism
Weir is now part of the gender critical and ex-transgender movements.
Under the pseudonyms “Exulansic” aand “TT Exulansic,” Weir has appeared on Savage Minds, Lou Perez, TRIGGERnometry, Benjamin Boyce, and other anti-trans shows.
References
TT Exulansic (April 8, 2021). How Gender Atheism Saved My Body.The American Mind https://americanmind.org/salvo/how-gender-atheism-saved-my-body/
Milli Hill is a British author and anti-transgender activist. Hill was upset after reading the term “birthing person,” a value-neutral and inclusive term to describe all people who can give birth. After getting pushback about her views, Hill leaned even harder into anti-transgender activism.
Background
Milli Hill was born in January 1975 and attended Leweston school before earning a degree from Durham University in 1996. After working as an actor and dramatherapist, Hill began a writing career focusing on birth, breastfeeding, and motherhood.
Hill gave birth to three children. Hill has written three book about pregnancy and childcare and founded the Positive Birth Movement in-person support group network that was active until 2021. Hill incorporated Milli Hill, Ltd. in 2020.
On November 25, 2020, Hill was tagged in a social media post about obstetric violence that used the term “birthing people.” Hill replied:
“Thanks. Good to see this post. I would challenge the term ‘birthing person’ in this context though, especially on international day to end violence against women. It is women who are seen as the ‘fragile sex’ etc, and obstetric violence is violence against women. Let’s not forget who the oppressed are here, and why.”
The original poster replied, “Obstetric violence is violence against anyone on the receiving end of obstetric violence – women, trans men, non-binary people, anyone.”
Hill replied:
“Personally I think it’s part of violence against women but if you disagree then at least don’t leave them out and say ‘women and birthing people’.
Hill has gone on to become a leading anti-trans voice, frequently criticizing the civil rights movement in general and specific activists in particular in the press and on social media.
Jamie Reed is an American anti-transgender extremist who wants to eliminate gender-affirming healthcare for adolescents and young adults. Reed is also part of the LGB separatist movement, founding the anti-trans organization LGB Courage Coalition in 2023.
Reed is a founding co-host of anti-trans podcast Informed Dissent.
Background
Jamie Lynn Smith was born in June 1980. After marrying Joshua David Rickly (born 1982), Jamie began using the name Jamie Lynn Smith-Rickly. During this time, Jamie was apparently using the email [email protected].
In 2009, Jamie Smith-Rickly, Zachary Smith, and Byron Case founded the Midwestern Liberty Foundation, but it was dissolved by the state of Missouri the following year for failure to submit required documents.
The couple had two children and later divorced.
Jamie then married librarian Tiger Reed, who at the time identified as a transgender man. They have Jamie’s two children from the first marriage as well as three foster children. In 2024, after announing a “detransition,” Tiger Reed began using the name Roxxanne Reed.
Reed earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri St. Louis and a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Reed began working at Washington in 2016.
Anti-trans activism
From 2018 until late 2022, Reed was a case manager at the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Reed became increasingly upset that the clinic was not doing more psychological and psychiatric gatekeeping. As with many providers, Washington relied on patients to find a local therapist who would recommend them for treatment to reduce backlogs and improve patient care.
Reed cited what led to making an anti-trans pivot:
Time to Think by Hannah Barnes (read after Reed left the gender clinic)
Reed was against prescribing hormone options for minors. Like many other people opposed to youth gender affirming care, Reed considers puberty blockers less problematic than hormones, but opposes those as well. Puberty blockers are a rarely-used short-term option prior to prescribing hormones. Some people opposed to gender-affirming care would prefer trans youth to stay on puberty blockers until they are adults, rather than start hormones and go through puberty with their non-transgender peers.
Like many other people opposed to gender-affirming care, Reed cites the conservative “Dutch protocol” that used extensive gatekeeping under a nationalized healthcare system.
2023 affidavit
In an affidavit presented to anti-trans Attorney General Andrew Bailey dated February 7, 2023, Reed stated:
I witnessed staff at the Center provide puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children without complete informed parental consent and without an appropriate or accurate assessment of the needs of the child. I witnessed children experience shocking injuries from the medication the Center prescribed. And I saw the Center make no attempt or effort to track adverse outcomes of patients after they left the Center.
[…]
One patient came to the Center identifying as a “communist, attack helicopter, human, female, maybe non binary.” The child was in very poor mental health and early on reported that they had no idea their gender identity.
[…]
Most children who come into the Center were assigned female at birth. Nearly all of them have serious comorbidities including, autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma histories, OCD, and serious eating disorders.
[…]
last year Dr. [Chris] Lewis and Dr. [Sarah] Garwood told the Missouri legislature, “at no point are surgeries on the table for anyone under 18” and also, “surgeries are not an option for anyone under 18 years of age.” This was a lie. The Center regularly refers minors for gender transition surgery. The Center routinely gives out the names and contact information of surgeons to those under the age of 18. At least one gender transition surgery was performed by Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in the last few years.
[…]
The Center had two in-house psychologists. They were Dr. Alex Maixner and Dr. Sarah Girresch-Ward as well as several outside therapists.
[…]
Doctors knew that many of our former patients had stopped taking cross-sex hormones and were detransitioning. Doctors did not share this information with parents or children.
[…]
Children come into the clinic using pronouns of inanimate objects like “mushroom,” “rock,” or “helicopter.” Children come into the clinic saying they want hormones because they do not want to be gay. Children come in changing their identities on a day-to-day basis. Children come in under clear pressure by a parent to identify in a way inconsistent with the child’s actual identity.
[…]
I created a “red flag” list of children where other staff and I had concerns. The doctors told me I had to stop raising these concerns. I was not allowed to maintain the red flag list after that. During the time I was creating the red flag list, noting my concern that these children were not good candidates for permanent, irreversible medication treatment, the doctors would simply send these children to our in-house therapists. Those therapists would inevitably provide letters to the doctors, and then the doctors would say there can’t be any concern over these children because another therapist was fine with prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
[…]
One doctor at the Center, Dr. Chris Lewis, is giving patients a drug called Bicalutamide. I know of at least one patient at the Center who was advised by the renal department to stop taking Bicalutamide because the child was experiencing liver damage. The child’s parent reported this to the Center through the patient’s online self-reporting medical chart (MyChart). The parent said they were not the type to sue, but “this could be a huge PR problem for you.”
[…]
the Center has prescribed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones hundreds of times where they should not have.
Particularly upsetting to Reed are young people whose identities are fluid:
Patient was on hormones and had decompensating mental health, outlandish name changes, self-diagnosis of multiple personalities (DID).
[…]
Patient has desisted in male identity to a vague non binary with their own self-diagnosis of autism. Patient has changed their name numerous times and is clearly struggling with thoughts about desistence,
[..]
Patient changed to non-binary identity, then changed preferred name and stated that their identity was shifting day to day.
Reed gave several other vivid anecdotes, including one about a youth sex offender, and others about youths with history of self-harm, sexual trauma, forced cross-dressing, factitious blindness, and “gender identities that were likely the result of social contagion.”
2023 Free Press piece
Two days after the affidavit was signed, Reed repeated these allegations in the Free Press for anti-trans activist Bari Weiss.
“clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals—and most of these teens haven’t even had sex yet.”
“Some weeks it felt as though almost our entire caseload was nothing but disturbed young people.”
“Another disturbing aspect of the center was its lack of regard for the rights of parents.”
“In 2019, a new group of people appeared on my radar: desisters and detransitioners.”
“I believe that to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria.”
Reed and the clinic’s nurse, Karen Hamon, kept a private spreadsheet, which they called the “red flag list.” Following a 2021 review that contained criticisms and a 2022 retreat where Reed was allegedly told “Get on board, or get out,” Reed transferred to a different department.
Jamie Reed on what needs to be done: no gender affirming care for people until we figure out how to tell which mice should transition pic.twitter.com/1Go2vJtNTo
Anti-trans activist Azeen Ghorayshi of the New York Times presented Reed as part of a long-running “cisgender person under siege” series the paper has been running since the early 2000s.
Ghorayshi mentioned the following people:
Jamie Reed, former case manager at a youth gender clinic at Washington University in St. Louis
Bari Weiss, anti-trans activist who first published Reed’s allegations in the Free Press
Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s anti-trans Attorney General
Colleen Schrappen, reporter at St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Annelise Hanshaw, reporter at Missouri Independent
Andrew D. Martin, Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor
Reporter Evan Urquhartwrote, “unlike other stories covering these allegations, the Times downplays the falsehoods and seeks to make a case that despite Reed’s lies there’s something to be taken seriously in her attacks on a highly-regarded, University-linked clinic serving transgender youth.”
LGBT Courage Coalition and purge of trans members
Reed founded LGBT Courage Coalition in 2023 as a Substack and later registered it as a nonprofit. About a year later, Reed purged all trans leadership and renamed in LGB Courage Coailition, installing Lauren Leggieri as co-executive director.
Lawsuits
In 2024 a subpoena was issued to Reed in the matter of Noe v. Parson (Missouri case # 23AC-CC04530). In it, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. and ACLU of Missouri Foundation requested communication between Reed and Karen Hamon, as well as any communication with Missouri officials and families at Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
The subpoena also requested “All communications, including any documents exchanged, concerning Gender-Affirming Care involving media or between you and any media outlet or any member of the media,” as well as specifically requesting communications with Jesse Singal. Those requests were later removed.
The subpoena also requested any communication with the following organizations:
Lovelace, Eric (September 30, 2024). St. Louis gender clinic whistleblower testifies in Noe v. Parson.KOMU https://www.komu.com/news/midmissourinews/st-louis-gender-clinic-whistleblower-testifies-in-noe-v-parson/article_2f612e3c-7f53-11ef-ad63-abba11ecb77e.html
Arora earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Irvine in 2010, followed by a master’s degrees from New York University in 2014 and Columbia University in 2016.
Arora worked as an editor at India.com, Brown Girl Magazine, and Floor Covering Weekly before taking a role as frontpage editor at Yahoo in 2017, then HuffPost in 2018.
New York Times
From 2018 to 2022 Arora worked at the New York Times. Arora was interviewed by Carolyn Ryan and got a contractor role reviewing headlines for the website. In 2019 Arora raised concerns about bias in pieces about chest binding that cited anti-trans site 4thWaveNow and had biased headlines.
Arora was offered a full-time role in London on the global news desk, returning to New York in 2020 and soon being named a senior staff editor. After the Times published a troubling op-ed by Tom Cotton urging a crackdown on George Floyd protestors, Dean Baquet agreed to a meeting with staffers. That led to formalizing of employee affinity groups, including Times Out, where Arora became a leader. These groups soon felt like extensions of management, though, and they were unable to implement things like bringing Trans Journalists Association in for a presentation. After some Times Out members protested an editorial board piece critical of New York Pride for requesting police not to wear uniforms, Carolyn Ryan sided with management. Tensions reached a head when anti-trans activist Pamela Paul of the New York Times book section hired anti-trans activist Jesse Singal to review anti-trans activist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. Arora decided to send an email to Baquet:
I’m reaching out today as a trans non-binary NYT employee who has been deeply hurt by this week, by the actions of my own employer. I want to preface this by saying never before have I walked into a workplace on day one and felt like I belonged. For me, that’s been the magic of this place. Of this institution, of the journalism we do and the values we uphold.
Reviewing this book was absolutely the right call. Picking a cisgender, transphobic person who has a history of denying gender identity is real and who has hurt and defamed transgender journalists was not the right call. As much as transgender issues have come to the forefront in the last few years as people, we’ve always been here. I’m heartened by the progress the Times has made this past year and the renewed efforts towards DEI goals that are backed by action.
It becomes hard to be so invested in our journalism and our coverage when internally our members share the feeling that the Times is not only not as inclusive as it could be, but is actively doing harm to trans, to trans and queer folks inside the building. I don’t know how to defend this place that I love, the people and reporters and editors I love working with when my existence as a trans person feels like it’s up for debate. I’m writing to you because I respect you a lot. I want to make a difference here. I want to know that the Times hears me and sees me as a queer and trans person of color, and is taking my lived experience seriously. There’s a lot more work to be done, but healing the pain that has been caused would require starting with an acknowledgement of our wrongs with a true desire to understand where we’ve made mistakes. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Baquet replied:
I do want the Times to be an inclusive place. It is important to me personally and professionally, but I have to tell you, I disagree with you in this instance. I know Pamela worked hard to find someone to review the book. There was not a long line of people who were willing to do so, to be honest. And for all the criticism of the choice in the building and on social media, I have not seen much criticism of the actual review. There is another very large principle at play here. The editor of the book review has to have tremendous freedom to make choices. Each of us has political views, personal views, and friends who write books. I think she worked tremendously hard to manage all of those issues. Harper I do hope this disagreement doesn’t make you less proud of the place, the place hasn’t changed.
Arora was assigned an audience development role in California. During an interview for a possible role under deputy managing editor Sam Dolnick, publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s cousin, Dolnick said Baquet shared Arora’s email about Singal with the entire masthead.
Arora felt that was the cue to leave, and in 2022, Arora took an editor role at Apple News.
The editorial board (May 18, 2021). A Misstep by the Organizers of Pride.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/opinion/nyc-pride-police-parade.html
Rod Fleming is a Scottish author and activist who promotes anti-transgender, anti-feminist, and anti-gay views. Fleming personifies nearly every negative stereotype of a transphobic trans-attracted person.
Fleming is one of the most obsessive “autogynephilia” activists in the world, promoting the disease as an exercise in identity politics.
Background
Roderick Anthony “Rod” Fleming was born on March 11, 1956, in Dundee, Scotland.
Fleming earned a bachelor’s degree from Edinburgh College of Art in 1983, then produced images and video for Scotland on Sunday. In 2011, Fleming earned a master’s degree from Dundee University.
Fleming was married and has four adult children. Fleming moved to Asia and was romantically involved with a trans partner named Sam Villasencio. Fleming announced that Villasencio died on October 2, 2023.
“Autogynephilia” activism
Some trans-attracted people who engage in “autogynephilia” activism wish to distance their own attractions from trans women they consider “autogynephiles.” In some cases, it is because they see “AGP” trans women as a threat to their “heterosexual” identity. They often brag about how “heterosexual” they are and how the “homosexual transsexual” people they desire are extremely feminine and only interested in masculine “heterosexual” partners like them.
Trans-attracted people who use the terms “homosexual transsexual” or “HSTS” are among the most obsessed with “autogynephilia” and creator Ray Blanchard’s taxonomy of “HSTS” and “AGP,” because it’s so important to their own sexual identities.
Fleming offers counseling for “autogynephiles” and for “trans widows,” slang for spouses whose partner came out as trans.
Amy Eileen Hamm is a Canadian nurse and anti-transgender extremist. Hamm has written for anti-trans publications, including Quillette and National Post.
Hamm co-founded anti-trans group Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar). Hamm was fired in 2025 following a hearing brought by the nursing regulatory board, which found that Hamm publicly identified as a nurse while engaging in anti-transgender activity.
Background
Hamm earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Thompson Rivers University, followed by a bachelor’s degree in nursing from University of British Columbia in 2012.
Hamm worked for 7 months as a psychiatric nurse in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. Hamm then became a nurse educator in the psychiatric unit at a hospital in Richmond (part of Vancouver Coastal Health). Hamm resides in New Westminster, British Columbia.
In 2011, Hamm responded to the question “If you could live in a certain time period and place what would it be?” Hamm said:
1950s, small-town ‘merica. I could go for some “ignorance is bliss”. I’d be a stupid housewife with a stupid optimistic outlook on life.
Hamm ended up in a much more modern cliché. Hamm is divorced and has children. Hamm has discussed being a single parent and the stigma involved:
It has been a few years since I left my marriage, and I did end up meeting someone wonderful. In the time between, I realized that single motherhood is the largest unquestioned stigma of my era. It can be achingly lonely and—if you let it get to you—it can crush your self-esteem.
Hamm is a sex segregationist who co-founded gender critical group Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar) in 2019. Hamm claims to be fighting “the harms that gender-identity ideology was inflicting on women and children.”
In 2021 and 2022 Hamm and “Esme Vee” hosted Gender Critical Story Hour podcast. Episodes include:
10 – Heather Mason and Linda Blade (April 7, 2022)
11 – Sue-Ann Levy (April 26, 2022)
12 – The Haters Inside the Canadian “Anti-Hate” Network (July 25, 2022)
13 – How Far Can They Go: Are we reaching peak trans? (September 29, 2022)
Hamm and Holly Stamer co-founded GIDYVR, an anti-trans speaker series based in Vancouver. Their first event at the Vancouver Public Library on January 10, 2019 featured Meghan Murphy, Fay Blaney, and Lee Lakeman, moderated by Mary-Lee Bouma. Vancouver Public Library Chief Librarian Christina de Castell issued a statement about the event.
Hamm is best known for purchasing billboards that say “I ♥ JK Rowling” with Chris Elston. They have been quickly removed for being a reference to anti-transgender views of transphobic author J.K. Rowling.
Hamm’s writing has appeared in conservative and fascist publications including the Post Millennial, The New Westminster Times,Human Events, and Quillette.
Disciplinary hearing
In 2022 the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) initiated a disciplinary hearing against Hamm:
Between approximately July 2018 and March 2021, you made discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people, while identifying yourself as a nurse or nurse educator. These statements were made across various online platforms, including but not limited to, podcasts, videos, published writings and social media.
Hamm reportedly rejected a proposed settlement from the college that would have included a two-week license suspension and social media training.
Hamm was represented by Lisa Bildy and Karen Bastow of Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). JCCF brought in anti-trans activists James Cantor, Kathleen Stock, and Linda Blade to testify on Hamm’s behalf in 2023.
On March 13, 2025, the College found that Hamm, while identifying herself as a member of the medical profession, made statements that were “untruthful and unfair as they challenge the existence of transgender women, argue for less constitutional protection for transgender women, and are designed, in part, to elicit fear, contempt and outrage against members of the transgender community.”
Tabs 4, 24, 28 and S3 of the Extract were found to be violative:
Tab 4: Responded stated “trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces.” Respondent also stated that Vancouver Women’s Shelter [VRR] will “surely (and maddeningly) face continued backlash from trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces. The women of VRR, however, are clearly up to the task”. […] The suggestion that trans activists are seeking to “infiltrate or destroy” women-only spaces strongly connotes illegal, aggressive, and improper conduct and mischaracterizes transgender women seeking access to support services available to cisgender women in crisis situations as dangerous individuals. The Panel finds that the statement is not true nor is it fair to transgender women.
Tab 24: in her article entitled “On feeling like a woman”. The Respondent states “there is no absconding” from female bodies, the feeling of being a woman does not exist, and there is no “incantation or initiation that can transcend bodily reality.” The Panel finds that these statements are untrue and unfair to transgender women as they deny the possibility that that an individual born into a male body can feel like a woman and effectively deny the existence of transgender women.
Tab 28: In a book review entitled “Review: ‘Love Lives Here – A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family,” Respondent refers to the “falsehood that babies can be ‘born in the wrong body’ or that humans can change their sex”. She asserts that everyone “who believes in wrong bodies or innate genders” would rather devastate a child than acknowledge that men cannot become transgender women, that gender identity ideology is akin to a Satanic Panic craze, that lesbians do not have penises, that a gender soul does not exist, and that men cannot literally become women. […] These statements, which appear to be designed to elicit fear, contempt and hostility towards the transgender community, particularly transgender women
S3 of the Extract: Respondent makes several statements in the context of the YouTube interview entitled, “The Same Drugs Live with Amy Hamm on I heart JK Rowling”. As the Respondent is asked in the interview about the background to the billboard, those comments must be considered in conjunction with the billboard itself and J.K. Rowling’s essay. The billboard message must be assessed from the perspective of a “reasonable person in the claimant’s circumstances” […] From the perspective of a transgender person, the essay contains some references that could be interpreted as portraying them as a risk to cisgender women and girls and predatory. Such characterizations unquestionably elicit fear and hostility towards transgender people.
On March 27, 2025, Hamm reported being fired without severance from Vancouver Coastal Health.
Hamm, Amy (June 22, 2023). On the stigma of single motherhood.Amy Eileen Hamm’s Substack https://preta6.substack.com/p/on-the-stigma-of-single-motherhood
