Jake Silverstein is an American author and anti-transgender activist. Silverstein was responsible for a 2023 anti-trans feature about gender diverse youth by Emily Bazelon in The New York Times Magazine.
Background
Jacob “Jake” Silverstein was born on October 14, 1975 and grew up in Oakland, California. Silverstein earned a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University, a master’s degree from Hollins University, and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006.
After working in local news, Silverstein was editor of Texas Monthly from 2008 to 2014, then was named editor of The New York Times Magazine.
Silverstein and spouse Mary Jillian LaMotte Silverstein (born 1970) have two children.
Anti-trans activism
This new section is under construction.
In the fall of 2021, Silverstein conceived of and assigned a story to Emily Bazelon, telling On the Media (OTM):
We understood that an interesting moment in the field of transgender care was coming up, and that was the release of this new Standards of Care which had last been published I believe it was 2012. So almost a decade ago. That was one of the original motivations for the story, to try to understand what process was going into that and get ahead of the publication of those new Standards of Care. As Emily began looking into it, we had access to this working group that was working on the chapter about adolescence. And we began to understand that there were some not only debates and discussions happening within that group, but also there was a really intense complexity to them doing their work, in the context of a proliferation of really draconian legislation restricting trans rights in various states around the country.
Silverstein OTM 2023
Their key access point was psychiatrist Scott Leibowitz, who along with Laura Edwards-Leeper is also a key source for Jesse Singal and other anti-trans activists framing trans people as having a medical and/or psychiatric problem (“gender dysphoria,” etc.). Leibowitz leads off the article in Bazelon’s “cisgender person under siege” framing long favored by the Times when covering gender diverse people. Leibowitz and Edwards-Leeper served on the WPATH chapter on “Assessment, Support and Therapeutic Approaches for Adolescents with Gender Variance/Dysphoria.” Also serving were Annelou de Vries, Jon Arcelus, Gayathri Chelvakumar, Stephanie Roberts, and John Strang.
OTM pressed Silverstein about context.
That’s right, I think you’re quoting from Emily‘s story there. The politicization in certain state legislatures around the country around this issue has created a political debate around something that has ended up distorting a lot of the reception of articles like Emily’s.
Silverstein PTM 2023
The phrase patient zero was one of the examples of bias cited in the open letters to Times management.
This term was introduced to Emily during her interview with the patient in question, a Dutch trans man who we refer to in the story as F.G. Emily tracked him down and interviewed him at length. And he said to her, “I was patient zero.” The term also appears in a book that is cited in Emily’s story about the history of the Amsterdam clinic that uses the term patient zero to describe the same person. And in both cases the meaning was clear to Emily in these interviews and in reading this book. It described the first-ever recipient of this treatment. That’s what it meant, and I think it was pretty clear that’s what it meant from the context. Like I said, it’s not used in quotation marks. He is quoted, saying other things, and he’s quoted saying this treatment saved his life. And Emily didn’t realize that it was going to have another connotation for other people.
Silverstein OTM 2023
The phrase patient zero was removed from Bazelon’s article and replaced with the phrase first patient. The Times made the change after On the Media made an inquiry and before Silverstein came on their show.
We’ve been talking about making that particular change. Changing something to a story that we published for reasons other than a factual correction is never something that we take lightly. It’s not something we do very often. As you can imagine it’s something that requires a lot of conversations and deliberations internally. So it took a little bit of time for that to work its way through the process. But we felt it was the right thing to do. I wish we had immediately understood how some readers might take that term.
Silverstein OTM 2023
Times coverage was quickly cited in anti-trans legislation, which Silverstein feels is beyond the Times’ control.
I don’t believe that there’s anything in this story or any other news coverage that supports banning gender therapy. I believe, and I can’t say for sure, because I obviously had nothing to do with this amicus brief, that these pieces were cited to show that there is a debate among providers about how to best perform gender care for minors. And that is what these stories document with their reporting. Once we hit publish, we don’t control how readers of any kind are going to use our stories. And I don’t know that we should.
Silverstein OTM 2023
How they covered Genspect:
We’ve heard this criticism about not identifying Genspect. Some of the people who criticized Emily’s story wanted us to refer to Genspect as a hate group. We can’t say that without evidence, right? We can characterize groups up to a point, unless we’re going to dedicate reporting time to investigating a particular group, we can’t characterize it a certain way without evidence.
Silverstein OTM 2023
Masha Gessen thought Bazelon’s piece was excellent, Andrew Sullivan
It’s certainly not the position of the journalist in question here, of Emily. Part of what Emily is doing in the story is she’s trying to gather in a sense of what that conversation is and what that commentary is, and the context in which these folks are doing their work. That process of doing that, of gathering in this commentary doesn’t mean that Emily endorses every single thing that she’s citing. She’s trying to give readers a sense of the atmosphere in which these gender affirming clinicians are doing their work.
Silverstein OTM 2023
On including ex-trans activist Grace Lidinsky-Smith of Gender Care Consumer Advocacy Network, who regrets top surgery requested and received as an adult.
Sure, I mean the question of how to identify people quoted in stories comes up a lot, and sometimes the decision is based on the footprint that they occupy in a story: how much the story is about them, how significant their part of the story is, and in this case, in a very long story in which the subject was a very small part, it seemed to us that we were giving the reader the information that was most relevant.
Silverstein OTM 2023
When pressed about including an adult ex-trans activist associated with groups seeking to restrict trans healthcare. tagential to the purview of the piece, and “we didn’t get a lot of context about where she was coming from.”
Mm-hm. Yeah, I understand that.
Silverstein OTM 2023
Is there anything you wish you did differently in your coverage or your editing process?
As you can see from the fact that we changed the term “patient zero,” I certainly wish we had changed that before we hit publish on the story. But other than that, I would say no. I’m really proud of this piece. Emily‘s piece is a finalist for the National Magazine Award in the category of public interest this year. A jury of her peers said it’s one of the six most important pieces of public interest journalism published in any magazine last year. And I think that’s correct. This kind of reporting is very difficult to do. It takes a kind of focus, it takes a kind of fortitude, and it also takes the commitment to the principles of journalism that not everybody has. And Emily does.
Silverstein OTM 2023
On June 18, 2022, Silverstein tweeted “This weekend’s @NYTmag cover is a deeply-reported story by @emilybazelon on debates among providers within the field of transgender health care over how to treat teenagers. Emily spent 8 months on this piece, and interviewed and quoted many transgender providers who have a variety of perspectives, as well as cisgender providers who have spent their careers in gender-affirming care. Reporting on subjects that are highly politicized is challenging. That’s why Emily’s methodical, principled, & deeply journalistic approach was important. I hope you’ll read her story.”
ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio noted that Silverstein’s work was immediately used to attack Texas families with gender diverse children:
This is from an expert report filed by Texas in defense of its policy of directing the “child welfare” agency to investigate medical treatment for gender dysphoria as child abuse. It is hard to watch this all unfold with such devastating harms.
Lee Leveille and Ky Schevers of Health Liberation Now! also described their involvement and reaction:
Genspect and Stella O’Malley
- multiple Genspect members are active in clinic protests
- the group’s extensive collaboration with faith-based lobbying groups for SOGICE in order to undermine efforts to ban conversion therapy.
- training conferences held by the NHS being canceled
- “make sure that children are, if- if at all possible, are stopped from medical transition”
GCCAN and Grace Lidinsky-Smith
Health Liberation Now! concludes:
Media portrayals on de/retransition, particularly in the framing of regret or mental health assessment, have aggravated the very political battle that Bazelon references in the article. In doing so, the New York Times feeds into the ongoing disinformation campaign we caution about in When Ex-Trans Worlds Collide.
References
Migdon, Brooke (February 15, 2023). NYT contributors blast paper’s coverage of transgender people. The Hill https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3859501-nyt-contributors-blast-papers-coverage-of-transgender-people/
(June 22, 2022). Response to NYT Article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy.” Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2022/06/22/health-liberation-nows-response-to-nyt-article-the-battle-over-gender-therapy/
The New York Times Company (March 28, 2014). The New York Times Names Jake Silverstein Editor of The New York Times Magazine. https://investors.nytco.com/news-and-events/press-releases/news-details/2014/The-New-York-Times-Names-Jake-Silverstein-Editor-of-The-New-York-Times-Magazine/default.aspx
Loewinger, Micah (August 11, 2023). Go Woke, Go Broke. On the Media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-go-woke-go-broke
Deprang, Jo (April 27, 2010). Fact over fiction. Texas Observer https://www.texasobserver.org/fact-over-fiction/
Resources
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Sheri A. Berenbaum is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Berenbaum is connected to several leading lights of academic transphobia, including J. Michael Bailey, Kenneth Zucker, and psychologists connected to the Human Behavior and Evolution Society..
Much of Berenbaum’s work is involved in shoring up the concept of “sex differences.”
Background
Sheri Ann Berenbaum was born on May 1, 1950.
Berenbaum earned a bachelor’s degree from The City College of New York, followed by a doctorate from the notoriously transphobic and conservative psychology department at University of California, Berkeley in 1977. Berenbaum’s dissertation focused on maintaining sex segregation. Berenbaum did a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral genetics at University of Minnesota.
Berenbaum then taught at University of Health Sciences / Chicago Medical School. Berenbaum was affiliated with Southern Illinois University prior to joining PennState in 2001. Chicago Medical School
Much of Berenbaum’s work is about hormones and behavior and has been cited as a reason to force adolescents through unwanted puberty.
Anti-transgender activism
Some researchers, such as Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD, a psychologist and the head of the child and adolescent gender identity clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, applaud Reiner’s study for renewing interest in the biological determinants of gender and calling into question the notion of some that gender identity is mainly socially constructed and determined by socialization.
That’s not to say, however, that socialization isn’t still a major or important factor, Zucker emphasizes. “The debate is still up in the air because there are other centers who have studied kids with the same diagnosis, and the rate of changeover from female to male is nowhere near what Reiner is reporting,” he explains. “It must be something about their social experience that is accounting for this difference.”
Contradictory evidence
Backing Zucker’s belief that socialization still plays a major role–and biology is only part of the story–is research by Sheri Berenbaum, PhD, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, and J. Michael Bailey, PhD, a psychologist at Northwestern University.
Berenbaum was quoted by Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett in their 2022 New York Times piece on puberty blockers for gender diverse youth. That fearmongering piece came out amid the Times’ transphobic coverage crisis on the 2020s.
References
Bailey JM, Bechtold KT, Berenbaum SA (2002). Who are tomboys and why should we study them? Archives of Sexual Behavior 10.1023/A:1016272209463
Berenbaum SA, “Beyond Pink and Blue: The Complexity of Early Androgen Effects on Gender Development,” Child Development Perspectives 12, no. 1 (2018): 58.
Berenbaum SA, Bailey JM (2003). Effects on gender identity of prenatal androgens and genital appearance: evidence from girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 88, Issue 3, 1102–1106, https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2002-020782
Berenbaum SA (1999). Effects of Early Androgens on Sex-Typed Activities and Interests in Adolescents with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior Volume 35, Issue 1, February 1999, Pages 102-110
Chen, D. et al. (2020). Consensus Parameter: Research methodologies to evaluate neurodevelopmental effects of pubertal suppression in transgender youth. Transgender Health, 5, 246-257.
Twohey, Megan; Jewett, Christina (November 14, 2022). They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost? New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/health/puberty-blockers-transgender.html
Resources
PennState (pure.psu.edu)
- Sheri A. Berenbaum
- https://pure.psu.edu/en/persons/sheri-a-berenbaum
- http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/a/sab31/berenbaum/bio.html
The Berenbaum Lab (berenbaumlabpsu.wixsite.com)
- https://berenbaumlabpsu.wixsite.com/
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Elias Heino is a Finnish researcher and anti-transgender activist who has published a number of papers that promote disease models of gender diverse youth.
Background
Heino is affiliated with Tampere University Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology and frequently publishes with conservative psychiatrist Riittakerttu Kaltiala-Heino.
Heino’s path to anti-trans activism is explained in this interview:
Why did I start doing psychiatric research?
After the first year of study, I got a summer job as a research assistant. I handled material related to youth psychiatric research. At the same time, my interest in research was awakened. After the research summer, I was offered the opportunity to start doing my own research related to the transgender topic, and I am still on this path.
The subject of my research
Our study compares the adolescent development of trans and cisgender identifying youth in the adolescent normal population. Adolescent development is examined with the help of sexuality, mental health, participation in school bullying and family relationships.
Why does research related to my topic matter?
The research aims to find out to what extent the developmental tasks of adolescence are solved despite the specificity of the identity experience and whether any problems are related to the identity experience itself or to possible external factors, such as a lack of support from family or friends. Based on the research results, the support that gender identity minorities may need can be targeted correctly, and the research data can be used as an aid in planning longitudinal studies, for example.
Anti-trans activism
Heino got €3,000 from the Orion Foundation to study “Transgender identity, mental health and adolescent development in the adolescent population.”
In 2021, Heino got a grant from The Psychiatry Research Foundation for similar work.
Heino has published papers stating that trans youth perpetrate bullying and have high suicidality.
References
Tampere University (4 November 2020). [50,000 euros from the Orion Foundation for Tampere University researchers.] https://www.tuni.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/tampereen-yliopiston-tutkijoille-50-000-euroa-orionin-saatiolta
(9/12/2019). [The Kandi calendar is coming again – Fine art pearls inspire creators.] Mediuutiset https://www.mediuutiset.fi/uutiset/kandikalenteri-tulee-taas-kuvataiteen-helmet-inspiroivat-tekijoita/12fb0bf9-88db-49e4-8562-be21f86bb228
[Recipients of the 2021 grants.] Psykiatrian Tutkimussäätiö [Psychiatry Research Foundation] https://www.psykiatriantutkimussaatio.fi/index.php/myonnetyt-apurahat/
Resources
ReseachGate (researchgate.net)
- Elias Heino
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elias-Heino
Michal Meyer is an Israel-born writer and anti-transgender activist. Meyer is known for a credulous 2015 profile of anti-trans activist Alice Dreger, later deleted.
Background
Michal Meyer was born in February 1969. Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree from Victoria University of Wellington in 1994. Meyer was a weather forecaster in New Zealand and Fiji, then edited the Jerusalem Post Magazine from 2001 to 2003. During graduate school, Meyer edited the History of Science Society newsletter from 2003 to 2009. Meyer earned a doctorate from University of Florida in 2009.
Meyer was editor of Distillations magazine from 2009 to 2022.
Promotion of Alice Dreger (2015)
While editor of Distillations, Meyer published a glowing review of Galileo’s Middle Finger by anti-trans activist Alice Dreger. Meyer represents Dreger’s core audience: mediocre academics of a certain age who see themselves in Dreger’s fabrications. Meyer wants to believe Dreger is a fearless teller of “the truth,” because it panders to all of Meyer’s biases and fantasies.
Meyer described the book as “a love letter to evidence-based research done well.” Meyer parrots Dreger’s attacks on pediatrician Maria New and dutifully summarizes Dreger’s support of unethical behavior scientists J. Michael Bailey and Napoleon Chagnon.
After Meyer left Science History Institute in 2022, the article was quietly removed.
References
Meyer, Michal (December 20, 2015). Identity Politics. Distillations https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/identity-politics [archive]
Resources
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Science History Institute (sciencehistory.org)
Danielle Rhoades Ha is an American communications executive who handled public relations at New York Times during their 2020s anti-transgender coverage crisis. Rhoades Ha is responsible for “advancing and protecting our public reputation” at the Times.
No transgender journalist has appeared on the New York Times masthead since its founding in 1851. Due to the hostile work environment, no transgender reporters work there as of 2023 according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.
Background
Danielle Rhoades Ha was born on March 27, 1977 to Michael and Lillian Rhoades.
Rhoades Ha earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Texas at Austin in 1999, then joined PR firm Goodman Media International. From 2000 to 2007 Rhoades Ha handled media relations for Dow Jones & Company before joining the Times in 2010. Rhoades Ha was named SVP, Communications in 2022. Rhoades Ha reports to David Rubin.
Rhoades Ha is married to Vimy Xuan Rhoades Ha (born 1975), a consultant and poker player.
2023 correspondence
On September 3, 2023, I received an email from Times employee Megan Twohey copied to Rhoades Ha. Twohey requested biographical information be removed. My response can be viewed on Twohey’s profile.
References
Rubin, David (June 8, 2022). Danielle Rhoades Ha Promoted to Head of External Communications. New York Times Company https://www.nytco.com/press/danielle-rhoades-ha-promoted-to-head-of-external-communications/
Resources
Twitter (twitter.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Alex Capo is an American counselor and anti-transgender activist.
Capo was an invited speaker at a 2023 anti-trans conference organized by anti-transgender hate group Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.
Resources
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Julie Maxwell is a British pediatrician and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Child Health Services, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Winchester, UK
Anti-trans activism
Via Trans Safety Network:
As recently as April 2021, NHS paediatrician Julie Maxwell was one of their “Clinical and Academic Advisors”. She was1, and is very open about working for Christian anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sex education charity LoveWise UK. Recordings of her training seminars for LoveWise are available publicly, where she offers to help push abstinence based and anti-LGBT sex education resources into secular schools.
Maxwell was also involved with a DVD campaign run by Creationist science think tank Truth In Science sent last year to every sitting MP and school on the so-called “Transgender Agenda”. We covered this last year when we heard about it originally. Creationism is the anti-scientific belief that humans were intelligently designed, and did not evolve as part of biological evolution.
Since 2012, Maxwell has also been, a director for the Family Education Trust, a religiously “family values” campaigning charity who promote anti-LGBT views and smacking children contrary to a growing body of evidence that children are harmed by the use of physical assault as a form of discipline. SEGM launched publicly in early 2020, and so far as we can tell Maxwell was part of their organisation from their inception.
References
Moore, Mallory (August 26, 2021). SEGM uncovered: large anonymous payments funding dodgy science. Trans Safety Network https://transsafety.network/posts/segm-uncovered/
Christopher Richards, Julie Maxwell, Noel McCune. Use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria: a momentous step in the dark. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2018-315881
Julie Maxwell, Katherine Clyde, Lucy Griffin (2019). Gender dysphoria: a question of informed consent BMJ 2019; 367 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l6442
Media
Living Out (August 31, 2023). Thinking About Transgender feat. Dr. Julie Maxwell (Youth Leaders’ Crash Course #6). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THT_5OQ4g9o
Resources
Christian Action Research and Education (care.org.uk)
Carole Sherwood is a British psychologist and anti-transgender activist.
Sherwood and Valerie Jean Thomas are associated with anti-trans group Critical Therapy Antidote.
Background
Carole Barbara Patricia Sherwood was born in February 1953.
Anti-transgender activism
Via the site Save Mental Health, Sherwood believes that “important areas of the behavioral sciences – in research, practice, and policy work – have been increasingly captured by censorious ideological orthodoxies.”
Save Mental Health lists other like-minded organizations:
- Academics for Academic Freedom (afaf.org.uk)
- BPSWatch (bpswatch.com)
- Campaign for Common Sense (campaigncommonsense.com)
- Centre for Male Psychology (centreformalepsychology.com)
- Counterweight (counterweightsupport.com)
- Critical Therapy Antidote (criticaltherapyantidote.org)
- Don’t Divide Us (dontdivideus.com)
- Free Speech Union (freespeechunion.org)
- Heterodox Academy (heterodoxacademy.org)
- The ManKind Initiative (mankind.org.uk)
- New Discourses (newdiscourses.com)
- Psychreg (psychreg.org)
- Society for Open Inquiry in Behavioral Science (openinquirybehavio.wixsite.com/oibs)
- Thoughtful Therapists (thoughtfultherapists.org)
References
Sherwood., Carole (November 2, 2022). The politicisation of clinical psychology. CIEO https://cieo.substack.com/p/the-politicisation-of-clinical-psychology
Carole Sherwood, Paul M. Salkovskis, Katharine Rimes Help-seeking for depression: The role of beliefs, attitudes and mood. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 10.1017/s1352465807003815
Retired Clinical Psychologist email: [email protected] Report: https://save-mental-health.com/training-courses/
Resources
Save Mental Health (save-mental-health.com)
Critical Therapy Antidote (criticaltherapyantidote.org)
YouTube (youtube.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
Reddit (reddit.com)
April Kitzul is a Canadian anti-transgender activist.
Background
April Kitzul was an Institutional Parole Officer and Correctional Program Officer in sex-segregated facilities at Correctional Service Canada until 2022. Previously, Kitzul was a provincial child protection social worker, serving as a case manager at Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
Anti-transgender activism
Kitzul waas radicalized in following passage of An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. It was introduced in Canada as Bill C-16 in 2016.
In 2021, Kitzul created the website Trans-Truth.
Kitzul is a member of Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar) and is involved in the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (BC-Yukon Coordinator).
References
Kitzul, April (February 8, 2023). Reflections on the impact of gender self-identification policies in the Canadian correctional system. MLI https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/reflections-on-the-impact-of-gender-self-identification-policies-in-the-canadian-correctional-system/
-https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/432/JUST/Brief/BR11006176/br-external/WomensHumanRightsCampaignBritishColumbiaAndYukonChapter-e.pdf
Resources
Trans Truth (trans-truth.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Rod Fleming is a Scottish author and activist who promotes anti-transgender, anti-feminist, and anti-gay views. Fleming personifies nearly every negative stereotype of a transphobic trans-attracted person.
Fleming is one of the most obsessive “autogynephilia” activists in the world, promoting the disease as an exercise in identity politics.
Background
Roderick Anthony “Rod” Fleming was born on March 11, 1956, in Dundee, Scotland.
Fleming earned a bachelor’s degree from Edinburgh College of Art in 1983, then produced images and video for Scotland on Sunday. In 2011, Fleming earned a master’s degree from Dundee University.
Fleming was married and has four adult children. Fleming moved to Asia and was romantically involved with a trans partner named Sam Villasencio. Fleming announced that Villasencio died on October 2, 2023.
“Autogynephilia” activism
Some trans-attracted people who engage in “autogynephilia” activism wish to distance their own attractions from trans women they consider “autogynephiles.” In some cases, it is because they see “AGP” trans women as a threat to their “heterosexual” identity. They often brag about how “heterosexual” they are and how the “homosexual transsexual” people they desire are extremely feminine and only interested in masculine “heterosexual” partners like them.
Trans-attracted people who use the terms “homosexual transsexual” or “HSTS” are among the most obsessed with “autogynephilia” and creator Ray Blanchard’s taxonomy of “HSTS” and “AGP,” because it’s so important to their own sexual identities.
Fleming offers counseling for “autogynephiles” and for “trans widows,” slang for spouses whose partner came out as trans.
Resources
Rod Fleming (rodfleming.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
YouTube (youtube.com)
Plashmill Press (plashmill-press.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
Patreon (patreon.com)
PayPal (paypal.com)
WordPress (wordpress.com)
Substack (substack.com)
Threads (threads.net)