Owen Benjamin is the stage name of Owen Troy-Smith, an American conspiracy theorist and anti-transgender activist.
Benjamin is part of the alt-right and intellectual dark web movements of anti-trans extremists.
Background
Owen Benjamin Kares Troy-Smith was born on May 24, 1980. Both parents are college professors. Troy-Smith earned a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2002, then began a career in stand-up comedy, branded as a conservative comedian.
Anti-transgender activism
After podcaster Jesse Thorn expressed support for their family’s trans child on Twitter, Troy-Smith and other anti-trans extremists like Jesse Singal decided to make inappropriate comments about this child.
Following additional attacks on trans healthcare for adolescents as well as posting standup clips mocking trans people, Troy-Smith’s talent agency cut ties.
Mike Cernovich is an American far-right extremist and anti-transgender activist. Cernovich is considered part of the intellectual dark web, described as a gateway to the far right.
Background
Michael C. Cernovich was born on November 17, 1977 in Kewanee, Illinois. Cernovich earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois at Springfield in 2001 and a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2004. Cernovich was married in 2003 and divorced in 2011. Cernovich’s spouse was a successful technology lawyer and was required to pay Cernovich a large sum in the settlement. Cernovich was admitted to the California Bar in 2013.
Cernovich started as a self-help writer. Cernovich endorses an anti-feminist “gorilla mindset” for men interested in meeting and dating women.
Cernovich is a key figure in the QAnon conspiracy that claimed Hilary Clinton was involved in a vast pedophile ring.
Cernovich is well known for trolling and no longer identifies with the alt-right, saying it is “too obsessed with gossip and drama for my tastes.”
Cernovich and second spouse Shauna announced their fourth child in 2023.
Anti-transgender activism
Cernovich once reportedly made a list of countries with the most attractive transgender women.
Cernovich also shares consistently negative news stories about transgender people.
References
Stack, Liam (April 5, 2017). Who Is Mike Cernovich? A Guide.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/politics/mike-cernovich-bio-who.html
Cernovich, Mike (August 31, 2016). Is Mike Cernovich Part of the Alt-Right?Danger & Play https://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/08/31/is-mike-cernovich-part-of-the-alt-right/
Marantz, Andrew (October 24, 2016). Trolls for Trump.The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/trolls-for-trump
Nicholas Christakis is an American physician and academic. Christakis is considered by some to be part of the intellectual dark web.
Anti-transgender statements
In 2020, Christakis ascribed the increase in trans adolescents seeking healthcare as “social construction of medical conditions.”
On February 8, 2022, Christakis responded to a Twitter post on social contagion by anti-trans extremist Mia Hughes, saying:
I think there is a large element of social contagion with respect to transgenderism. It reminds me of previous examples including not just bulimia but also peanut allergies and (mild) autism. But this explosion of cases will likely ultimately be seen as a failure of the medical system, not a victory â a failure to clearly demarcate the small core of people for whom surgery & hormones are indicated, & the large number of others for whom other modalities are preferable.
Matt Christiansen is an American media personality and anti-transgender activist. Christiansen is associated with the intellectual dark web, described as a gateway to the far right.
Background
Matthew “Matt” Christiansen was born on October 18, 1987 and resides in Bozeman, Montana.
Christiansen frequently discusses political issues on YouTube.
References
Olson, Warren (June 18, 2021). The Orwellian Function of Transgender Ideology.Matt Christiansen Media https://www.mattchristiansenmedia.com/outback-observer/2021/6/17/the-orwellian-function-of-transgender-ideology
Media
Matt Christiansen (December 10, 2015). Transgender, Transage, and Transreason | Meet Me on Mars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGZq7XCBOE
Sam Harris is an American writer, podcaster, and anti-transgender activist. Harris is a key figure in the intellectual dark web (IDW), described as a gateway to the far right. In 2020, Harris disavowed the IDW, and in 2021 Harris symbolically returned the “imaginary membership card to this imaginary organization.”
Background
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born on April 9, 1967 in Los Angeles, California to parents who were both in entertainment. Harris left Stanford after an experience with MDMA and spent about a decade learning spiritual practices in India and Nepal. Harris returned and completed a bachelor’s degree in 2000. Harris earned a doctorate from UCLA in 2009.
Harris published the book The End of Faith in 2004. harris has gone on to be a critic of religion, especially Islam. Harris has debated many people on religion, including Rick Warren, Deepak Chopra, Jean Houston, William Lane Craig, and Reza Aslan. Harris has also appeared in debated on religion with anti-trans extremists Andrew Sullivan, Jordan Peterson, and Michael Shermer.
Harris and spouse Annaka Gorton have two children.
Podcast
Harris began the podcast Waking Up in 2013, later renamed Making Sense.
Peter M. Clarke was born in August 1985 in Port Angeles, Washington. Clarke earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in 2007 and a law degree from University of the Pacific in 2010.
Clarke wrote for Reputation.com, LegalMatch, FindLaw, Indiegogo, and Judicial Council of California. Clarke wrote the books Politicians Are Superheroes and The Singularity Survival Guide. Clarke has also written for Areo Magazine, The Humanist, The American Spectator, Quillette, and Free Inquiry Magazine. Clarke founded Jokes Literary Review.
Clarke is based in Sacramento, California.
Anti-trans activism
Clarke wrote a sympathetic profile of anti-trans extremist Michael Shellenberger, part of a sustained effort by a faction of anti-trans activists critical of progressivism.
Clarke wrote a sympathetic profile of anti-trans extremist Jesse Singal after a panel featuring Destiny, Vaush, and Emma Vigeland discussed Singal’s extensive anti-transgender activism:
To be clear, if Singal did have horribly offensive views about trans people or gender dysphoria, then, of course, the Seder-Vigeland position would be correctâor, at least, defensible. Some people are, unfortunately, transphobic in the genuine sense of the term. But Singal is not. It is certainly possible to disagree with Singalâs position. But it is not possible to find an ounce of bigotry in his writing. He is, in this respect, a âgood liberal.â
If someone is biologically male, they canât change to biologically female. The medical interventions are crude, often harmful, and not incredibly successful right now. The culture war on this topic, in my view, would be more civil if identity was less important to people.
Candice Hellen Brown Elliott is a retired American engineer and âautogynephiliaâ activist. Elliott is a self-proclaimed âhomosexual transsexualâ and maintains two websites that promote the controversial sexualized taxonomy of transgender women created by Ray Blanchard:
On the Science of Changing Sex (sillyolme.wordpress.com)
Elliott’s pen names and online handles include:
Kay Brown
Cloudy
Sillyolme
Seaby
Glowing SunBear
DisplayGeek
Biography
Elliott was born June 6, 1957, grew up in California, and transitioned in the late 1970s at the Stanford gender clinic after coming out to friends in school.
I came out to my friends at school slowly, first to my girlfriend. She was very supportive at first, but later tried to convert me to Christianity and to make me âstop sinning.â
Elliott became involved in music and activism after meeting Sandy Stone at a gender clinic event:
She was tall, with long black hair, turning gray. I was attracted to her as my idealized image of a quietly self-confident, friendly, humorous, gentle, strong woman. I wanted and still want to be like her.
In 1976 Elliott met Christine Jorgensen at an event. In 1978 Elliott decided to move to Los Angeles, where Stone was working as a recording engineer. During the summer of 1979, Elliott said, “I met a transsexual who would become my best friend, point of stability, and sister, Joy Diane Shaffer.”
Historian Zagria Cowan’s profile of Shaffer includes an image of Elliott and Shaffer together. Elliott now claims Shaffer has “autogynephilia.”
Elliott was involved in several activist initiatives, including co-founding ACLU of Southern Californiaâs first Transsexual Rights Committee, led by Sister Mary Elizabeth, in 1980. Elliott worked with former Los Angeles police officer Carol Katz in an organization called The Group.
By 1986, Elliott had completed a bachelor’s degree and was working as an engineer in Silicon Valley. Elliott attended women’s music events and gatherings of Pagan and Wiccan adherents.
By the mid-1990s, Elliott was living in Portland, Oregon with trans lover Kier Salmon. The two hoped to adopt a child together.
Elliott also maintained a website on trans history from 1999 to around 2006.
In the 1990s, Elliott became a well-known figure in the field of electronic display screens, holding dozens of patents and winning the Otto Schade Prize in 2014. Elliott worked at several firms before founding Clairvoyante in 2000. That start-up created and developed PenTile technology and was acquired by Samsung in 2008. After the sale, Elliott began getting involved in trans activism again.
In March 2008, Elliott sent me a submission for this site with advice for young transitioners. Elliott also shared some thoughts at the time on Blanchardâs taxonomy and its two main promoters, J. Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence (abbreviated BBL below):
So⊠according to Bailey, since Iâm an androphilic early transitioner who at age 18 passed more easily as a girl than a boy, even before HRT, I would make a natural prostitute? Iâve had this recurring daydream that past few weeks of meeting him at some conference and posing two life histories, one of a 23 year old trannie just getting surgery, who hopes to be a wife and mother someday, and one a 50 year old trannie who is CEO of a high tech Silicon Valley company⊠and hear him make a fool of himself explaining that the one is a flamboyant promiscuous, âhomosexualâ, and the other is a âparaphilicâ and likely to be hopelessly mannish⊠and have him get egg on his face when he learns that they are both the same person⊠ME!
My take on the whole BBL hypothesis, is that it does not rise to the level of theory. It has been poorly measured. My Goddess! Have you read Blanchardâs instrumentâs questions? It seems *designed* to give false signals. His interpretation of the raw data is stretched, in fact, he ignores what looks like a progression from gynophilia to androphilia in the data, rather than a clear cut clustering of responses between those he labeled androphilic vs. bi, asexual, and gynophilic. Further, it has never been corroborated by any other researcher, though Anne did create her own weakly designed instrument, which I personally answered, with notations to improve it, back in 1998.
Sometime later that year, Elliott reconsidered, eventually becoming one of the most prominent âautogynephiliaâ activists.
Elliott later claimed this letter to me is a “total fabrication,” so I have taken the unusual step of publishing our full 2008 correspondence.
âThe Invisible Transsexualâ
In late 2008, Elliott posted an essay under the pseudonym âCloudyâ on transkids.us. It supports a controversial two-type taxonomy of trans women that reduces their motivations to sexuality:
âHomosexual transsexual,â gay males who transition to indulge their fetish for sex with straight men.
âHon-homosexual transsexual,â straight males who transition to indulge their fetish for their feminized selves (caused by the disease âautogynephilia,â created in 1989).
Elliott often abbreviates these two types as âHSTSâ and âAGP.â
This taxonomy appeals to two small subgroups of transgender people:
People who used to be called ânon-transsexualâ or âpseudotranssexualâ but self-identify as transsexual.
People who would be considered ânon-homosexualâ by proponents of this term but self-identify as âhomosexual transsexual.â
Elliott is part of the second subgroup. In fact, every person involved in the site transkids.us where this essay first appeared has also turned out to be from the second subgroup when their true identities were confirmed.
Trans supporters of this taxonomy believe it improves their social standing, because these terms create a false hierarchy, from best to worst:
intersex
âhomosexual transsexualâ (formerly called âprimaryâ or âtrueâ transsexual)
ânon-homosexual transsexualâ
âpseudotranssexualâ
In this essay, Elliott accuses a number of notable trans women of being autogynephiles trying to take âcontrol of HSTS narratives and visibilityâ:
Lili Elbe
Christine Jorgensen
Roberta Cowell
Jan Morris
Canary Conn
Jennifer Boylan
Deirdre McCloskey
Julia Serano
Proponents of the term âhomosexual transsexualâ claim its hallmarks include âeffortless femininityâ and occupations like hairstylist, beautician, âfemale impersonator,â lingerie model, or prostitute. They claim hallmarks of a ânon-homosexual transsexualâ include: computer programmer, businessman, scientist, and engineer.
Perhaps Candice Brown Elliott will come to realize how these writings damage Elliott’s own credibility in addition to damaging the community by lending credence to this oppressive nonsense. These pathologizers actively seek out these attention-craving eccentrics and exploit them as long as possible.
A few days after this page went live in 2010, Elliott kicked out roommate Susan Alexandria. The two had been pals since Alexandria was 15.
Alexandria then decided to steal one of Candice Brown Elliottâs airplanes and fly it until running out of fuel in the dark, ditching it in a field in extreme northeast California. Alexandria then walked to a hotel and was arrested there the next morning.
van Diggelen, Alison R.G. (October 9, 2005). Bright light at Cupertinoâs Clairvoyante.Silicon Valley Business Journal https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/10/10/smallb1.html
Callahan, Mary (March 12, 2010). Santa Rosa woman arrested in airplane theft.Santa Rosa Press Democrat. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2241061-181/santa-rosa-woman-arrested-in
Brown, Candice Hellen (Spring 1995). Heras. TransSisters: The Journal of Transsexual Feminism, Issue 8, pp. 49 ff. https://archive.org/details/transsistersjou1995unse_0/page/49/mode/1up
Debunking Kay Brown and Blanchardianism. A critical approach to âautogynephilia.â
Sheila C. Kirk (April 5, 1930 â July 2019) is an American gynecologist and an important figure in the history of trans health services. Kirk authored several books on medical transition and served on many nonprofit boards.
Kirk was board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and was a member of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (now WPATH). Kirk earned a medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1957 and was licensed in Pennsylvania in 1963. Kirk’s internship and main residency were at the University Hospitals in Buffalo, New York.  Kirk completed her training in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then set up a private practice there.
In 1992 Kirk retired from active practice and as Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Pittsburgh to work with the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) as a medical consultant to the trans and gender diverse community. Kirk was the first trans surgeon elected to the board of HBIGDA. Kirk also served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Transgender Health (then International Journal of Transgenderism) and was a member of TransPitt and the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA).
Kirk’s medical information books were important pre-internet resources. Following decades of service to the community, Kirk retired from activism and moved to South Carolina.
Hormonal Therapy for the Male-to-Female Transgendered Individual (1994)
Medical, Legal, and Workplace Issues for the Transsexual (1995) [with Martine Rothblatt]
Feminizing Hormonal Therapy for the Transgendered (1996)
Transgender and HIV: Risks, Prevention, and Care, with Walter O. Bockting (2001)
“The Whole Person: A Paradigm for Integrating the Mental and Physical Health of Trans Clients,” with Claudette Kulkarni, in The Handbook of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Public Health: A Practitioner’s Guide to Service Michael Shankle (2013)
The community of sex and gender minorities covers the full political spectrum. The size and inclusiveness of the community is debated, but this project takes a very broad definition of who is included.
This project also covers some topics that overlap with sexual minorities as well, including:
Gay
Lesbian
Bisexual
Asexual
Polyamorous
Pansexual
Kink and unusual erotic interests
While all of these communities and identities have overlapping interests and political goals, it’s difficult to generalize. The majority of the community seeks legal protections from harm and discrimination:
This site also covers people who are connected to our community, including those who do not consider themselves part of it.
It includes people who support the community, as well as people who hold a wide range of views that many in the community consider oppositional to one or more aspects of our community’s political goals.
Use the search feature to look for a specific person. If you don’t find a profile, please send a suggestion!
Lisa Diamond is an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah. She was quoted by the Washington Blade on 8 July 2005 praising a study by Gerulf Rieger which claimed male bisexuality does not exist.
âResearch on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures.â
Rieger is a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Northwestern University. He is being groomed by his mentor J. Michael Bailey to engage in “science by press conference,” a way of getting publicity and attention through carefully timed media manipulation.
Dr. Diamond was not involved in the study, which involved the use of plethysmograph quackery.
Benedict Carey. Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited. New York Times, July 5, 2005.
Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science
J. MICHAEL BAILEY (NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY), PAUL L. VASEY (UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE), LISA M. DIAMOND (UNIVERSITY OF UTAH), S. MARC BREEDLOVE (MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY), ERIC VILAIN (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES), AND MARC EPPRECHT (QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY)
Psychological Science in the Public Interest (Volume 17, Number 2)
