Williamson worked as Multi-Disciplinary Team Leader/Senior Practitioner at the Sheffield Gender Identity Clinic, an adult service in the UK. Williamson resigned in 2019 amid “clinical concerns” about the rapidly-changing demographics and increasing complexity of the patient population, and over the assessment process in NHS gender services.
Williams’ resignation stated in part:
Over the last eighteen months, I have repeatedly discussed my clinical concerns about the inadequacy of the assessment pathways at the clinic. I have also regularly highlighted the increasing vulnerability and complexity of people referred to the clinic. That is, that although a minority of people have gender identity concerns, for a majority, medical transition is the solution to difficulties separate from gender. This is supported by audits I have undertaken. These patients may meet the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria and transsexualism, but their primary difficulties are not about gender. These include autism, past trauma, significant childhood and adolescent bullying, personality disorder, mental illness, body dysmorphia and eating disorders. The clinic is wedded to a medically-focused pathway which does not adequately explore this context. The service fails to fully consider the psychological and social factors which might influence a personâs decision to transition. Wider political pressures and the demands of a lengthy waiting list have led to a focus on streamlining the service which has eclipsed clinical robustness. Similar concerns have been raised by clinicians working in gender services in other NHS Trusts.
References
Williamson C (2019). Resignation Letter to Senior Operational Manager Covering Sheffield Gender. Identity Service, Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS. cited in https://doi.org/10.1177/263440412110107
Avi Ring was a Scandinavian physiologist and anti-transgender activist.
Ring earned a PhD in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Ring then taught there as an associate professor and worked in cellular electrophysiology. At the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Ring was a chief scientist, working on countermeasures to chemical warfare.
Ring and spouse Eva lived in the Lofthus borough of Oslo and had a transgender child named Jennifer (1985â2017). The family had a complicated relationship with Jennifer.
Anti-transgender activism
Ring’s child Jennifer transitioned at age 28. Jennifer dealt with a number of problems in living beyond trans issues, and committed suicide four years after transition, in 2017.
At the same time, Filter magazine profiled the case of Jennifer Ring, a 32-year-old trans woman who hanged herself four years after her surgery. An expert on psychosis who was shown her medical journal by her father, Avi Ring, was quoted as saying that she had shown clear signs of psychosis at the time she first sought treatment for gender dysphoria.
Indeed, the first clinic she approached refused to treat her, citing signs of schizotypal symptoms and lack of a history of gender dysphoria. But the team at Karolinska went ahead. âKarolinska donât stop anyone; virtually 100% get sex reassignment,â says Ring.
Ring founded GENID: Gender Identity Challenge and began connecting with other parents skeptical of trans healthcare:
Gender Identity Challenge Scandinavia (GICS) are behind the push to change the public debate. Set up by retired neurophysiologist Ring, toxicologist Karin Svens and Norwegian teacher Marit RĂžnstad, they label themselves as a group of concerned parents. Other actors are psychiatrist Christopher Gillberg whose article in newspaper Svenska Dagbladet decried hormone treatment and surgery for young people. An investigative TV programme also attacked a hospital providing gender-affirming care. The campaign against securing access to gender-affirming healthcare for trans people along with media transphobia led to the Swedish government halting plans to change the age for young people to access gender-affirming care. In February 2022, the National Board of Health and Welfare issued new guidelines preventing young trans people accessing puberty blockers, arguing incorrectly that âcosts outweigh the benefitsâ and in disagreement with guidance from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. This was in response to seeing a rise in people assigned female at birth accessing services.
Anti-trans actors tend to verge on social media, particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They place themselves outside the pro-feminist and pro-LGBTI+ rights discourse in Sweden, which they see as undermining the stateâs ability to protect people during the pandemic.
It is argued that this approach is not yet having the same impact as âgender criticalâ groups in the UK or Spain because feminism is a less politically charged idea in Sweden than other European countries. Barring one, all political parties include feminism in their policies. However, this appears to be shifting and concerningly, the HOPE not Hate Charitable Trust found the Swedish general public expressed more anti-feminist sentiment than Poland (30%), the UK (28%), France (26%), Hungary (22%), Germany (19%) and the Netherlands (15%).
Ring served on a panel with the Norwegian Directory of Health during development of new trans treatment guidelines and lectured at both the Norwegian and Swedish Parliament seminars.
In 2020 Ring and William Malone published a letter criticizing a 2019 study by Richard BrĂ€nström and John E. Pachankis. In the first total population study of transgender people, BrĂ€nström and Pachankis found that for the 2,679 trans people on Sweden’s national patient register diagnosed with gender incongruence, “the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and reduced likelihood of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them.”
On September 25, 2023, anti-trans group Genspect announced Ring’s death. This was confirmed in a posthumous piece Ring wrote for Subjekt. Ring asked relatives to publish a piece arguing against banning conversion therapy in Norway under paragraph 270.
BrĂ€nström R, Pachankis JE: Reduction in mental health treatment utilization among transgender individuals after gender-affirming surgeries: a total population study. Am J Psychiatry 2020; 177:727â734 https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.19111169
Ring, Avi (October 14, 2023) [The Storting should not approve the ban on conversion therapy.] Stortinget bĂžr ikke godkjenne forbudet mot konverteringsterapi.Subjekt https://subjekt.no/2023/10/14/stortinget-bor-ikke-godkjenne-forbudet-mot-konverteringsterapi/
“Dr Sarah” (February 1, 2019). The Transphobic Comments Of Dr Jacob Edward Les. Geeky Humanist / Freethought Blogs https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhumanist/2019/02/01/the-transphobic-comments-of-dr-jacob-edward-les/ [archive]
Resources
Ed Les (dredles.com) [site active 2018â2021: archive]
Marcus Evans is a British psychoanalyst whose clientele has included trans and gender diverse people. Evans was a key critic of trans healthcare for gender diverse youth at the Tavistock. The clinic was later closed.
Evans and his wife Sue Evans co-authored the 2021 book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults.
Evans graduated from Bembridge in 1976. He served as head of nursing at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust from 1998-2018). Evans was Clinical Director of the adult & adolescent departments between 2011 & 2015. In 2018 he began working in private practice.
2021 book
The following people are mentioned in the acknowledgements:
We are grateful to the following people who have generously given their time and expertise to the development of this book: Annie Pesskin, Ian Williamson, Richard Stephens, Margot Waddell, Frances Grier, and Ema Syrulnik, as well as all our colleagues at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. We are grateful to Kate Pearce at Phoenix for offering to publish this book.
Emily Bazelon is an American writer and anti-transgender activist whose work has been cited to support anti-trans legislation in America. Bazelon wrote a 2022 New York Times Magazine feature about trans healthcare for minors that anti-trans legislators use to justify bans and restrictions affecting healthcare and legal rights for people of all ages. This page documents Bazelon’s historic role in the oppression of trans and gender diverse people.
Background
Emily C. Bazelon was born March 4, 1971. Like many cisgender reporters on this subject, much of Bazelon’s life and many opinions were shaped by a medico-juridical worldview and by extraordinary privilege. Bazelon’s grandparent was federal judge David L. Bazelon, a pioneer in the field of mental health law and namesake of the nonprofit Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington DC. Bazelon’ parent Richard L. Bazelon (born 1943) is a lawyer, and parent Eileen A. Ferrin Bazelon (born 1944) is a psychiatrist. Both practice in Pennsylvania. Emily Bazelon has three siblings: Dana, Jill, and Lara.
Bazelon attended the elite Germantown Friends School, then graduated from Yale in 1993. Bazelon earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 2000 and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bazelon had a Dorot fellowship in 1993 and was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow in 2004. Bazelon clerked for Judge Kermit Lipez in 1997. Bazelon married Paul E. Sabin (born 1970). They have two children, Eli and Simon.
2022 New York Times piece
In June 2022, Bazelon published “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” in the New York Times. It is part of their long-running “cisgender person under siege” stories placing non-trans people at the center of their coverage of trans issues.
Bazelon’s piece is centered on cisgender psychiatrist Scott Leibowitz.
It also launders the extremist views of Genspect into the New York Times. Genspect defined the rise in transgender-identified children as a “gender cult” and mass craze, “suggesting that exposure to transgender kids, education about trans people, and trans ideas on the internet could spread transness to others.” Some parents from Genspect stated transgender people should not be able to transition until the age of 25. The article also referenced a Substack newsletter by an anonymous Genspect parent titled “It’s Strategy People!” about how the organization gets its perspective into the media by purposefully not referring to transgender children as “mentally ill” or “deluded.”
The article was criticized by transgender people, including Dr. Sunny Moraine, who described the article as “sanitizing wildly transphobic talking points,” and Instructor Alejandra Caraballo of Harvard Law School, who described it as having “only just further opened the door for eliminationist policies.”
PinkNews stated the article “uncritically platformed gender-critical group Genspect” and spread “vile rhetoric.”
The Texas Observer accused Bazelon of “elevat[ing] a handful of outliers and their discredited theories about trans people to prominence they do not enjoy among the medical community” for “the sake of ‘balance’ and objectivity” and that “the article echoes right-wing fear-mongering about whether trans kids should be allowed to transition and even suggests their existence could be dangerous to other young people.” The Observer notes, “All of this could have been avoided had Bazelon listened to more experts and included more transgender people. That includes Ky Schevers and Lee Leveille, who run a trans advocacy group called Health Liberation Now! Bazelon communicated extensively with them both while working on the article, conducting interviews that were ultimately discarded.” The Observer added that “the state of Texas is using it as evidence in an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as ‘child abuse’.” Schevers said “The NYT just platformed a group made up of transphobic parents & conversion therapists who’ve written about how they have the same end goals as hardline trans eliminationists but moderate their views to try to break into the mainstream.”
2023 attack on union leadership
Bazelon was also a signatory on the 2023 letter drafted by Jeremy W. Peters attacking their own union leadership. The Guild had raised concerns about the Times’ hostile work environment for trans journalists. A Times employee told the San Francisco Chronicle there were still no trans reporters on staff in 2023.
2023 Missouri Attorney General ruling
Below is an example of how Bazelon’s 2022 piece is used to deny healthcare and other rights to trans and gender diverse people living in Missouri.
15 CSR 60-17.010 Experimental Interventions to Treat Gender Dysphoria
(2) It is an unfair, deceptive, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful practice for any person or health organization to provide a covered gender transition intervention to a patient (or refer a patient for such an intervention) if the person or health organization:
(D) Fails to ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions (at least 10 of which must be with the same therapist) over the course of not fewer than 18 months to explore the developmental influences on the patientâs current gender identity and to determine, among other things, whether the person has any mental health comorbidities; 32
32 Compare Bazelon, âThe Battle Over Gender Therapy,â The New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2022, updated March 17, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html (noting certain researchers admit and assert that only the Amsterdam clinic, âwith its comprehensive assessments,â has procured results showing strong psychological benefits for individuals who medically transitioned in adolescence, and observing the Amsterdam clinic currently requires âat least six monthly [mental health] sessionsâ following âa longer period on a waiting listâ prior to beginning treatment) [PDF]
Responses by Bazelon
2022 tweets [preserved record of Bazelon’s deleted tweets]
Bazelon joined psychiatrist Scott Leibowitz to discuss the piece.
Brand, Madeline (June 15, 2022). Why are doctors pulling away from gender-affirming health care? Press Play with Madeline Brand, KCRW https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/senate-nevada-lgbtq-jennifer-grey/trans-gender-health-care
Staff report (March 4, 1966). Eileen Ferrin Engaged To Richard L. Bazelon.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1966/03/05/archives/eileen-ferrin-engaged-to-richard-l-bazelon.html
Bazelon, Emily (15 June 2022). The Battle Over Gender Therapy.The New York Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20220616095935/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html
Bari M. Weiss was born March 25, 1984 to Lou and Amy Weiss, owners of Weisslines, a flooring retailer. Weiss grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Columbia University in 2007.
Weiss served as a senior editor at Tablet, then worked at the Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017. From 2017 until resigning in 2020, Weiss was a staff writer and editor for the opinion section of the New York Times.
Weiss was married to Jason Kass from 2013 to 2016 and married Nellie Bowles in 2021.
Weiss is the founder and editor of The Free Press (formerly Common Sense) and the host of the podcast Honestly. Weiss has been active in pro-Israel causes, lived in Israel for a time, and authored the 2019 book How to Fight Anti-Semitism.
Jamie Reed’s account of clinical practices at Washington University Transgender Center in St. Louis, later a scandal regarding Reed’s handling of children’s medical records
Emily Yoffe’s profile of an unsupportive parent of a gender diverse child, later disputed by the child
Weiss cites the platformâs treatment of Libs of TikTok, a Twitter account that remains active despite its connection to multiple acts of terror and intimidation from far-right extremists, including multiple bomb threats against a childrenâs hospital. This portrayal of Libs of TikTok as representative of accounts posting conservative views is alarming. […]
Weiss may be best known for a column introducing âthe intellectual dark web,â a group of anti-progressive types fixated on the concept of cancel culture and the idea that liberals routinely censor conservative ideas. With the Twitter Files, she describes herself leading a team that has been given âbroad and expanding accessâ to Twitterâs internal documents and communications. This group includes opinion writer Abigail Shrier, who is best known for writing Irreversible Damage, a book opposing transition for female-assigned people on the grounds that an unproven social contagion is the root cause of transmasculine identities.
Contrary to the extremist rhetoric, gender-affirming care is supported by all mainstream medical organizations as potentially lifesaving for young people with gender dysphoria. It is also perfectly possible to speak with children about the existence of transgender people and about families headed by same-sex parents in an age-appropriate, nonsexual way.
Thereâs no question that Ben Shapiro loves to provoke college students. He once brought a diaper to a campus speech to offer to âself-indulgent pathetic children who canât handle anyone with an opposing point of view.â In another, while entertaining a question from a young woman who called for greater sensitivity toward transgender people, he shot back: âIf I call you a moose are you suddenly a moose?â
Yet this sharp-tongued Never Trumper was also, according to the Anti-Defamation League, by far the most bullied Jewish journalist of 2016
Weiss, Bari (August 1, 2017). When Progressives Embrace Hate.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opinion/womens-march-progressives-hate.html
We just saw what happens to legitimate political parties when they fall prey to movements that are, at base, anti-American. That is true of the populist, racist alt-right that helped deliver Mr. Trump the White House and are now hollowing out the Republican Party. And it can be true of the progressive âresistanceâ â regardless of how chic, Instagrammable and celebrity-laden the movement may seem.
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Stella O’Malley is a conservative Irish therapist and anti-transgender extremist. O’Malley is a global ringleader in the modern ex-transgender and gender critical movements and a major supporter of anti-transgender efforts worldwide.
O’Malley founded SPLC-designated anti-trans hate group Genspect. O’Malley frequently collaborates with American clinician Sasha Ayad to uplift other conservative and anti-transgender voices.
Do not under any circumstances go to Stella OâMalley for any counseling, trans or otherwise. If you are a minor forced to see O’Malley, do everything in your power to end the sessions and find supportive local resources instead.
Background
O’Malley was born on November 16, 1973. O’Malley grew up with three siblings in the Dublin area in a household where at least one parent was alcoholic.
O’Malley and spouse Henry Thompson, a construction contractor, live in Birr, County Offaly with their two children RĂłisĂn Thompson (born November 9, 2007) and Muiris Thompson (born August 5, 2009). O’Malley’s self-described parenting style is “impatient, moody and cranky” with “a very low threshold for ordinary whining.”
O’Malley was host of the 2018 propaganda piece Trans Kids: It’s Time To Talk. It features conservative and anti-trans activists, including James Caspian, Heather Brunskell-Evans, Venice Allan, Miranda Yardley, and people from the ex-trans movement
O’Malley is connected to a number of anti-trans organizations, most of which are just part of a web farm with reciprocal links to make O’Malley’s allies and their fringe ideologies seem more widespread and influential than they are.
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Benedict Carey is an American author and writer who played a key role in laundering anti-LGBTQ propaganda into the New York Times. Carey’s uncritical puff pieces about the work of J. Michael Bailey, Richard Green, Robert Spitzer, and Alice Dreger caused years of delays in debunking that work.
In 2022 I began a campaign to extract an apology from the New York Times and get corrections, updates, or retractions on Carey’s pieces. Because Carey claims part of his job is “exposing BSâ and as a professional courtesy, I am giving Carey the first opportunity to revisit these stories. Stay tuned for updates.
Background
Benedict James “Ben” Carey was born March 3, 1960 in San Francisco and grew up mostly in Evanston, Illinois. Carey earned a bachelor’s degree in math from the University of Colorado in 1983. Carey then earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University in 1985. Carey wrote for trade magazine American Shipper before becoming a staff writer for consumer health and medical magazine Hippocrates (published 1987â2001, renamed Health).
Starting in 1997, Carey began freelancing. In 1998 Carey married writer and publishing executive Victoria Margaret von Biel (born March 2, 1960), who also earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern. Their two children were born soon after. Carey covered health and wellness for the Los Angeles Times from 2000 to 2004. In 2004 Carey moved to the New York Times with returning science journalist Richard “Rick” Flaste. Carey covered science there until 2021.
The Times was notorious for diligently reporting unethical and irresponsible research about sex and gender minorities, almost all of which emanated from the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Their coverage of Robert Spitzer’s poorly supported claims that gay people can change their sexualities was particularly egregious.
Carey and colleague Nicholas Wade were also heavily involved in using the Times science section to promote questionable science that supported their hereditarian viewpoints about scientific controversies, like race and intelligence or sexuality. Carey is a strong believer in disease models of human traits and behaviors, especially mental illness.
2005 anti-bisexual piece
Carey’s piece “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited” presented J. Michael Bailey’s claims that “true bisexuality” does not exist in males. GLAAD and FAIR condemned the piece. In 2011, a different Times reporter followed up with Bailey’s new claim of suddenly discovering male bisexuality after getting payments from the American Institute of Bisexuality.
2007 anti-transgender piece
Carey delivered a major media coup to Kenneth Zucker and allies who support conversion therapy on gender diverse youth. Carey was given an advance copy of Alice Dreger’s cover-up of J. Michael Bailey’s Danny Ryan “trans cure” fabrication. Carey reported that Dreger’s research into Bailey “concluded that he is essentially blameless.” Carey uncritically repeated Dreger’s strawman claims that trans people believe they are “victims of a biological mistake â in essence, women trapped in menâs bodies.” Carey also glossed over Bailey’s sexual misconduct reported by the woman known as âJuanitaâ in the book: “she stood by the accusation but did not want to talk about it.”
The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Baileyâs book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Baileyâs Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Baileyâs work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.
Carey did not note that I was quoting and paraphrasing Bailey’s book, and that I had apologized in 2003 (Bailey’s son, who was an adult in 2003, did not accept the apology and Bailey’s daughter did not respond). Carey reiterated Dreger’s conclusion: “the accusations against the psychologist were essentially groundless.”
I had insisted to Carey’s editors that I be interviewed, so Carey asked me just one question. When my answer was “too long,” Carey said there was only room for 13 words.
Subsequent developments
In addition to a host of other ethics issues, Bailey hosted a live “fucksaw” class demonstration for students that led to Bailey’s signature human sexuality class being permanently canceled by Northwestern. The “fucksaw” incident was not covered by Carey.
Dr. Green, who was also a forceful advocate for gay and transgender rights in a series of landmark discrimination trials,
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association sided with Dr. Green and other influential figures, including Dr. Judd Marmor and Dr. Robert Spitzer, and decided to drop homosexuality from its diagnostic manual.
In his early work, Dr. Green found that many effeminate boys grow up to be gay. He reviewed that and other research in his 1987 book, âThe âSissy Boy Syndromeâ and the Development of Homosexuality.â
âIf you canât make a male attracted to other males by cutting off his penis, how strong could any psychosocial effect be?â said J. Michael Bailey, an expert on sexual orientation at Northwestern University.
Dr. Bailey believes that the systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them.
But Dr. Bailey believes the effect, if real, would be more clear-cut. âMale homosexuality is evolutionarily maladaptive,â he said, noting that the phrase means only that genes favoring homosexuality cannot be favored by evolution if fewer such genes reach the next generation.
Carey sourcing Bailey on gay parenting
Carey, Benedict (January 29, 2005). Experts Dispute Bush on Gay-Adoption Issue. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/politics/experts-dispute-bush-on-gayadoption-issue.html
“You can’t force families to participate, and there aren’t that many of them out there to start with,” said Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University who has studied gay men raising boys.
“There is also a strong volunteer bias: the families who want to participate might be much more open about sexual orientation” and eager to report positive outcomes, Dr. Bailey said.
Creager, Cindi (July 7, 2005). New York Times Promotes Bisexual Stereotypes in “Straight, Gay or Lying?” GLAAD https://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3827 [archive]
Letters: Debating a hypothesis https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9401E1DD163DF93BA1575BC0A9619C8B63.html
G. Eugene Pichler (2016) The Transsexual Delusion: “On August 21, 2007 Benedict Carey of the New York Times published a damning article into the behavior of Conway et al.”
Alice Dreger (2015) Galileo’s Middle Finger: “Finally, Carey’s piece was published in the New York Times, and he amazed me by his ability to sum up the salient points in a couple thousand words. More important, Carey’s report turned around the public story of what had really happened. Mike was elated. Mike’s family was elated. Ray Blanchard was elated. Scientists all over the world were elated.”
John Casey (2007) letter to NYT editors: “Benedict Carey casts this story as a matter of politically correct thugs trying to undermine Dr. J. Michael Bailey’s legitimate scientific research. But even Dr. Bailey’s defenders admit the research in question turned out to rest on shoddy anecdotal evidence. In light of that fact, the story can’t possibly concern ”the corrosive effects of political correctness on academic freedom,” as someone quoted in the article claims. The question was whether his book had any legitimate scientific basis. And it didn’t. But perhaps that doesn’t make for a very interesting story.”
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Denise Caignon is an American author and anti-transgender extremist.
Caignon founded anti-transgender site 4thWaveNow in 2015 and has appeared in the media under a number of aliases, including:
“Marie Verite”
“Denise Canaan”
“Janette Miller”
Caignon’s site became one of the most prominent transphobic platforms, surviving a purge of similar anti-trans sites that violated hosts’ terms of service. Caignon is a key developer of the controversial “rapid onset gender dysphoria” diagnosis. Caignon’s child Chiara Caignon-Lewis is a prominent member of the “ex-trans” wing of anti-trans activists.
Background
Denise Jeanette Caignon was born in 1955 to a family that moved frequently. After graduating from Louisville Collegiate School in 1973, Caignon soon moved to California and began getting involved in second-wave feminism.
Self-defense and “take back the night” initiatives were an important focus of second-wave feminism starting in the 1970s. The belief was that direct confrontation can exert community control over rapists’ behavior. In 1972, not long before Caignon’s arrival, Santa Cruz Women Against Rape (SCWAR) was founded as an âalternative anti-Rape organization in which women support women.â The non-hierarchical collective had many lesbian members and offered a 24-hour rape hotline and free self-defense workshops. They also maintained a published list profiling alleged male rapists, assaulters, and harassers.
One of the women involved with the SCWAR hotline was queer activist Gail Groves. During six years working on the rape hotline, Groves realized that many stereotypes about sexual assault were inaccurate. Caignon and Groves studied judo together, and they soon founded Santa Cruz Women’s Self-Defense Teaching Cooperative. They also founded Women Who Resist: The Success Story Project to catalog strategies for preventing and surviving a sexual assault. In 1987, they published these first-hand reports as Her Wits About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories by Women. They taught a class that role-played real situations, recommending that students prepare for common issues like attack cues and verbal abuse from attackers.
Caignon has helped produce other publications and served as an editor of the Buddhist publication Turning Wheel for many years, guest editing three issues: intentional communities, engaged lives, and fundamentalism. Caignon ended that work in 1999 to spend more time with spouse Tim Lewis and their child Chiara.
After living in California for 27 years, Caignon moved to North Carolina and studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to be a speech-language pathologist. In keeping with a longstanding interest in intentional communities, Caignon has a residence in a cohousing community in Carrboro. Caignon earned a master’s degree in 2007 and practiced in the area until retiring in 2014. Caignon’s focus was on aphasia related to strokes. Caignon helped develop Life Interest and Value (LIV) Cards, a way for people with speech loss to improve communication.
Caignon’s child Chiara began identifying as transgender online in 2013, at age 16. Chiara had already come out as queer and had started dating, but an incident at school had left Chiara with few friends in real life. Chiara turned to online communities, claiming that popular trans users on Tumblr and YouTube caused a multi-year obsession with transition.
At age 17, Chiara came out to Denise via a texted link to a gender clinic. Denise refused to let Chiara take medical transition steps, which led to a lot of fighting. At the height of the fighting, Denise got heavily involved with posting anti-transgender materials online and attending trans-exclusionary events:
I was fortunate to be able to meet two detransitioners Iâd discovered online in person when I attended the Michigan Womenâs Music Festival in 2015.
In 2015, Denise sent Chiara to a Florida horse farm for nine months, after which Chiara says the desire to transition subsided without taking any legal or medical steps. Denise and Chiara have since teamed up to be the most high-profile family in the modern ex-trans movement.
Unlike the second-wave feminism of Caignon’s youth, third-wave feminism is largely trans-inclusive. Caignon’s site name 4thWaveNow is a call to replace that third-wave feminism with a transphobic fourth wave.
Levoy, Gregg (November 6, 1990). Teaching women to fight back. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/1990/11/06/teaching-women-to-fight-back/605287cd-e0cf-4672-b3a3-642e3f0074b4/
Groves, Gail (1995). “And He Turned Around and Ran Away.” in Patricia Searles, Ronald J. Berger (eds) Rape and Society: Readings on the Problem of Sexual Assault. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429493201
Caignon, Denise, consulting ed. (1999). Turning Wheel: Journal of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Helena Norberg-Hodge, âPeter Goering, âJohn Page (2001). From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture. [Caignon handled production and layout] Zed Books ISBN 978-1856492232
Moon, Susan (2004). Not Turning Away: The Practice of Engaged Buddhism. Shambhala Publications ISBN 9781590301036
Haley KL, Helm-Estabrooks N, Womack J, Caignon D, McCracken E (2007). A pictorial, binary-sorting system allowing âself-determination despite aphasia. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Boston, MA.
Haley K, Helm-Estabrooks N, Caignon D, Womack J, McCulloch K (2009). Self-determination and life activity goals for people with aphasia. Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, New Orleans, LA
Haley KL, Womack JL, Helm-Estabrooks N, Caignon D, McCulloch KL (2010). The Life Interest and Values Cards. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Department of Allied Health Sciences.
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Martin Kafka is an American psychiatrist who subscribes to a number of disease models of human sexuality, including ones that are sometimes applied to trans and gender diverse people:
He served as a member of the Sexual and Gender Disorders Working Group (Paraphilias Sub-Committee) of the American Psychiatric Association for the formulation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), 5th Edition.
Background
Martin Paul Kafka was born in May 1947. He graduated from Columbia College in 1968, then earned his medical degree in 1973 from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He completed his psychiatric residency at the University of Michigan in 1977. In 1999 Kafka was elected a full member of the International Academy of Sex Research.Â
References
Kafka MP, Henne J (). The Paraphilia-Related Disorders: An Empirical Investigation of Nonparaphilic Hypersexuality Disorders in Outpatient Males. J Sex Marital Ther. 1999 Oct-Dec;25(4):305-19. doi: 10.1080/00926239908404008
