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Tina Traster is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Traster’s company Broken Hearted Films produced the 2022 anti-trans propaganda piece Dead Name, which was removed from Vimeo for hateful content.

Background

Tina A. Traster was born on May 10, 1962. Traster earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 1983.

Traster has written for numerous publications, including The Bergen Record, Crains New York Business, The New York Post, The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The Journal News, Nyack News & Views, Redbook, Family Circle, Parade, Time Out New York, Audubon, and Ski Magazine.

Traster is editor and publisher of the Rockland County Business Journal.

Traster owned the Pot Luck Tea Company, a play on the name Tina Traster Polak.

Traster was married to a British diamond dealer for about ten years before divorcing. Traster then married lawyer Richard D. “Rick” Tannenbaum (born 1961). They have children.

Traster is the author of the 2014 book Rescuing Julia Twice: A Mother’s Tale of Russian Adoption and Overcoming Reactive Attachment Disorder. Reviewer Grace Newton condemned the book:

Traster writes as if she deserves a plaque for doing simply what she promised to do through adoption – parent. The sadness of this situation is firstly for Julia, whose privacy has been completely violated. And she will never get it back. A second sadness exists for the families who are currently dealing with RAD and desperately looking for help. Stumbling on Rescuing Julia Twice in the Psychology or Childcare sections of bookstores, these families may be tempted to use Traster’s book as a handbook for their own situations instead of seeking appropriate help. 

Newton (2014)

Prior to Dead Name, Traster produced the documentaries Catnip Nation and This House Matters.

Anti-transgender activism

Traster subscribes to the disputed disease “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” a controversial diagnosis favored by unaccepting parents of trans and gender diverse adolescents. Traster wrote in a piece deleted by Psychology Today: “there may be some parents who themselves are being rejected because they have not quickly or strongly supported their tween or teen through appearance and name changes, hormone-treatment, and, in some cases, life-altering surgeries.”

Traster spoke with anti-trans extremist Graham Linehan about the deleted piece.

References

Traster, Tina (November 20, 2020). Trans Kids May Reject Family, Not the Other Way Around. Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/against-all-odds/202011/trans-kids-may-reject-family-not-the-other-way-around [archive]

Traster, Tina (September 20, 2011). NYC Transplant Tina Traster Talks New York City Living, Marriage, and the Fear of Sleeping Alone in the Suburbs. Hudson Valley https://hvmag.com/life-style/nyc-transplant-tina-traster-talks-new-york-city-living-marriage-and-the-fear-of-sleeping-alone-in-the-suburbs/

Traster, Tina (February 3, 2017). A parent aims to decipher a teen’s transgender declaration. The Manifest Station https://www.themanifeststation.net/2017/02/03/parent-aims-decipher-teens-transgender-declaration/

Resources

Tina Traster (tinatraster.com) [archive]

Dead Name (deadnamedocumentary.com)

Pot Luck Tea (potlucktea.com) [archive]

Julia and Me (juliaandme.com) [archive]

Catnip Nation (catnipnation.com) [archive]

Rockland County Business Journal (rcbizjournal.com)

  • About Us
  • https://rcbizjournal.com/2022/08/30/aboutus/

Twitter (twitter.com)

Medium (medium.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

IMDb (imdb.com)

Melissa Chen is a conservative Singaporean writer and anti-transgender activist.

Chen is an advisor at anti-trans group Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism and has been involved in numerous other conservative projects that oppose trans rights, such as Environmental Progress.

Background

Melissa Chiu Chen was born in Singapore on December 12, 1984 and grew up in a conservative family. Chen earned an undergraduate degree at Boston University and a doctorate at MIT. Chen worked at the Broad Institute as a genome researcher before becoming a writer.

In 2017 Chen co-founded Ideas Beyond Borders with Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. The organization translates controversial political works into Arabic.

In 2022, Chen co-chaired the finance committee for anti-trans activist Michael Shellenberger’s run for governor of California.

Anti-transgender activism

Via The New Yorker:

Chen and Boghossian had workshopped a pitch to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, for a project to create “a modern-day Death Star” to wage “ideological warfare” on the “enemies of modernity”; their plan involved writing coördinated op-eds and promoting anti-woke content, but it was rejected. Weiss and her friends also sought advice from Niall Ferguson, a historian at the Hoover Institution, about the best way forward.

Green (2023)

 Chen has appeared on Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy and has been a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience.

References

Green, Emma (June 5, 2023). Is it possible to be both moderate and anti-woke? New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-activism/is-it-possible-to-be-both-moderate-and-anti-woke

Resources

Melissa Chen (melissa.blog)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

The Spectator (spectatorworld.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Alex Gutentag is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Gutentag is associated with anti-trans activist Michael Shellenberger.

Background

Alexandra Kyra Ryan-Gutentag was born on September 6, 1990 to Eduardo Gutentag (born 1947) and Constance “Connie” Ryan (born 1950). Gutentag grew up in Oakland, California and earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.

Gutentag worked in special education for eight years in New York City and was a Special Day Class teacher in Oakland Unified Schools before becoming a writer.

Gutentag has written for Tablet and Compact. Gutentag collaborated with Shellenberger at the organization Environmental Progress and on The Twitter Files reports into the platform’s COVID misinformation policies.

Anti-transgender activism

Gutentag has written anti-trans work for Public, a reflection of founder Michael Shellenberger’s immersion into anti-trans activism.

References

Alex Gutentag and Madeleine Rowley (September 11, 2023). California May Take Children From Parents Who Oppose Their Gender Transition. Public https://public.substack.com/p/california-may-take-children-from

Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag (May 8, 2023). World on cusp of woke totalitarianism as governments act to end free speech. National Post https://nationalpost.com/opinion/world-on-cusp-of-woke-totalitarianism-as-governments-act-to-end-free-speech

Resources

Twitter (twitter.com)

Tablet (tabletmag.com)

Compact (compactmag.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

Leighton Woodhouse is an American writer, filmmaker, and anti-transgender activist. Woodhouse is closely associated with anti-trans extremists Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss. Woodhouse is a co-founder of anti-trans Substack Public.

Background

Leighton Akio Woodhouse was born on February 3, 1975 and grew up in Berkeley, California. After graduating from Berkeley High School in 1993, Woodhouse earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University in 1997. Woodhouse earned a master’s degree from UC Berkeley in 2006.

As an adult, Woodhouse replaced the middle name Akio with Akira.

Woodhouse was a union organizer for SEIU United Healthcare Workers West. Woodhouse then worked at Brave New Films before becoming communications director for the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Woodhouse led the voter mobilization group Driving Votes. Woodhouse has written for The Huffington Post and Calitics.

Woodhouse and spouse Carolina De La Paz Aparicio (born 1986) have one child (born 2020).

References

Woodhouse, Leighton (December 9, 2021). When the Crime Wave Hits Your Family. The Free Press https://www.thefp.com/p/when-the-crime-wave-hits-your-family

Resources

Leighton Woodhouse (leightonwoodhouse.com)

  • 2015-2021 [archive]
  • since 2023 redirects to writemypaperhub.com

Dog Park Media (dogparkmedia.com) [archive]

Driving Votes (drivingvotes.org) [archive]

Substack (substack.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

IMDb (imdb.com)

Tablet (tabletmag.com)

The Free Press (thefp.com)

The Intercept_ (theintercept.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Taylor Fogarty is an American anti-transgender extremist.

Fogarty was a scheduled participant in a 2017 panel that claimed transgender people are “a homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.”

Fogarty expressed anti-trans views in The Federalist, as well as on YouTube and Twitter (both of which have been deleted).

Background

Taylor Alanah Fogarty was born on October 14, 1993. Fogarty grew up in Richmond, Virginia and attended Virginia Commonwealth University and UnCollege.

Fogarty interned at Wonderland SF, Sarah Liller Design, TARA4BPD, and GoPop, and was an au pair for two months. Fogarty also worked at Zomato, Alice’s Arbor, and Randalls Barbecue.

Fogarty earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2023.

Sometime after deleting the virulently transphobic “loudlesbian” Twitter account, Fogarty reported being engaged to copywriter Tommy Preston. They had a child named Eloise Frances Preston in 2023.

Fogarty reports getting sober in 2019. Perhaps Fogarty will someday make amends for engaging in anti-trans extremism prior to sobriety.

Anti-trans activism

In 2017, left-wing conference Left Forum announced that Jane Wheeler (under the name Jane Chotard) would chair a June 4th panel titled “Misery for Profit: Who is Funding the Transgender Movement and the Impact on LGB.” The synopsis stated:

We will be showing that the immense funding funneled to the transgender movement is coming from giant pharmaceutical and biotechnology Industries and what their aim is. We will also be showing how the corporately controlled media is interfaced with these same Industries and are blocking any alternative to the pro-trans propaganda now being disseminated. We will be showing that the transgender movement is not in fact a civil rights issue, but a business arrangement and an advertising arm of these industries. We will cover the implications of this on the LGB community and show how transgender is a political coup, positioned as an ally alongside the LGB, but are actually a homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.

Left Forum, cited in Riedel (2017)

Participants and provided bios:

  • Jane Chotard: Chair and speaker
    • “Jane Chotard is an out lesbian for over 30 years, mother of two teenage boys, past healthcare attorney, currently works to provide better care services to patients and residents facing serious illnesses and end-of-life issues.”
  • Jennifer Bilek: Panel organizer and speaker
    • “Jennifer Bilek is a bisexual artist/activist/writer living in NYC for a lot longer than is probably healthy.”
  • Taylor Fogarty: Speaker
    • “Taylor Fogarty is a Brooklyn dwelling twenty-something year old who writes about feminism and politics.” Twitter: @theloudlesbian

The panel was canceled following protests. Fogarty complained about the cancellation in conservative publication The Federalist.

References

WRLN (August 3, 2017). Edition 16: The money behind the trans movement and impact on lesbians. Women’s Liberation Radio News https://womensliberationradionews.com/2017/08/03/edition-16-the-money-behind-the-trans-movement-and-impact-on-lesbians/

Fogarty, Taylor (October 11, 2017). What Two Former Trans Men Want You To Know About All The Lies. The Federalist https://thefederalist.com/2017/10/11/what-two-former-trans-men-want-you-to-know-about-all-the-lies/

Fogarty, Taylor (August 17, 2017). ‘Bad Feminist’ Author Tells Trans Advocate To ‘Slap’ Lesbian Woman. The Federalist https://thefederalist.com/2017/08/17/bad-feminist-author-tells-trans-advocate-slap-lesbian-woman/

Fogarty, Taylor (June 2, 2017). Left Forum Cancels Lesbian Panel Questioning Trans Advocacy Funding. The Federalist https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/02/left-forum-cancels-lesbian-panel-questioning-trans-advocacy-funding/

Fogarty, Taylor (May 2, 2017). Why Trans Activists Will Destroy Homosexual Rights. The Federalist https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/02/trans-activists-will-destroy-homosexual-rights/

Fogarty, Taylor (October 11, 2017). This Is The Journal Entry I Wrote When I Was Still In The Closet. Thought Catalog http://thoughtcatalog.com/taylor-fogarty/2015/08/this-is-the-journal-entry-i-wrote-when-i-was-still-in-the-closet/

Riedel, Sam (July 7, 2017). Why Trans Activists Can’t Trust The Left. The Establishment https://medium.com/the-establishment/why-trans-activists-cant-trust-the-left-3bfa22928ddd

Media

Magdalen Berns (Jun 27, 2017). A Chat About Dating ‘Preferences.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aedPEImJysw

Resources

Taylor Fogarty (taylorfogarty.com) [archive]

Taylor Fogarty (tayloredblog.com) [archive]

Twitter (twitter.com)

  • loudlesbian (deleted)

Tom Preston (tommypreston.com)

The Federalist (thefederalist.com)

Thought Catalog (thoughtcatalog.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

Depop (depop.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

  • taylorfogarty (deleted)

Eva Kurilova is a Canadian anti-transgender activist. Kurilova identifies as a TERF and has been affiliated with anti-trans extremist groups Gays Against Groomers and LGB United. 

Background

Kurilova lives in Calgary, Alberta and earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Calgary in 2013.

Media

Benjamin Boyce (September 23, 2021). Honest to Goodness | with Eva Kurilova. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glbwLw-Y-1o

Resources

Eva Kurilova (evakurilova.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Arielle Scarcella is a conservative YouTuber and anti-transgender activist.

Scarcella is part of the trans-exclusionary lesbian movement and has been affiliated with anti-trans extremist group Gays Against Groomers. 

Background

Scarcella earned a bachelor’s degree from the Pratt Institute in 2008.

After graduating, Scarcella became a popular YouTuber. Around 2020, Scarcella began getting involved in anti-transgender activism.

Scarcella is just one voice in a growing movement defending homosexual rights. In the UK, coalitions like ‘Get the L Out‘ and Lesbian Alliance have been calling for lesbians to distance themselves from the monolithic, trans-centered LGBT movement. The LGB Alliance formed as a counter to the UK’s largest LGBT organization, Stonewall.

Macdonald (2020)

References

Stegmann, Elise (April 12, 2020). The Platform of a TERF: How Arielle Scarcella creates a trans exclusionary discourse on YouTube. diggit https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/platform-terf-how-arielle-scarcella-creates-trans-exclusionary-discourse-youtube

Macdonald, Jocelyn (February 28, 2020) Arielle Scarcella Has Left the Chat. After Ellen https://afterellen.com/arielle-scarcella-has-left-the-chat/

Resources

Project Toasty (projecttoasty.com) [archive]

YouTube (youtube.com)

Indiegogo (indiegogo.com)

  • indiegogo.com/projects/project-toasty–3#

Twitter (twitter.com)

Locals (locals.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Tumblr (tumblr.com)

  • projecttoasty.tumblr.com

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

Jenny Poyer Ackerman is an American anti-transgender activist. Ackerman is the unsupportive parent of a gender diverse child and author at anti-trans Substack blogs TransMuted and Year Zero.

Background

Jennifer Carol “Jenny” Poyer was born on January 20, 1964 and is married to real estate and construction executive Randall R. “Randy” Ackerman (born 1962). They have three adult children.

Jenny Ackerman has an interior design business called Glad Pad Interiors and an accessories business called Alchemy Leather Goods. Both are based in Alamo, California.

Ackerman’s Etsy profile says: “I am an interior decorator working in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the course of my work, I have found myself with piles of leftover fabrics and leather hides which I began upcycling into one-of-a-kind handbags and pillows.”

Anti-transgender activism

Ackerman is a proponent of the disputed disease “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.”

Ackerman also contributed to a 2023 anti-transgender book by Women’s Declaration International.

References

Yang, Wesley; Ackerman, Jenny Poyer (October 7, 2023).What Did You Do During the Transgender Social Contagion? Year Zero https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/what-did-you-during-the-transgender

Staff report (February 28, 2001). Obituary: James B. Poyer. SFGate https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/James-B-Poyer-2947570.php

Ackerman, Jenny Poyer (2023). Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and Its Discontents. In Women’s Rights, Gender Wrongs: the global impact of gender-identity ideology, Cath Aiken and SallyWainwright, eds.

Resources

Substack (substack.com)

Etsy (etsy.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Gary L. Francione is an American animal rights activist and anti-transgender activist. Francione claims transgender people hold “metaphysical spiritual beliefs,” so “it is not ‘transphobic’ to refuse to embrace trans belief claims.”

Background

Gary Lawrence Francione was born in May 1954. Francione earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Rochester, followed by master’s and law degrees from University of Virginia.

After clerking for judge Albert Tate, Jr., and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Francione practiced at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

In 1984, Francione joined the faculty of University of Pennsylvania Law School, earning tenure in 1987. While there, Francione began teaching animal rights jurisprudence. In 1989, Francione took an appointment at Rutgers. In 1990, Francione co-founded the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Project with Anna Charlton, and it ran for about a decade. Francione developed the abolitionist theory of animal rights, which holds that the foundational right of animals is not to be property.

Anti-transgender activism

Francione is a sex segregationist who opposes restructuring social institutions to eliminate the remaining vestiges of sex segregation. Francione’s litany of anti-transgender complaints reveal a deep involvement in the anti-trans movement. Most of Francione’s complaints come down to “protection for women.”

In 2023, Francione posted an anti-trans manifesto on Medium, which promptly removed it it for being “content that may undermine the dignity and rights of transgender and/or non-binary individuals.” According to Francione, “I apparently violated the rules because I stated the fact that trans women are biological males.” Francione then reposted it on a personal blog.

Francione cites the work of other anti-trans activists, including Kathleen Stock, Holly Lawford-Smith, Helen Joyce, Colin Wright, Kenneth Zucker, Jo Bartosch, JK Rowling, Sonia Sodha, and Andrew Doyle. Francione also cites conservative trans people like Debbie Hayton.

Francione’s primary point is that the categories of “male” and “female” represent “biological reality.” Like many anti-trans people, Francione blames postmodernism for the current advances and refinements in thinking among biologists. Francione is especially anxious about advances in reproductive technology that threaten the sex segregationist worldview: “If you want to have offspring, you must find a member of the opposite sex.” Tell that to Dolly the Sheep. By the end of this century, the way people like Francione currently think about reproduction will be irrelevant.

Francione seems to be more annoyed and offended by transfeminine people than transmasculine people, attacking transgender athletes, transgender prisoners, “academic freedom,” and other anti-trans chestnuts. Francione finds the existence of same-gender loving trans people to be vexing and argues that refusing to date an entire group of people is not biased or prejudiced.

Francione is correct that single-occupancy toilets, changing rooms, and showering facilities for everyone are part of our movement’s goals.

References

Francione, Gary L. (August 2, 2023). The Trans Rights Issue: Equality Claims and Belief Claims. Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-trans-rights-issue-equality-claims-and-belief-claims/

  • Original banned post: https://gary-francione.medium.com/the-trans-rights-issue-equality-claims-and-belief-claims-6511da0c843c [archive]

Francione, Gary L. (August 2, 2023). The Six Principles of the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights. Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/about/the-six-principles-of-the-abolitionist-approach-to-animal-rights/

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Candice Horbacz is an American adult entertainer who performed as Eva Lovia. Horbacz frequently platforms conservative and anti-transgender guests.

Podcast

Horbacz has hosted Chatting with Candice since 2020. Conservative and anti-transgender guests include:

Resources

Eva Lovia (evasthings.com)

Chatting with Candice (chattingwithcandice.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

OnlyFans (onlyfans.com)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)