Susan Ann “Sue” Robbins is an American transgender activist who has been involved in philanthropic leadership at several LGBTQ activist organizations, including Utah Pride Center and Transgender Education Advocates (TEA) of Utah.
Note: for the American transgender activist based in California, see Susan Ann Robins.
Background
Robbins served in the Army from 1979 to 1999 and was married twice during that time. Robbins initially identified as a crossdresser and came out during the second marriage. After a period of negotiating a gender expression, in 2009 Robbins went out for a birthday makeover. Robbins then came out to an adult child and would go to events together. Robbins started Utah Tri-Ess Phi Delta chapter in 2011 and started hormones in 2014.
Robbins earned an Associates degree in computer studies from University of Maryland in 1995. Robbins then supervised training development for the US Army Signal Corps based at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Robbins then worked as an operations manager at Scientific Atlanta’s customer training center, then worked as a test engineer at L3 Technologies and L3Harris Technologies.
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Joan Smith is a British writer, sex segregationist, and anti-transgender activist from the movement’s gender critical faction.
Background
Joan Alison Smith was born August 27, 1953. Smith attended University of Reading. Smith was on staff at The Sunday Times from 1979 to 1984.
Smith is author of the Loretta Lawson series of crime novels. Smith’s nonfiction books include Misogynies (1989), Different for Girls: How Culture Creates Women (1998), and Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists (2019).
In 2015, Smith was elected chair of Labour Humanists, a group promoting secularist policies and humanist values within the Labour party.
Smith was married to journalist Francis Wheen from 1985 to 1993 and was partners with politician Denis MacShane from 2003 to 2010.
Anti-transgender activism
In 2021, Smith was fired as Co-Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, a volunteer role held since 2013. The decision came after a governance review. Officials denied Smith’s claims that it was because of anti-trans activities.
Smith frequently writes anti-trans articles for UnHerd. Smith is a member of Sex Matters Advisory Group.
References
Brook, Libby (August 19, 2021). The Guardian London mayorâs office denies feminist activistâs claims over sacking https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/19/london-mayors-office-denies-feminist-activists-claims-over-sacking
Smith Joan (August 20, 2021). Why did Sadiq Khanâs office fire me? UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/08/why-did-sadiq-khans-office-fire-me/
Giles Fraser is a British journalist, broadcaster and clergymember. Initially trans-supportive, Fraser says he became a TERF in response to tactics used against supporters of anti-transgender activist J.K. Rowling.
Background
Giles Anthony Fraser was born November 27, 1964 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. Fraser studied at Newcastle University and Ripon College Cuddesdon, then earned a doctorate at University of Lancaster.
Fraser was ordained as a deacon in 1993 and as a priest in 1994. Fraser taught at Wadham College, Oxford, and Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. Fraser is the author of Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety of Unbelief, How to Believe: Investigating Wittgenstein, and Christianity with Attitude.
Fraser hosts The Moral Maze and Thought for the Day on Radio 4. Fraser is a Vicar of St Anne’s, Kew, part of the Church of England.
Fraser has been married twice and has three children.
Anti-trans views
In 2015 Fraser wrote a column about how the church needs to welcome trans people. When interacting with trans people, Fraser uses their names and pronouns because “my default response is to affirm these decisions.”
Fraser’s opinion shifted in 2023. After anti-trans activist Suzanne Moore introduced Fraser to J.K. Rowling at an event at Italian restaurant Pino, the restaurant was vandalized and review-bombed online.
Fraser reportedly became a TERF after that. Fraser also revealed several anti-trans views:
I believe in limits, in the givenness of some things. And, it seems to me, biological sex is one of them. I find the use of medical technology to transgress these limits to be Faustian in its hubris.Â
Because some transactivists now behave as though anything they can do for the cause is justified, however cruel: get people sacked, ruin their businesses, be vile to others online. The public sphere is becoming so unpleasant, so full of vitriol and accusation, that many of us just put on our tin hats and retreat from the conversation. To be honest, I have been quite content that my privilege has, until now, encouraged me to think that the best thing for me to do is to sit this one out and say nothing. I have been hiding behind this terribly convenient self-denying ordinance, leaving the likes of J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Moore to take all the heat, my courage being a few pathetic âlikesâ on Twitter.
Timandra Harkness is a writer and comedian who has some gender critical positions about transgender youth and anti-transgender activists.
Background
Harkness presents the BBC Radio 4 series, FutureProofing and How To Disagree. Harkness is author of Big Data: Does Size Matter?
In the show Brainsex, Harkness came to the correct conclusion that “brain sex” is one of many ways sex science is similar to race science: a misuse of science to justify oppression.
Anti-trans statements
Harkness has written in anti-trans publication UnHerd about supporting anti-trans activist Kathleen Stock.
Harkness also stated opposition to gender affirming healthcare for transgender youth:
I support the rights of trans people to equal treatment. I don’t support encouraging teenagers into irreversible medical interventions by telling them they’re in the “wrong body” because they don’t fit narrow gender stereotypes. So I won’t sign this letter.
I support the rights of trans people to equal treatment. I don't support encouraging teenagers into irreversible medical interventions by telling them they're in the "wrong body" because they don't fit narrow gender stereotypes. So I won't sign this letter. https://t.co/uQQVKtufbb
— Timandra Harkness (@TimandraHarknes) July 1, 2020
References
Harkness, Timandra (October 13, 2021). The hounding of Kathleen Stock.UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/10/the-hounding-of-kathleen-stock/
Mary Harrington is a British author and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Mary E. Harrington grew up in Kings Langley and graduated from Oxford in 2002.
“In 2005, I changed my name to Sebastian, because the internet told me to. That was a fairly eccentric thing to do 15 years ago. Now, it seems like everyoneâs at it.”
Harrington worked in marketing from 2006 to 2020, specializing in marketing for the shipping industry. Harrington is a contributing editor at anti-trans publication UnHerd.
Harrington is author of the 2023 book Feminism Against Progress.
Harrington, Mary (December 1, 2023). Ultra-Processed People.Reactionary Feminist https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/ultra-processed-people
Harrington, Mary (September 14, 2023). The Statistic No One’s Allowed To Study: Why are so many transgender prisoners sex offenders? Reactionary Feminist
Harrington, Mary (July 23, 2023). Which orifice? What organs? Who cares? Reactionary Feminist https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/which-orifice-what-organs-who-cares
Jacob Siegel is an American writer and critic of gender affirming healthcare.
Background
Jacob Rosenberg “Jake” Siegel was born November 13, 1980 to sociologist Jan Rosenberg Siegel and academic Frederick Fein “Fred” Siegel, (1945â2023), a progressive turned senior fellow at conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute.
Siegel served in the US Army, then commanded the New York Army National Guard Alpha Company, 1st Battalion 69th Infantry.
Siegel worked at The Daily Beast, where sibling Harry served as a senior editor. Siegel is an author and co-editor with Roy Scranton of Fire and Forget: Short Stories From the Long War, by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Siegel has written for The New York Times, Tablet, Politico, the New York Daily News, The Baffler, Vice, and the National Endowment for the Humanities
Siegel is senior editor of News and The Scroll, Tabletâs daily afternoon news digest.
Siegel, Jacob (June 15, 2022). The Evil of Banality.The Scroll https://thedailyscroll.substack.com/p/the-evil-of-banality
Moulton, David (March 9, 2023). The Great Transitioning.Tablet https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/great-transitioning [Moulton thanked Siegel for his help with this]
Gareth Roberts is a gay British writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts was born June 5, 1968. Roberts attended King Alfred’s College (now the University of Winchester) and Liverpool Polytechnic (now Liverpool John Moores University).
Roberts published the 1997 gay erotic novel The Velvet Web under the pseudonym Christopher Summerisle. Roberts wrote for British soap operas Brookside, Coronation Street, and Emmerdale. Roberts also wrote several books and episodes within the Doctor Who franchise and a number of sitcoms.
Anti-transgender activism
On September 3, 2017, Roberts posted to Twitter, “I â€ïž how trannies choose names like Munroe, Paris and Chelsea. It’s never Julie or Bev is it?” Later Roberts added, “It’s almost like a clueless gayboy’s idea of a glamorous lady. But of course it’s definitely not that.”
In 2019 Roberts was dropped from a Doctor Who project due to the 2017 comments and released a statement. Roberts described the 2017 tweets as “cheerful vulgarity” and laid out various “opinions on transgenderism”:
I donât believe in gender identity. It is impossible for a person to change their biological sex. I donât believe anybody is born in the wrong body.
I think itâs wrong to â write a falsehood into law; compel people by law to speak words they do not believe; rewrite the law to remove womenâs biological sex-based rights and protections; reinforce gender stereotypes; medicalise children who donât conform to gender stereotypes. Thatâs it.
Roberts then began litigating these anti-transgender views on UnHerd and other anti-trans platforms.
Roberts, Gareth (June 14, 2019). How I was cancelled by Doctor Who.UnHerd https://unherd.com/2019/06/how-dr-who-fans-became-its-overlords/
Roberts, Gareth (June 4, 2019). Statement on BBC Books and Transgenderism. Medium [archive] https://web.archive.org/web/20190604101854/https://medium.com/@zmangareth/statement-on-bbc-books-and-transgenderism-dd7ad0c9231a
Will Lloyd is a British journalist who writes for several anti-transgender publications. Lloyd is commissioning editor and writer at New Statesman.
Background
Lloyd earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Bristol in 2015 and an advanced degree from University of Oxford in 2020. Lloyd wrote for The Tab and freelanced before joining UnHerd in 2021. Lloyd joined New Statesman in 2023.
Writing on trans issues
In writing about Jan Morris, Lloyd says:
Asked about the pushback against the trans movement in 2017, an increasingly ancient Morris said our âmoment is messy, but I think more and more people will move to my conditionâ. She believed it was possible that âeveryone has the potential to have both genders in themâ.
Jan Morris was an early adopter of an ideology that has swept across the Western world in the past 30 years. Conundrum has never been out of print. Morrisâs belief â born from the collapse of empire, engineered to replace her imperial faith â that gender is ineffable and innate, are becoming commonplace in institutional settings. When Morris died, one of the leading tributes came from the chief executive of the Tavistock Clinicâs Gender Identity Development Service.
Is this simply fashion? Is this ideology âcronyisticâ as Helen Joyce, and other gender-critical writers have suggested? Some feminists argue that gender-identity ideology will be abandoned âwhen it is no longer in the ascendentâ, the politicians and tech billionaires will junk the pronouns in their emails, biology will reassert itself, and women will no longer have penises.
Malcom Kyeyune is a conservative Swedish writer and anti-transgender activist. Kyeyune has described transgender rights as “gender Lysenkoism.”
Background
Malcom Kyeyune was born on December 19, 1987. Kyeyune is part of the steering council for the conservative think tank Oikos. Kyeyune identifies as a Marxist, but socialist/Marxist colleagues suspended Kyeyune from Sweden’s Young Left party as a result of conflicts within the Left Party.
References
Kyeyune, Malcom (June 24, 2022). The Rise of Gender Lysenkoism. Compact https://compactmag.com/article/the-rise-of-gender-lysenkoism
Joe Burgo is an American author and anti-transgender extremist. Burgo runs the anti-trans website Beyond WPATH, which is critical of mainstream healthcare organization WPATH. Burgo promotes “gender exploratory therapy” (GET) as well as gender identity change efforts (GICE), practices that are outlawed in California. Burgo is an advisor for anti-trans groups like Genspect and others.
Joseph Mark “Joe” Burgo was born on May 6, 1955. Burgo is from Taft, California, graduated from Inglewood High School, and got a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA.
Burgo holds graduate diplomas from California Graduate Institute (CGI) in West Los Angeles. California’s Board of Psychology stated that CGI was an unaccredited institution from 1976 to 2008. CGI was merely approved by the now-defunct California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, but not accredited. As journalist Jeff Walker noted:
CGI’s repeated pleas for accreditation have been rebuffed because it lacks a sufficient number of full-time staff, a decent library, and other features that students of the thousands of accredited albeit mediocre colleges throughout North America take for granted. In prestige this Ph.D. is, aside from the mail-order variety, rockbottom.
Walker (2012)
Burgo has written a number of books about narcissism and shame.
Burgo was in a “heterosexual marriage” for 17 years and has three children. Burgo then married Michael George Eha (born September 1953), a publicist associated with Me Rep Inc. and Michael Eha & Associates. They have been together since about 2003 and split their time between Palm Springs and London.
Anti-transgender activism
Burgo stated in 2023:
One of my children is trans-identified and alienated from me. And that was my introduction to this space back in 2014, and it’s part of the reason I started getting interested in things like autogynephilia, because I just took a deep dive into everything about trans, trying to find out everything. And then I found out that there was this thing called autogynephilia, which seemed stunning to me. I’d never heard of it before, and read The Man Who Would Be Queen and Blanchard, and more recently read Anne Lawrence’s work. And I look at these guys… I suppose it’s partly because my journey has been about making peace with myself as a man, feeling better about my own masculinity, which oddly I feel better about in my gay life than I did in my heterosexual life… my ostensibly heterosexual life.
Yang (2023)
Burgo is convinced that trans people are driven to transition by narcissism and/or shame, particularly shame about being gay. Burgo promotes the “ex-transgender” movement, similar to the ex-gay movement. Anti-trans therapists call a shift in gender identity or expression “desistance” for children and “detransition” for adults. Via Slate:
Genspect also supports an organization called Our Duty, which has stated that âit should be the objective of any advanced civilization presented with this problem to TARGET 100% DESISTANCE, and as early as possible.â Desistance means when someone stops identifying as transgender and pursuing medical transition.
When asked for an interview, GETA team member Joseph Burgoâwho is also vice-director of Genspectâsaid that he and the rest of the GETA team declined to comment.
Burgo is very upset about being forbidden to practice “gender exploratory therapy” because California made it illegal:
In California, where Iâm licensed to practise as a clinical psychologist, law prohibits me from engaging âin sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under 18,â which includes alternative âgender expressionsâ. For this reason, I must turn away the many distraught parents who reach out for help with their gender nonconforming, autism spectrum, or gay and lesbian children who have recently become trans-identified. To do otherwise would expose me to potential malpractice lawsuits and challenges to my licensure, a vulnerability which trans-rights activists do not hesitate to exploit in order to intimidate those who question the affirmative-care model.
Burgo wrote in the conservative Daily Caller:
For the troubled young men in my psychotherapy practice who have de-transitioned â that is, lived for a number of years as if they were women and then reverted to their biological sex â their female identity represented such as idealized false self. By imagining themselves to be female, my clients had taken flight from a shame-ridden self which was felt to be defective, damaged, and beyond repair. When this defensive new identity finally broke down, they found themselves engulfed in pain, confusion and shame, and as a result sought professional help.
Meanwhile, the militant trans-identified male continues shoring up his idealized false self. He insists heâs no different from and deserves the same rights and privileges as biological females. When others insist upon the reality of biological sex and assert that trans women arenât actually women, he feels persecuted; on some level, this challenge to his sense of self may even feel life-threatening. His envy of biological women â for embodying the idealized state he longs for but can never truly reach â may lead to vindictive and physical assaults upon their persons. He wants to destroy them and the truth they embody.
Walker, Jeff (2012). Ayn Rand Cult, p. 156. ISBN 9780812698190
Burgo, Joseph (April 14, 2023). Are Trans Rights Activists Victims â Or Bullies?Daily Caller https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/14/opinion-are-trans-rights-activists-victims-or-bullies-dr-joseph-burgo/
