Mike Abrams is an American evolutionary psychologist who authored a college textbook which catalogs a number of “disorders” about sex and gender minorities.
Note: for the American journalist involved in the New York Times’ anti-trans coverage crisis in the 2020s, see Mike Abrams.
Background
Abrams is a Supervisor, Fellow and Diplomate of the Albert Ellis Institute.
Abrams and spouse Lidia Dengelegi Abrams (born October 1960) both practice at Psychology for New Jersey.
Transgender
In 2016, he mourned the firing of anti-transgender activist Kenneth Zucker:
“The accomplished researcher & clinician in transgender studies Ken Zucker was lost to false accusations of conversion therapy. Very sad.”
Ruth Barrett is an American spiritual leader and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Ruth Bienenfeld was born on February 4, 1954 in Los Angeles to a family deeply involved in Reconstructionist Judaism. After marrying William Q. Barrett in 1977, Ruth Barrett had a child, Amanda Rebecca Barrett, born in 1978.
Barrett attended University of California, Santa Cruz to pursue an interest in spirituality and folklore, eventually joining a coven in 1977.
Barrett began performing women’s music as a teen and recorded five albums with fellow mountain dulcimer player Cyntia Smith beginning in 1981.
Barrett divorced after coming out as lesbian in 1984.
From 1991 until its closure, Barrett was heavily involved with the trans-exclusionary Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Barrett performed with Kay Gardner after they met there. Barrett began releasing solo works in 1990.
Barrett led Moon Birch Grove coven until 1988. That year, Barrett founded Circle of Aradia, which affiliated with Reformed Congregation of the Goddess in 1993. Barrett relocated with partner Falcon River to the Midwest in 2000, founded the nonprofit Temple of Diana, Inc. in 2001, and continues to teach and perform at music events and festivals.
Trans-exclusionary activism
In addition to involvement in Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Barrett is an adherent to “Dianic Wicca,” an explicitly trans-exclusionary set of beliefs and practices.
Dianic tradition is celebrated in exclusively female-only circles.
Power is sourced through our wombs, and female embodied magic that is found in every cell of her body.
A woman is a person who is an adult human female (XX).
In the current climate where transgender activists seek to eliminate protections based on biological sex, we will not participate in our own oppression and erasure by pretending that our bodies are insignificant to what makes us female, as girls and women.
We encourage males who are trans identified to create their own rites of passage that address their significant life cycle events from birth into elderhood. We welcome females who have de-transitioned and wish to reclaim their female being free of patriarchal collusion.
Female Erasure (2016)
Barrett is editor of the anthology Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics’ War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights. The book puts forth a variety of anti-trans views centered on the conspiracy theory that trans people are “erasing” women and lesbians.
Jonathan Haidt is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.
In 2015 Haidt co-founded Heterodox Academy to promote “intellectual diversity” and challenge “enforced orthodoxies” in academia. These are buzzwords for people who want academic freedom without academic responsibility or accountability. The organization and its conference are popular among anti-transgender activists.
Background
Jonathan David Haidt was born October 19, 1963 in New York City and grew up in Scarsdale, New York.
Haidt earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1985, then attended University of Pennsylvania, earning a master’s degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1992. Following postdoctoral work and time working in India, Haidt took an appointment at University of Virginia in 1995. While there, Haidt published several works on positive psychology and moral psychology.
Haidt and spouse Jayne K. Riew (born 1971) have two children, Max and Francesca.
Lukianoff, Greg; Haidt, Jonathan (2019). The Coddling of the American Mind How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin, ISBN 9780735224919
Alasdair Gunn is an English anti-transgender activist living in Ireland. Gunn is Vice Director of anti-trans group Genspect.
Gunn, using the name “Angus Fox,” published a series of anti-trans articles for Quillette called “When Sons Become Daughters.”
In 2023 Gunn was a key author of a “Gender Framework” document drafted by Genspect’s Killarney Group. It is intended to be an alternative to the WPATH Standards of Care.
Milli Hill is a British author and anti-transgender activist. Hill was upset after reading the term “birthing person,” a value-neutral and inclusive term to describe all people who can give birth. After getting pushback about her views, Hill leaned even harder into anti-transgender activism.
Background
Milli Hill was born in January 1975 and attended Leweston school before earning a degree from Durham University in 1996. After working as an actor and dramatherapist, Hill began a writing career focusing on birth, breastfeeding, and motherhood.
Hill gave birth to three children. Hill has written three book about pregnancy and childcare and founded the Positive Birth Movement in-person support group network that was active until 2021. Hill incorporated Milli Hill, Ltd. in 2020.
On November 25, 2020, Hill was tagged in a social media post about obstetric violence that used the term “birthing people.” Hill replied:
âThanks. Good to see this post. I would challenge the term âbirthing personâ in this context though, especially on international day to end violence against women. It is women who are seen as the âfragile sexâ etc, and obstetric violence is violence against women. Letâs not forget who the oppressed are here, and why.â
The original poster replied, âObstetric violence is violence against anyone on the receiving end of obstetric violence â women, trans men, non-binary people, anyone.â
Hill replied:
âPersonally I think itâs part of violence against women but if you disagree then at least donât leave them out and say âwomen and birthing peopleâ.Â
Hill has gone on to become a leading anti-trans voice, frequently criticizing the civil rights movement in general and specific activists in particular in the press and on social media.
Julie Jaman is an American anti-transgender activist. Jaman became a celebrity among other anti-trans activists after being banned from a local swimming pool for asking a trans employee to leave the sex-segregated changing area.
Background
Julie Jaman was born in March 1942 and is a resident of Port Townsend, Washington. Mountain View Pool is a City of Port Townsend facility operated in partnership with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA.
According to reports, Jaman verbally abused 18-year old pool employee Clementine Adams, whose job was to help supervise a group of young swimmers:
Three weeks ago, that employee was doing her job of supervising a group of kids when a patron named Julie Jaman began to hurl increasingly aggressive transphobic remarks at her. Other employees told Jaman to leave, but she later returned to picket the facility. Conservative media picked up the story, people started threatening YMCA employees, and now the entire facility has had to temporarily close due to those threatening messages.
Showering after my swim at Mt. View Pool, I heard a manâs voice. Peeking out I saw a man in a womanâs bathing suit watching little girls pull down their swimsuits In order to use the bathroom. âGet out of here,â I said.
This is the incident that caused a Y staff person to condemn me as discriminatory and banned me forever from using the pool â the pool with binary changing areas that my family has supported and used for 35 years. I sense I have arrived at the center of this topsy turvy world.
Jaman quickly became part of the anti-trans outrage cycle, appearing in anti-trans publications Quillette, Feminist Current, New York Post, Daily Mail, Fox News, Rebel News, and Washington Times. The pool and YMCA soon received harassment and threats, and a right-wing militia staged a protest.
Adams, who is a college student majoring in elementary education, was supported by the facility and the city. A GoFundMe to help Adams with transition costs raised over $20,000.
Sam Leith is an English author and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Leith was born on January 1, 1974 in London and was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. Leith is a “nepo baby” whose parents were also involved in journalism and publishing. Leith authored the 2012 memoir Going Nowhere: A Life in Six Videogames.
Leith is an officer in Leith/Bowden Productions Limited with spouse Alice Bowden and was an officer in 69 Dalberg Road Freehold Ltd with Camilla Clare Cookson. Leith is a parent to children.
Anti-transgender activism
Like anti-trans New York Times counterpart Pamela Paul, Leith gatekeeps coverage of the literary and journalistic contributions of trans and gender diverse people and our allies. Leith is also in a position to promote anti-trans authors and books, which happens regularly. As an example, Leith is a signatory on a 2020 Sunday Times open letter supporting openly transphobic author J.K. Rowling. Leith also contributes to anti-trans publication UnHerd, criticizing Judith Butler and standing up for gender critical activists who dislike the term TERF.
While Leith believes trans people should be accommodated “within the constraints available to reality,” Leith felt moved go mask off in 2023 after deciding that convicted criminal Sarah Jane Baker was emblematic of transgender activism.
Leith’s beliefs and concerns:
this “directly affects a relatively tiny proportion of the population”
“housing male-bodied sex offenders in the female prison estate” is a problem
“ideologues promoting irreversible surgery or hormone treatments on pre-pubescent children” are a problem
“biological sex is a real thing”
activists make “ever more ludicrous and uncompromising claims about the nature of reality”
Aaron Sibarium is an American opinion writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Aaron Julian Sibarium was born January 9, 1996. Sibarium’s parents are Michael Sibarium, a lawyer, and Laura Govoni-Sibarium, a nursing consultant and synagogue volunteer. Sibarium and sibling Ely (born January 24, 1999) both attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and Yale. Ely Sibarium has published work about gender diversity and neurodiversity with John Strang and Scott Leibowitz.
Sibarium earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 2018. Sibarium interned at the center-right American Enterprise Institute and was an editor at The American Interest prior to its closure. Sibarium is an associate editor at the Washington Free Beacon.
Anti-transgender activism
While working as an opinion columnist at the Yale Daily News in 2017, Sibarium was triggered by Yale’s move to the term first-years vs. freshmen.
Sibarium has published anti-trans work in the New York Post, the Free Beacon, and in the Bari Weiss anti-trans publication Common Sense (now Free Press).
Megan Phelps-Roper is an American author and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Phelps-Roper was born January 31, 1986 to Shirley Phelps-Roper and Brent Roper and grew up in Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-LGBT hate group based in Topeka, Kansas. Starting at five years old, Phelps-Roper participated in many of the organization’s picketing events, attacking Jewish people, military servicemembers, and the LGBTQ community.
In 2011, Phelps-Roper appeared in Louis Theroux’s documentary America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis. Phelps-Roper left Westboro Baptist Church in 2012.
Phelps-Roper married lawyer Chad G. Fjelland (born 1972) and has two children.
In October 2019, Phelps-Roper released a memoir called Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope.
Anti-trans activism
Phelps-Roper was recruited by anti-trans activist Bari Weiss to host a podcast series that defended transphobic author J.K. Rowling. The series used nostalgia for Rowling’s stories to paint Rowling sympathetically, as a misunderstood person simply advocating for women.