Natalie Wynn is an American cultural critic whose YouTube channel Contrapoints won a 2022 Peabody Award in the Immersive & Interactive category.
Background
Wynn was born on October 21, 1988 in Arlington, Virginia and grew up in nearby Vienna. Wynn’s parent William is a psychology professor at Georgetown, and parent Marian is a doctor. Wynn has two siblings who also went to Georgetown.
Wynn studied piano at Berklee College of Music, earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2012, and a master’s degree from Northwestern University, then decided not to pursue a doctorate. Wynn did gig work before becoming a video essayist in 2008. Wynn’s work is considered part of “BreadTube,” a loose affiliation of YouTubers who posted videos to challenge right-wing views on subjects.
In 2016, Wynn began the ContraPoints channel. In 2017, Wynn came out as trans and removed all pre-transition videos. In 2020 Wynn came out as lesbian.
Video essays
Wynn is known for criticizing a number of prominent anti-trans figures, including Ray Blanchard, Jordan Peterson, Megan Phelps-Roper, and J.K.Rowling. Wynn has also lampooned segments of the trans community, presenting humorous characters who represent various political factions.
Weiss, Max (June 2024). Who Exactly Is Natalie Wynn?Baltimore Magazine https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/natalie-wynn-viral-baltimore-youtuber-profile/
Janice Turner is a British writer and anti-transgender extremist. Turner is a key historical figure in the oppression of trans and gender diverse people.
Background
Turner was born April 8, 1964 in Wakefield and attended University of Sussex. Turner edited several publications before freelancing as a columnist focusing on media criticism.
Turner, Janice (December 2, 2022). Women who can’t define a woman are sunk.The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-who-cant-define-a-woman-are-sunk-chq8qc68n
Turner, Janice (December 14, 2022). Someone who never loses out? That’s a man.The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/someone-who-never-loses-out-thats-a-man-k9djv572x
Turner, Janice (October 20, 2018). Suicides should never be a political weapon. The Times. https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/activist-loses-ipso-complaint-against-janice-turner-times-column-about-trans-suicides/
Turner, Janice (September 8, 2018). Trans rapists are a danger in women’s jails. The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-rapists-are-a-danger-in-women-s-jails-5vhgh57pt
Turner, Janice (November 11, 2017). Children sacrificed to appease trans lobby. The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/children-sacrificed-to-appease-trans-lobby-bq0m2mm95
Turner, Janice (September 16, 2017). The battle over gender has turned bloody: Women who believe that their rights are threatened by transgender activists now find themselves at risk of assault. The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-battle-over-gender-has-turned-bloody-2wpkmnqhh
Stephen Beck is an American healthcare executive and anti-transgender activist. Beck is a member of anti-trans hate group Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM). Beck and spouse Sharon are unaccepting parents of a trans nonbinary child.
Background
Stephen Richard “Steve” Beck was born May 22, 1967. Beck earned a medical degree from University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1992. Beck practices internal medicine in Ohio.
Beck is married to Sharon “Shari” Beck aka “Maria Polaris,” “Maria Borealis,” “Maria Veradis” and a host of other pseudonyms, an anti-trans extremist affiliated with Cardinal Support Network and Parents of ROGD Kids.
Abby Walch, Caroline Davidge-Pitts, Joshua D Safer, Ximena Lopez, Vin Tangpricha, Sean J Iwamoto (2021). Proper Care of Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons in the Setting of Proposed Discrimination: A Policy Perspective. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021 Jan 23;106(2):305-308. https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgaa816.
William J. Malone, Paul W. Hruz, Julia W. Mason, and Stephen Beck (2021). Letter to the Editor from William J. Malone et al: “Proper Care of Transgender and Gender-diverse Persons in the Setting of Proposed Discrimination: A Policy Perspective” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 106, Issue 8, August 2021, Pages e3287–e3288, https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgab205
Abby Walch, Caroline Davidge-Pitts, Ximena Lopez, Vin Tangpricha, Sean J Iwamoto, Joshua D Safer (2021). Response to Letter to the Editor from Malone: “Proper Care of Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons in the Setting of Proposed Discrimination: A Policy Perspective.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 106, Issue 8, August 2021, Pages e3295–e3296, https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgab206
Charlotte Allen is an American author and anti-transgender activist. A conservative Catholic, Allen has written articles critical of the transgender rights movement, including a puff piece on transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey for The Weekly Standard. Joseph Epstein from that publication had previously characterized Bailey as a “pimp” who arranges voyeuristic sex tours and demonstrations for people like Allen. Bailey earned Epstein’s opprobrium and Allen’s interest after arranging a live “fucksaw” demonstration for a since-cancelled human sexuality class.
Background
Charlotte Irene Low Allen was on born April 7, 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida. Allen’s parent Elmer Carlton Low (1907-2000) was born in New York City and practiced personal injury law there before moving to Pasadena in 1943. Low was president of the California Trial Lawyers Association and wrote two books and some opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times.
Allen’s spouse Donald Fraser Allen (born May 1, 1945) graduated from University of Toronto Faculty of Law and was a member of the California Bar from 1981 through 1997.
Charlotte Allen’s education and credentials:
Stanford University (B.A. 1965) classics and English
Harvard University (M.A. 1967)
University of Southern California (J.D. 1974)
State Bar of California (1974 through 1992)
Catholic University of America (Ph.D. 2011) medieval and Byzantine studies
Allen served as Law Editor for The Los Angeles Daily Journal from 1980 to 1985, then was appointed Senior Editor, Law at conservative publication Insight on the News at its founding in 1985. That publication closed in 2008. Allen has worked as a freelance writer for publications including:
Allen’s 2011 dissertation is titled Thirteenth-Century English Religious Lyrics, Religious Women, And the Cistercian Imagination. Allen is author of the 1998 book The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.
My 2015 letter to Allen’s editors
Dear Weekly Standard editorial team:
Charlotte Allen contacted me for a story profiling J. Michael Bailey, a controversial psychologist with whom she was recently socializing in Chicago. You may recall a 2011 piece about Bailey in your publication which characterizes him as a “pimp” who arranges voyeuristic sex tours and demonstrations for interested parties like Ms. Allen. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/lower-education_554092.html?page=1
For your records, I told Ms. Allen that understanding and reporting her story hinges on speaking directly with Danny Ryan, a child whose case report Bailey published in his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.
My condition for participating was that Ms. Allen speak with Danny Ryan directly. I fear that is not going to happen. I’m concerned she’s going to mischaracterize both the controversy and my involvement in it, given that her attached questions to me contain inaccurate interpretations of events.
I provided her the attached article explaining why both Bailey and his book have been widely condemned. Bailey had published an earlier version of his book without incident, and the 2003 response happened because:
1) it was fraudulently marketed as science by the National Academy of Sciences.
2) it became a cure narrative about gender-nonconforming children.
Bailey’s attacks on my children in his book were just part of his concurrent attacks on gender-nonconforming children, which also included “academic” presentations where he displayed videos and images of young children without their knowledge or consent in a manner that generated laughter from his audiences. Bailey also boasts that he can categorize these children sexually and can tell the kinds of sexual partners they will like. Ms. Allen seems focused on a long-deleted satire in which I showed how Bailey’s leering depictions and two-type sexualized categorization of my children would seem inexcusable if done to his own.
Bailey’s colleagues believe that gender-nonconforming children require “curing” in order to prevent what they consider a “bad outcome,” a gender transition. Most children who display gender-non-conforming behavior do not seek a gender transition later, and this outcome occurs without any intervention. Bailey’s colleagues make money by selling anxious parents on services they claim will cure many children. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has stated such services are “no longer considered ethical.” Others are more pointed, condemning such services as “disturbingly close to reparative therapy for homosexuals” and “simply child abuse.”
Hundreds of children have been through these aversion programs championed by Bailey’s friend Kenneth Zucker, and not one has later come forward to talk about how it helped them. Danny Ryan is the most famous report of a cured child, yet no one has ever followed up directly with him to confirm Bailey’s published claims independently.
Danny Ryan has remarkable parallels to David Reimer, a case report by Bailey’s ideological nemesis John Money. The David Reimer case proved to be false when independently investigated. Some reporters continue to repeat Bailey’s claims about Danny Ryan uncritically, with no independent confirmation. Science and journalism proceed from evidence and facts, and there is no independent evidence that Bailey’s published facts about Danny Ryan are true.
Given that other case reports in Bailey’s book turned out to be inaccurate upon independent follow-up, the Weekly Standard has a unique opportunity to report this story accurately instead of taking Bailey at his word. Similar hard-hitting reporting on David Reimer brought John Money’s work into disrepute and made the career of the journalist who broke the story. A generation of children suffered because no one bothered to confirm Money’s claims, and I can’t sit by as another reporter is poised to miss the point of why Bailey has been criticized by people of every political persuasion.
Thanks for your time, and I would very much appreciate confirmation that you have received this note.
Sincerely, Andrea James [email protected] cc: Charlotte Allen Attachments (2):
2. Fair Comment, Foul Play: Populist Responses to J. Michael Bailey’s Exploitative “Controversies” (PDF)
Allen’s puff piece about Bailey ran with no mention of his exploitation of our children and a lawyerly defense of his “fucksaw” demonstration.
The Man Who Would Be Queen was deemed “salacious bigotry” by Andrea James, a 48-year-old Hollywood consultant who is the most persistently aggressive of the transgender activists. James spearheaded campaigns to have Northwestern censure and perhaps fire Bailey (unsuccessful), and to discredit Bailey as a credible academic expert on transgender subjects (extremely successful).
Allen claims I declined to be interviewed “in a prolific series of Bailey-dissing emails.” Allen notes my criticism of Anne Lawrence, Ray Blanchard, and Kenneth Zucker. Zucker was fired later that year, and the clinic where Zucker and Blanchard were employed was closed following an investigation spurred by legislation that made anti-transgender reparative therapy illegal.
Allen, Charlotte (March 2, 2015). The Transgender Triumph.Weekly Standard. https://www.weeklystandard.com/charlotte-allen/the-transgender-triumph
Allen, Charlotte (March 4, 2019). Trans men erase women.First Thingshttps://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/03/trans-men-erase-women
Hawkins, JA (January 1951). Elmer Low Family of Pasadena.Pasadena Museum of History https://calisphere.org/item/8de4632c37e661ae4ba402f4006bf984/
Hess, Amanda (March 12, 2008). Charlotte Allen Interview.Washington City Paper https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/blog/13054285/charlotte-allen-interview
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Jennifer Bilek is an American writer and anti-transgender extremist. Bilek hosts The 11th Hour podcast and site.
Bilek was a scheduled participant in a 2017 panel that claimed transgender people are “a homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.”
Background
Jennifer Bilek was born on October 22, 1958 and grew up in New York City. Bilek trained at Woodstock School of Art. Bilek has worked as a hairstylist for children and young people as the businesses Get Coiffed and My Little Sunshine.
Bilek also paints portraits.
Anti-trans activism
In 2017, left-wing conference Left Forum announced that Jane Wheeler (under the name Jane Chotard) would chair a June 4th panel titled “Misery for Profit: Who is Funding the Transgender Movement and the Impact on LGB.” The synopsis stated:
We will be showing that the immense funding funneled to the transgender movement is coming from giant pharmaceutical and biotechnology Industries and what their aim is. We will also be showing how the corporately controlled media is interfaced with these same Industries and are blocking any alternative to the pro-trans propaganda now being disseminated. We will be showing that the transgender movement is not in fact a civil rights issue, but a business arrangement and an advertising arm of these industries. We will cover the implications of this on the LGB community and show how transgender is a political coup, positioned as an ally alongside the LGB, but are actually a homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.
“Jane Chotard is an out lesbian for over 30 years, mother of two teenage boys, past healthcare attorney, currently works to provide better care services to patients and residents facing serious illnesses and end-of-life issues.”
Jennifer Bilek: Panel organizer and speaker
“Jennifer Bilek is a bisexual artist/activist/writer living in NYC for a lot longer than is probably healthy.”
Bilek, Jennifer (April 5, 2021). CNN Versus Biological Reality.The American Conservative https://www.theamericanconservative.com/cnn-versus-biological-reality/
Riedel, Sam (July 7, 2017). Why Trans Activists Can’t Trust The Left. The Establishment https://medium.com/the-establishment/why-trans-activists-cant-trust-the-left-3bfa22928ddd
David Frum is a conservative Canadian-American political commentator and anti-transgender activist. Frum was a major figure in anti-LGBT activism in the 1990s, though Frum has since acknowledged some of those views were wrong.
Background
David Jeffrey Frum was born June 30, 1960 in Toronto. Frum is a nepo baby whose family was also involved in writing and publishing. Frum earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Yale University in 1982 and a law degree from Harvard in 1987.
A major figure in the neoconservative movement that led America into the Iraq War, Frum wrote for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Manhattan Institute, the Weekly Standard, and the National Post.
Frum was tapped to write speeches for George W. Bush, leaving in 2002. Frum joined neocon think tank American Enterprise Institute and continued litigating support for the Iraq invasion. Frum became a US citizen in 2007. Frum was a blogger for National Review and worked on Rudy Giuliani’s presidential run. Frum was asked to leave American Enterprise Institute in 2010.
Frum married “mommy blogger” and anti-transgender activist Danielle Crittenden Frum in 1988. They have three children, Miranda Ann Frum (1991–2024), Nathaniel Saul Frum (born 1993) and Beatrice Sarah Worthy Frum (born 2001).
Anti-LGBT activism
Frum was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Frum later acknowledged this was wrong.
Frum joined The Atlantic as a senior editor in March 2014. During that time, under editor and anti-trans activist Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine ramped up its attacks on the transgender rights movement.
In 2020, Frum analyzed the transgender political positions of Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Elizabeth Warren, name dropping Joe Rogan’s views on transgender athletes: “After the transgender mixed martial arts fighter Fallon Fox began—literally—smashing opponents’ heads…”
Frum, David (2020). Bernie Can’t Win.The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/bernie-sanderss-biggest-challenges/605500/
Frum, David (March 21, 2024) Miranda’s Last Gift.The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/david-frum-miranda-daughter-grief/677815/
Obituary (February 21, 2024). Miranda Frum.The Globe and Mail https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/theglobeandmail/name/miranda-frum-obituary?id=54427346
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist and former politician. Ali is an anti-Islam and anti-transgender activist. Ali is often associated with the intellectual dark web, a gateway to the far right.
Background
Ayaan Hirsi Magan was born November 13, 1969 in Mogadishu. Ali’s parent Hirsi Magan Isse was a political prisoner who escaped Somalia in 1977, eventually settling the family in Kenya.
In 1992 Ali sought asylum in The Netherlands to avoid an arranged marriage. Ali worked as a translator while earning a master’s degree in 2000 from Leiden University. Ali became a Muslim apostate around that time. Ali’s 2004 film “Submission” with Theo Van Gogh criticized Islam and led to Van Gogh’s murder. Ali faced threats and went into hiding. In 2006 an exposé revealed Ali lied on the Dutch asylum application. Ali resigned from Parliament and was ultimately allowed to retain Dutch citizenship. Ali took a position at the American Enterprise Institute in the US, getting her green card in 2007.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Ali as an anti-Muslim extremist, though they later removed the whole list.
Ali created the AHA Foundation and has worked for conservative organizations like the Hoover Institution.
Those who would divorce “woman” from its biological implications often present their ideas as innocuous. They are, we are told, simply champions of “inclusion”. But their ideology is hardly uncontroversial, and surrendering to it is not harmless. The past year has seen reports of transgender women attacking women in female-only spaces and unfairly winning trophies in women’s sports. The spirit of these failures was perhaps best-distilled in the words of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in March was unable to define what being a woman entailed during her Senate confirmation hearing. “I’m not a biologist,” she said, as if one needed to be a professional scientist to know basic biological facts.
A word of clarification. I am immensely sympathetic to the plight of transgender people and believe they ought to have the same moral and legal rights as everyone else. To be against militant trans activists’ gender ideology is not to be transphobic. Rather, it is simply to agree, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie succinctly put it, that “trans women are trans women”. Adichie was savaged for this and other statements evincing wrongthink, but acknowledging that trans women are distinct from women, that there are potential conflicts between their rights, and that gender ideology opens the door to abusive men masquerading as women, should not be controversial. Standing up for the rights of transgender people should not mean pretending sex does not exist altogether.
Podcast
Ali’s podcast logrolls for other anti-trans activists, including:
Patrick Healy is an American journalist involved in anti-transgender coverage at the New York Times. Healy served as Deputy Editor of the Opinion section during its anti-transgender coverage crisis of the 2020s.
No transgender journalist has appeared on the New York Times masthead since its founding in 1851. As of 2023 there were no trans journalists on staff, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. At the same time, Healy helped beef up anti-trans staff, including bringing in David French.
Background
Patrick Durham Healy was born on August 31, 1971 to Carol Ann Higginbotham Healy (1936–2023) and Gerald T. Healy, Jr. (1934–2021). Healy has an older sibling and grew up gay in a conservative Catholic household. Healy earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University in 1990, and a second bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in 1993.
After reporting in local New Hampshire papers, Healy wrote for the transphobic Chronicle of Higher Education from 1994 to 2000. From 2000 to 2004, Healy wrote for the Boston Globe, then joined the New York Times in 2005.
After about ten years as a political correspondent, Healy held editor roles in the Culture, Politics, and Opinion sections. Healy reports to anti-trans ringleader Kathleen Kingsbury as well as to Charlotte Greensit.
Healy has made television appearances as guest host of The New York Times Close Up with Sam Roberts on NY1 News and as an analyst on CNN.
Healy married physician assistant Raymond Alejandro “Ray” Delgado on October 1, 2022.
Schindler, Paul (July 26, 2006). That Darn New York Times.Gay City News https://gaycitynews.com/that-darn-new-york-times/
Staff report (April 8, 2005). The Mayor Gets Sound Advice, But Will He Pay Attention to It? The Quotidian / New York Civic http://www.nycivic.org/QLIST/050408.html [archive]
Scocca, Tom (January 24, 2005). Off the Record.New York Observer https://observer.com/2005/01/off-the-record-75/
“I speak in support of legislation to limit access to so-called “gender affirmative” medical and surgical treatments which are unproven to reduce mental suffering in minors experiencing gender discordance.”
“Alix Aharon” is the stage name of Alexandra “Alix” Hecht, a Scottish anti-transgender activist. Hecht is a co-founder of anti-transgender group Partners for Ethical Care.
Hecht took data from a map of trans-supportive healthcare providers to create an anti-trans project called The Gender Offender Mapper (later called The Gender Mapping Project). Hecht is an advisor for Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF).
Background
Hecht was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Hecht graduated from Craigholme School for Girls in 2003 and earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Aberdeen in 2007. Hecht has worked in sales for SuperDerivatives, Checkmarx, WalkMe, AppSee, dLocal, Wishbox, Duve, and Coro.
Hecht reportedly had an “aggressive eating disorder” for ten years. Hecht reportedly emigrated to Israel and spends time in California and Tel Aviv.
Hecht has used a number of aliases:
Alix Aharon
Alexandra Hecht
Lara Alix
Alix Hecht
Alex Hecht
Lara Alix Hecht
Anti-trans activism
While living in Israel, Hecht reportedly saw a 2019 documentary on four young trans men who were scheduled to serve in the Israeli Defense Force. Hecht was enraged and embarked on anti-trans activism.
Hecht’s most notable project is the Gender Offender Mapper.
Hecht has appeared on and has been mentioned in conservative and fascist media, including Newsmax and New York Post.
Hecht has logrolled for other anti-trans efforts, such as the documentary Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? Hecht called it “crucial.”
Leveille, Lee (July 5, 2021). The Mechanisms of TAnon: Where it Came From.Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2021/07/05/the-mechanisms-of-tanon-where-it-came-from/
Leveille, Lee (April 12, 2021). The Mechanisms of TAnon: What is “TAnon”?Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2021/04/12/the-mechanisms-of-tanon-what-is-tanon/
