Chaya Raichik is an American conservative activist who created the Libs of TikTok social media accounts. Raichik frequently targets transgender and gender diverse people and their supporters. The project’s avatar is the transgender symbol styled in TikTok logo colors.
Raichik reposts social media posts made by others, often with commentary, which typically inspires followers to abuse and harass those Raichik has featured.
Since Raichik began targeting upcoming drag and pride events, anti-transgender protesters have been showing up at these events, requiring the presence of police and additional security.
Since Raichik began targeting Jewish and Christian youth camps with inclusive policies for all children, staff had to take steps to ensure security.
Since Raichik began targeting medical professionals who support transgender and gender diverse youth, death threats and bomb threats have been called in to children’s hospitals and clinics that help trans youth. Some hospitals have switched to telemedicine appointments to protect children and their families.
Libs of TikTok is sometimes styled Libs of Tik Tok and abbreviated LoTT or LTT. It has become a primary pipeline for anti-liberal and anti-progressive content, similar to other anti-transgender “drama” platforms like Blocked and Reported and The Matt Walsh Show. Content that generates enough outrage then gets featured on mainstream conservative outlets hosted by people like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.
Several people are named Chaya Raichik, including an author and a homemaker. In Chabad-Lubavitch communities, Raichik is a common surname and Chaya is a common given name. Please do not contact anyone with this name directly.
Background
Chaya Mushka Raichik (Hebrew: חיה מושקא רייצ’יק) was born in ~1989.
Parent Rabbi Yaakov Raichik, aka Yankee Raichik, is a Los Angeles-based chaplain in the California Department of Corrections.
Chaya Raichik worked in New York as a licensed real estate investor at Evergreen Realty / ERNY LLC in Brooklyn (listed as Chaya Raichek). Raichik created what became the Libs of TikTok Twitter account in November 2020.
Soon after, Raichik claimed to have participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Photographic evidence appears to place Raichik trespassing on restricted Capitol ground, standing on the plaza steps among others prosecuted for insurrection.
Raichik’s New York real estate license expired in February 2021. Raichik reportedly moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles since becoming an anti-transgender activist.
Twitter timeline
Raichik was not a heavy social media poster before Twitter. Raichik’s account was inspired by and supported by other conservative accounts, some of which have since been suspended:
Liberal_Ls [suspended]
johnny_commie [suspended]
_callmeriss [suspended]
consoftiktok [suspended]
BidenLs
basedtiktok
Accounts Raichik has mentioned are almost all conservative media figures and include:
Year in review: Libs of Tik Tok top 3 highlights of 2021: 1. Contributed to the removal of FIVE bad teachers from schools 💪🏼 2. Four shoutouts (plus a dm) from Joe Rogan 🥳 3. Got fact checked by Snopes on a sarcastic tweet 😂
In 2022, software developer Travis Brown revealed that the Twitter account used for Libs of TikTok had used the screen names @shaya69830552, then @shaya_ray. Raichik used @chayaraichik until late February 2021, and that name appears on the libsoftiktok.us domain registration.
According to the Washington Post, Raichik claimed to have attended the January 6 protests:
In January 2021, Raichik started talking about traveling to D.C. to support Trumpon Jan. 6 at the Stop the Steal rally. When violence broke out at the Capitol that day, she tweeted a play-by-play account claiming to be on the ground. “They were rubber bullets from law enforcement. 1 hit right next to me,” she said. She posted videos from the crowd and spoke of tear gas being deployed nearby. After saying she left the riot, she used Twitter to downplay the event, claiming that it was peaceful compared to a “BLM protest.”
Began posting “a lot about the LGBTQIABCD… community” specifically targeting trans and nonbinary people
Raichik credits Joe Rogan with helping the account grow after he began promoting the channel in June 2021
Began targeting teachers supportive of LGBTQ rights
Began calling people supportive of LGBTQ youth “groomers”
Began attacking drag events, especially those with young people present or participating
Began attacking specific medical professionals, their employers, and their facilities.
In April 2022, Raichik said, “Whenever we have a big victory through my account, like a crazy groomer teacher being fired, it really fires me up a lot.”
The next day, The Washington Post profiled the site and confirmed Raichik’s name. Raichik announced a monetizing plan via Substack:
Substack has become the platform of choice for “hate actors,” said Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Ahmed, because the company and its leaders fail to enforce the rules and guidelines that it sets to keep the platform safe.
That week, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon announced that he had personally made a deal with Raichik “that will turn her heroic, high-risk work into a career.”
Bans and suspensions
TikTok account
permanently banned in March 2022
Twitter account
temporarily suspended on April 13, 2022 for promoting “violence, threats or harassment against others based on their sexual orientation or other factors such as race or gender,” reinstated
temporarily suspended on August 27, 2022, for “hateful conduct,” reinstated
Instagram account
automatically suspended on May 27 for multiple copyright complaints, reinstated
Facebook account
suspended on August 17 for one day “in error,” reinstated
Attacks on Jewish children’s camps
In 2022, Raichik began a “social media offensive” against Camp Ramah for their gender-inclusive policy. Camp Ramah is a network of summer overnight camps and day camps affiliated with Conservative Judaism. Camp leadership responded, “We are in contact with our security partners out of an abundance of caution.”
Attacks on Christian children’s camps
In 2022, Raichik posted an attack on Camp Akita, a nondenominational Christian camp in Ohio, for its gender-inclusive policies. The camp is affiliated with First Community Church, part of The United Church of Christ and The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Staffers have not responded publicly to the attack.
Attacks on drag and pride events
Raichik frequently posts about scheduled events featuring drag performers at libraries and other public locations, as well as drag performances at restaurants and entertainment venues. In several instances, the events were then protested, disrupted, or cancelled outright due to potential violence.
Attacks on children’s hospitals
Raichik began targeting Boston Children’s Hospital, an early innovator in trans health services for young people. Threats quickly followed:
According to VICE and other mainstream media outlets, doctors and other hospital staff are now receiving death threats. The Hospital confirmed that they are receiving a “large volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff.”
Raichik, Matt Walsh, Chris Rufo, and other anti-trans activists immediately began dismissing the threats to this and other targeted hospitals as fake news.
On September 15, the FBI announced the first arrest in connection to the threats. Catherine Leavy, a 37-year-old from Westfield, Massachusetts admitted that calling Boston Children’s Hospital on August 30, 2022, and made the threat, “There is a bomb on the way to the hospital. You better evacuate everybody. You sickos.” Leavey made over 200 contributions to conservative causes since 2016, including former President Trump’s Campaign, MAGA PACs and other Republican campaigns.
FBI Boston Special-Agent-in-Charge Joseph Bonavolonta said:
In recent months, Boston Children’s Hospital has been the subject of sustained harassment related to the airing of grievances pertaining to services they provide to gender-diverse and transgender individuals and their families. This has caused a huge amount of angst, alarm and unnecessary expenditure of limited law enforcement resources. Specifically, the hospital has received dozens of hoax threats, including harassing phone calls and emails, individual death threats and threats of mass-casualty attacks. This behavior is nothing short of reprehensible, and it needs to stop now. The real victims in this case are the hospital’s patients. Children with rare diseases, complex conditions and those seeking emergency care who had to divert to other hospitals because of these hoax threats. Threatening the life of anyone who seeks any type of health service is a heinous act and will not be tolerated.
Following the success of these attacks, Raichik began targeting other children’s hospitals and providers.
In 2022, Raichik appeared on Tucker Carlson Today and revealed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered Raichik the guest house at the Governor’s mansion in response to Raichik’s self-outing in public public posts. New Twitter owner Elon Musk began reinstating anti-trans accounts and liking Raichik’s transphobic posts, adding to the surge in transphobic content on Twitter.
In 2024, Taylor Lorenz reported that Raichik was using “anti-woke” job board RedBalloon to hire an investigative journalist.
References
Lorenz, Taylor (November 1, 2024). LibsofTikTok is hiring an investigative journalist to launder her hate campaigns.User Mag https://www.usermag.co/p/libsoftiktok-is-hiring-an-investigative?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3238&post_id=150807866&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1mn67&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Staff report (December 12, 2022). The artificial growth of hate speech. Chuds of TikTok https://chudsoftiktok.substack.com/p/the-artificial-growth-of-hate-speech
“Libs of TikTok is a popular anti-LGBTQ+ twitter account operated by former real estate agent Chaya Raichik. The account, which has over 1.3 million followers as of August 2022, attempts to generate outrage and stoke anti-LGBTQ+ hostility by reposting selected out-of-context social media content created by LGBTQ+ people and liberals. The individuals, events and organizations targeted by the account are frequent targets of harassment, threats and violence.”
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Jennifer Krohn is an American artist, sex segregationist, and anti-transgender activist. Krohn is the unaccepting parent of a gender diverse child. Krohn is a co-founder of Partners for Ethical Care (PEC), an American anti-transgender front group. Krohn and spouse Cyrus Krohn are part of the “parental rights” faction of anti-transgender activists.
Krohn is also an opponent of allowing trans athletes in sex-segregated competitive sport.
Background
Jennifer Lynn Comer Krohn was born in February 1969. Krohn earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University. Krohn was a graphic designer at Michael Courtney Design and Ilium Associates before leaving to raise a family. Krohn is married to tech entrepreneur and political operative Cyrus Krohn (born 1970), and they have three children.
After volunteering to teach art at their children’s child’s school, Krohn began teaching art classes in Issaquah, Washington at Jennifer’s Artistical Garage.
Anti-transgender activism
Krohn became upset when their fifth-grade child began using a different name and they/them pronouns at school before Krohn knew about it.
After the school alerted Krohn that the child had mentioned self-harm in a conversation, the school counselor
“kind of sold to me the idea of using this ‘special therapist’ that was contracted with the school. Because she was under 13, I had to come in and talk to this therapist and give her written permission. At 13, I might not have even known she was seeing this therapist. At 13 in our state, children can get their own mental health without a parent’s consent or knowledge.”
Krohn’s child had ten weekly sessions. In early 2020 the therapist called and “used male pronouns for my daughter” and let Krohn know that they were going to have a family therapy session in three days. “We decided not to have the meeting with the therapist.”
Krohn’s child was also friends with many LGBTQ+ classmates, which Krohn believes “was the source of a lot of her issues.” After Krohn’s child reportedly threatened suicide again, Krohn took all of the child’s devices away.
The final straw was a school camp where Krohn’s child was given the option of staying in the boys’ cabin. Krohn claims this forced the child to say yes. Krohn kept the child from the camp and took the child out of school soon after.
Now without devices, friends, and classmates, Krohn claims the child “desisted.”
Krohn co-founded Partners for Ethical Care to assist other unsupportive parents. “It’s like we have gone to war together. That’s what it feels like. This is like a war on our families.”
Maud Jane Maron was born on June 9, 1971 in New York, New York. Maron earned a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in 1993 and earned a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University in 1998. Maron was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1999. Maron’s career experience includes working as an Attorney with the Legal Aid Society.
Maron is married to private equity executive Juan Pablo Pallordet and has four children: Clara Pallordet (born ~2005), Lucio Pallordet (born ~2006), Liam Pallordet (born ~2010), and Magnus Pallordet (born ~2016).
Maron began collaborating with Bari Weiss and Suzy Weiss to further their political aims around COVID.
Maron claims to have been cancelled in 2021 for opposing critical race theory in New York public schools.
ThirdRail
Maron is founder of ThirdRail, a consultancy created to “facilitate innovation, leadership, and strategy sessions designed to breakthrough thinking without fear of judgment.” The participants include several prominent anti-trans activists:
Maron is a sex segregationist who opposes transgender athletes. Maron also claims to have been cancelled in 2022 for supporting “single-sex spaces” and opposing changes to Title IX,
Staying silent when activists and politicians insist “trans women are women” has real world consequences for real women. The truth is, trans women are biologically male and they should be treated with dignity, love and respect. But many trans activists insist on language that erases the reality of biological women. Their desire to transcend biology, no matter how heartfelt, does not, and cannot, require me to lie or teach a generation of children a falsehood.
Girls and young women are being swept up in a social contagion which has them believing they are men. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, in which young women with no early childhood expression of gender dysphoria suddenly identify as trans, has spiked in the last decade.
Lisanne Anderson is an American amateur photographer and “autogynephilia” activist. Anderson created and maintained The Autogynephilia Resource website between 2004 and 2012 and was one of the three people responsible for about two-thirds of all the content on the main “autogynephilia” discussion group before it was banned by Yahoo.
Background
Lisanne Ferne Anderson was born on January 11, 1956 and is a native and lifelong resident of Brooklyn, New York. Anderson has extensively documented Brooklyn neighborhoods and collects historical artifacts related to the borough.
Like Canadian counterpart Willow Arune, Anderson is on disability for some unspecified ailment and is a well-known internet kook. Anderson variously claims to have mild to moderate cerebral palsy, scoliosis, or anxiety disorders which leave Anderson unable to work. Anderson has “detransitioned” at least once in 1995 and was once married.
Anderson has previously had conversations and arguments online from 1998 to 1999 with Lori Anjou, a sockpuppet Anderson created.
“Autogynephiia” activism
Despite being one of the major proponents of the disease, Anderson said on 13 June 2004, “I am not autogynephilic… I believe that all views have credibility, but that those who attempt to silence those who disagree with them lose some of their credibility in doing so.”
All views do have credibility to someone who can argue with an alter ego online. This biography documents and contextualizes the statements made by all parties in this matter, so there’s a historical record of who said what when this fake disease is finally discredited.
Proponents featured on autogynephilia.org included:
Since I made the decision three years ago to involve myself with the question of Autogynephilia I have been constantly asked why I have placed myself in such a position. Indeed, there have been times when I have wondered so myself. The intensity of hatred shown towards anyone who considers autogynephilia to be scientifically sound would make most people pause in their tracks. But the realization that the causative factor for their animosity is often fear makes it imperative to provide a venue for the dissemination of factual information about the theory.
My initial step was to involve myself with the creation of an e-mail discussion list on Autogynephilia. My hope was to create a dialogue between those on both sides of the controversy regarding the theory. However, it was during this time that Autogynephilia was becoming a focal point of politicalism within the transsexual community, and civil discussion was becoming quite difficult. One of the casualties of this environment was my own neutrality. As the arguments against Autogynephilia grew more emotional, and the decision was made by some of more visible members of the community to extract an ounce of blood from advocates of the theory I found myself compelled to speak out against such excesses. Along the way I came to believe that the motivations of these individuals came more from self-aggrandizement than concern.
Their attempts at discrediting the theory had the result of increasing awareness of it. I cannot answer with certainty whether this was an unexpected outcome, or one which the leaders had no concern towards; their only true goal was increasing their own public profile.
The need for factual information on Autogynephilia became quite plain. The source for such information would have to be those who are most familiar with it, and best able to explain it precisely and clearly.
Since the Internet (and its various search engines) makes it relatively easy to find material on almost any subject a web site devoted to Autogynephilia would be invaluable. This despite the fact that there was some intelligent content already available.
Resources
The Autogynephilia Resource (autogynephilia.org) [2004–2012 – archive]
Amy Eileen Hamm is a Canadian nurse and anti-transgender extremist.
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.
Grace Lidinsky-Smith is an “ex-transgender” activist. Lidinsky-Smith’s work has been cited by conservative psychologist Erica Anderson and others seeking to restrict access to healthcare for gender diverse youth and young adults.
Background
Lidinsky-Smith “detransitioned” after making a gender transition as an adult that included hormones and top surgery.
Gwendolyn Ann Smith is an American writer, designer, and transgender rights activist. Smith is a pioneer in online trans resources and created what became the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Background
Gwendolyn Ann “Gwen” Smith was born July 22, 1967. Smith attended Pasadena City College, then began doing desktop publishing and digital design under the entity designstylestudios. Smith was an early adopter in online communities, rising to Programming Director at America Online’s onQ community, which later merged with PlanetOut.
Smith has been involved with the game Second Life since its release in 2003 and since 2019 has offered high-end professional support to the game’s power users.
Smith is married to Bonnie “Bon” Smith and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Transgender activism
Starting in 1992, Smith was the driving force behind making America Online (AOL) trans-friendly, lobbying them to change anti-trans policies. Smith developed and maintained a repository of information and resources on AOL and hosted many chats. Smith developed the Transgender Community Forum (TCF), which AOL forced to close.
In 1998, Smith founded the Remembering Our Dead Project to document anti-trans murders. That project evolved into the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
In 2000, Jamison Green, Dallas Denny, Jessica Xavier, Gwen Smith, Penni Ashe Matz, and Sandra Cole launched the nonprofit Gender Education and Advocacy (GEA) at the website gender.org.
Smith has written and edited for many publications, including LGBTQ Nation, The New Civil Rights Movement, and Genderfork. Smith has written a column titled “Transmisisons” for the Bay Area Reporter since 2000.
Smith designed the accompanying booklet and attended our 2004 all-transgender benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues.
Smith is subject of the 2017 book Trans/Active: A Biography of Gwendolyn Ann Smith.
This site (transgendermap.com) is dedicated to Smith and Melanie Anne Phillips for their key roles in early online resources for the community.
References
Leveque, Sophia Cecilia (2017). Trans/Active: A Biography of Gwendolyn Ann Smith. ISBN 9781618460448
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/
Dan Savage is an American author and activist. Savage has been glitter-bombed many times for anti-transgender views. Some of Savage’s views have evolved following criticism.
Savage has written about sex and relationships since the 1990s and has supported the work of many gender critical and transphobic public figures. Savage has also been involved in a number of important projects that have improved the lives of sex and gender minorities, including trans people.
Background
Daniel Keenan “Dan” Savage (born October 7, 1964) grew up in a Catholic household in Chicago. Savage graduated with a theater degree from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, then moved to Germany for two years before moving to Madison, Wisconsin.
In 1991 The Onion founder Tim Keck told friend Savage about a plan to start The Stranger, an alternative newspaper in Seattle. Savage suggested writing a sex and relationship advice column. The title was proposed as Hey Faggot!, but Keck refused to use that title, so they settled on Savage Love. For years, all answered letters started with “Hey Faggot!” as the greeting. The column was syndicated, and Savage dropped the greeting in 1999 when the column started accepting emailed questions.
Savage moved to Seattle for the job. Under the stage name “Keenan Hollahan,” Savage also founded Seattle’s Greek Active Theater, producing reimagined classics in the mid-1990s. Savage was active in the Seattle theater scene until around 2003.
Savage created the It Gets Better project in 2010 with spouse Terry Miller. They were married in Canada in 2005 and remarried in the US when it was legalized. They have one child. The nonprofit has helped many trans and gender diverse young people through its message. The nonprofit’s President Paul Dien and founding member Seth Levy have noted that Savage is no longer involved in the project day to day:
“I don’t agree with what he has said, and I think it’s important to call out our privileges,” said Dien. “I think in our communities, cisgender white folks do have that privilege, and it’s okay to talk about when people are wrong or offensive to other parts of our community. And I think it’s important to have those discussions.”
“I really can’t comment on whatever Dan’s relationship with the trans community is; that’s been a complicated one for a long time,” added Levy. “All I know is that as a co-founder with them and having done a lot of work with them over the years, he’s done a lot for that community, often through this project. And so I hope at the end of the day, that’s what people start to understand, is that we’ve all really been trying to fight the same fight, even if we don’t always get along along the way.”
Savage’s strong opinions and acerbic tone have been criticized by numerous groups.
Biphobia allegations
Savage’s support of transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey and like-minded sexologists has caused the greatest reputational harm. Savage uncritically repeated Bailey’s claims that bisexual men don’t exist, and Savage told gay men “DON’T MESS AROUND WITH BISEXUALS” and likened bisexuality to “incest and dog-fucking.”
It was “the way most gay men were at the time, and it was shitty,” Savage says now. “A lot of my hostility to bi guys early was because I dated bi guys who were gay closet cases who felt superior to the gay men that they were dating, because they weren’t 100 percent polluted by gayness.” Over the years, “pushback from my readers” and some new bi lovers helped change his mind.
Bailey and friends magically “discovered” bisexuality as soon as they got a payment from The American Institute of Bisexuality. Savage supported Bailey’s claims about that “discovery” as well.
Transphobia allegations
Then there are the transphobic slurs that frequently appeared in Savage Love over the first 20-odd years, along with some gender nonaffirming advice about trans people and cheap jokes about the appearance of trans women. Savage told me that he used those words in the same spirit as he invited readers to call him a “faggot.” He offered a similar explanation when, at a much-covered event at the University of Chicago in 2014, he was challenged by a trans student who objected to his continued use of the slurs while talking about the slurs, and wrote a scorched-earth takedown of the student in the Stranger. (Savage now uses the phrase “t-slur” instead of saying the word out loud.)
“How do you disprove a charge like you’re transphobic? I’m not afraid of trans people. […] I certainly have had a journey in the last 20 years — as have we all — on trans issues. When I started writing Savage Love 20 years ago, and you can yank quotes 15, 18 years ago and flat them up today and say, ‘You know, that’s transphobic,’ I’d probably agree with you. 15 years ago I didn’t know as much as I know now — nor did anybody.”
Savage is one of the few people to reify “autogynephilia,” writing in 2010: “You might want to google autogynephilia. Not saying that’s where you’re at or headed, don’t know enough about it to endorse it, but . . . it seemed relevant.” Gender critical and anti-trans people Savage has platformed and supported include:
Jesse Singal (ex-trans movement, withholding trans youth healthcare)
Anyway, I'm speaking up now because this bullshit @glaad is pulling is just appalling. Putting Singal on a list with people like Tony Perkins and Brian Brown and Keith Ablow is just fucking bullshit. It's defamatory.https://t.co/kTKAs3aFnH
Here Savage cites Singal’s promotion of conservative clinician Erica Anderson as evidence Singal is not transphobic.
I want to say, "I challenge anyone to listen to this interview @jessesingal did with youth-gender clinician Dr. Erica Anderson and tell me he's transphobic," but I know people will continue to insist he's transphobic. But he isn't.https://t.co/GnkNFG44kD
There is a tendency among this collection of people to back each other up and logroll for each other when accused of acting against the best interests of the trans community. Let’s hope that changes in the future, as their monopolization of media opportunities by shutting out trans critics is one of the key ways they perpetuate harm.
Badash, David (April 29, 2014). Dan Savage Does Not Hate You. The New Civil Rights Movement. https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2014/04/dan_savage_does_not_hate_you/
Savage, Dan (December 2, 1999). Gay Ol’ Time. Savage Love https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=2686 [archive]
Abad-Santos, Alexander (November 3, 2011). Dan Savage: Queer-on-Queer Glitter-Bombing Victim. The Wire via The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/dan-savage-queer-queer-glitter-bombing-victim/335921/
Lowder, J. Bryan (November 4, 2011). Did Dan Savage Deserve to be Glitter-Bombed?. Slate. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/04/did_dan_savage_deserve_to_be_glitter_bombed_.html
Hill-Meyer, Tobi (November 14, 2011). Dan Savage Glittered Again, Student Arrested. The Bilerico Project. http://www.bilerico.com/2011/11/dan_savage_glittered_again_student_arrested.php
Oommen, Isaac (January 21, 2012). Dan Savage Glitterbombed. Vancouver Media Co-op. http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/photo/dan-savage-glitterbombed/9681
Schmidt, Christine (May 30, 2014). Comments at IOP spark controversy. [archive] Chicago Maroon http://chicagomaroon.com/2014/05/30/comments-at-iop-spark-controversy/
