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Sarah-Louise Jordan aka “Lorelei” and “Hatpinwoman” is a British writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Sarah-Louise Jordan was born in 1988. Jordan is a patient advocate for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Jordan contracted the condition following an encephalitis vaccination, noting, “I’ve been ill since I was 12, housebound since just before I turned 15.” In a 2013 crowdfunding campaign, Jordan stated in part:
the first twelve years of my life were magical and very english. Then I had a vaccination against meningitis c and my health very quickly began to fall apart. At first it was just all kinds of aches and pains, dizziness, forgetfulness, nausea, the occasional fainting spell and a lot more tiredness but within two years I had a constant migraine and I struggled to drag my legs around because they were so heavy.
Soon I couldnt walk at all and I began to ‘freefall’ until I was blind and had no memories. I lost all of my words and my ability to understand other people speaking. I was so exhausted even when I woke first thing that it felt like I was trying to lift buildings to try and move.
I was housebound for a year and I by the end of it I could stand for 30 seconds and manage a few painful steps, but then I relapsed again and became bedbound. I didnt sit up for four months, I barely moved and I couldnt talk. I had no sense of touch and no strength in my body. I suddenly perked up in April 2004 and could sit up and read a little, I was so excited. In July 2004 I woke up to find my whole body ‘on fire’. So hot it felt like I was melting, so painful I wanted to scream and scream and scream. I honestly didnt think I could bear it for one minute. So far I have been on fire for eight and a half years and counting….
Jordan has contributed to Connect, a publication of Hampshire Friends with M.E. Jordan had published videos on severe ME that appear to have been deleted.
In 2016, Jordan went viral for a satirical response letter to someone who sent an unsolicited image of their penis. In 2022, actor Olivia Coleman read the letter at the Letters Live festival.
Jordan was an editor of feminist publication The Radical Notion, which ran from 2020 to 2024. In 2022, Jordan crowdfunded money for a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Anti-trans activism
Jordan has signed letters supporting other anti-trans activists, including J.K. Rowling and Graham Linehan. Jordan has also expressed support for conservative trans activist Debbie Hayton. In 2021, Jordan appeared on anti-trans podcast Calmversations with Benjamin Boyce.
On December 11, 2021, Jordan and Stella O’Malley led a Twitter Spaces event to address criticism of Genspect by a faction of gender critical extremists. The recording published on YouTube states: “On Saturday Dec 11, 2021, a Twitter Space was created to hold a community discussion about autogynephiles (AGP) and how women felt about certain individuals who were promoting tolerance of their presence. The idea of normalizing AGPs and even platforming them amongst those in the ‘gender critical’ community has been pushed for years now and a much larger number of women object to this. According to the Twitter stat listed, 500 participants were signed on.” Lee Leveille of Health Liberation Now! transcribed excerpts in a lengthy analysis:
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āI suppose, uh, where Iām coming from this more than anything is, uh, to, um, make sure that children are, if- if at all possible, are stopped from medical transition. I think thatās the most important thing for me.ā
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āAnd so, why am I interested in autogynephilia? Itās primarily because Iām meeting teenage autogynephiles and I need to be able to understand whatās happening with them. And I am more and more- I was very interested when Debbie Hayton was speaking with us in the podcast because I thought āWow, the way sheās talking is itās a compulsion. This is a compulsion, and it came over her like a compulsion.ā And I know people will be very annoyed with me using pronouns, but then Iām very annoyed with people when they try to compel my speech, so Iām going to do me and Iāll let everybody else do them. And so yeah, I was very, very interested when Debbie was talking about that and I thought āthis is key to my understanding when Iām talking to somebody whoās maybe 15 years old and is autogynephilic and has no idea whatās going on except āget out of my way, I need to be a woman.āā And that child is not able to articulate what the hell is going on. They donāt have the verbal ability to, they donāt have the conceptual maturity, and I have to try and figure out how do we help this fast increasing number? This is not like the Ray Blanchard numbers, this is a very fast, very quickly increasing number of boys. Now, are they ROGD, are they AGP, or frankly are they what I think: a mix between AGP and ROGD, and I think the AGP is porn induced.ā
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āIāve no idea whether AGP is innate or not. Why? Because I donāt have autogynephilia, I never had it. So Iām kind of going- if some people are saying it is, and some people are saying it isnāt, my feeling is itās developmental. I donāt really care whether itās innate or not because I donāt think that absolves anybody. I donāt think thatās the point. The compulsion is a much more- more um important psychological point because if you look at pedophilia, itās a compulsion. It gets- it gets them. And how do we get in the way of somebody who has a compulsion that actually seriously negatively wrecks other peopleās lives? How do we stop that?ā
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āDonāt forget, Iām working with children who are autogynephilic.ā
Lorelei:Ā āWhen you say children-ā
Stella OāMalley:Ā āYeahā
Lorelei:Ā āWhat sort of ages are you talking?ā
Stella OāMalley:Ā āAnything from- from puberty onwards. Itās porn induced.ā
Lorelei:Ā āDoes that mean that- So in your-ā
Stella OāMalley:Ā āTeenage, teenage. 13, 14, 15. And itās porn- it seems to be porn induced. Is it porn induced? I donāt know. What- would it have arrived anyway? I donāt know. Are the numbers shockingly high in the teenage boy population? It seemed to be to me. But is this actually just something that was always under the covers? I donāt know. But I donāt think you should have any empathy, and I havenāt asked anybody to have any empathy and I donāt think you should have empathy or sympathy.ā - Stella OāMalley:Ā āUm no, what we do is we sometimes interview people and weāve got a- a list of pioneers that weāre going to interview in the next coming uh few weeks. And the idea with that will be, you know talk to the Ken Zuckers, talk to the to the different Ray Blanchard types, that we can kind of go āokay what was their theory? What did they think? What did- they been in the world for 30 years, theyāve been in the world for 40 years.ā Thereās not many of them and they presumably have their own theories about whatās going on. And Iām not saying I actually buy it because I honestly think between the 1990s and the 2010s, I think all the mistakes were made. And I look at other movements, um just to get myself completely mauled tonight, like the anti-vax movement and things like that, and I think um they didnāt give away the keys but something happened between the 1990s and 2010s with with the- with the gender movement that the keys were given away to the activists.ā
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āI think the thing that I was kind of um thinking that was really interesting was how should we manage the issue of AGPs in society? Where should they go? How should we manage them? This is the thing that Iād really love to get out of this conversation. How should that be managed in society? How- how should I, how should you, how should anybody? Because thereās different kind of I suppose needs and I suppose my need is not only to understand but also I really truly believe that the only way that weāre going to get out of this whole huge massive identity ideology mess is with uh public information. I- I donāt think that itās going to work any other way. And so we have to have a public information campaign around, I believe, that if you trans children that itās- itās- it goes very badly wrong. I also think that thereās a- we need to get out in the world thereās a concept called gender identity, and thereās also a developmental model, and there are two kind of opposing sides. And um I believe in the developmental model and I think therefore all child transition falls on that model. And I think itās really important that we uh let the public know about these concepts, because they donāt, because I meet them all the time. And these are parents of kids, they donāt know that thereās two, they donāt know that thereās two beliefs, they donāt know that thereās two different very- and then another thing that I really think we need to know and I- I was only telling the Irish minister a few days ago about this concept that thereās a thing called autogynephilia. and this is, as you all know- you know, the erotic fixation and um to be a woman. And this shapes a huge amount of the issues around, letās say, trans women in jails and put trans women in- in refuges and trans women in all sorts of places that they shouldnāt be. It shaped the entire breastfeeding, the- kind of the birthing movement, itās shaping a huge amount of parts of society. So itās really, really problematic in the world. So weāve got this huge problem now. How do we deal with this? How do- how do we deal with those people?ā
- Stella OāMalley:Ā āI think youāre right, I think public information is the only way forward. I actually donāt think there is another way, and I wish there was, but I think it has to be a public awareness campaign. But when we put it on a podcast, when we interviewed Debbie, there was an outcry that we shouldnāt be giving a platform. And I thought ābut we have to let people know that this condition exists.ā That I can point to the Irish minister and say ālisten to this podcast thatās what Iām talking about.āā
References
Usher, Shaun (May 27, 2022). Thank you for the unexpected and unsolicited submission of your p*** portrait for our consideration. Letters of Note https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/thank-you-for-the-unexpected-and
Leveille, Lee (April 2, 2022). Leaked audio confirms Genspect director as anti-trans conversion therapist targeting youth. Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2022/04/02/leaked-audio-confirms-genspect-director-as-anti-trans-conversion-therapist-targeting-youth/
Clarke, Sarah (March 31, 2021). Understanding the communities behind Anti-Gender Ideology in the U.K. Trans Safety Network https://transsafety.network/posts/understanding-gc-movement/
Jane EA (2017). Systemic misogyny exposed: Translating Rapeglish from the Manosphere with a Random Rape Threat Generator. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(6), 661ā680. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877917734042
McNeal, Stephanie (October 26, 2016). People Love This Woman’s Response To Getting A Dick Pic From A Random Dude. Buzzfeed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/classy-af
Selected anti-trans writing by Jordan
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (August 25, 2023). Prison Stories: āSherriā Masbruch. Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/prison-stories-sherri-masbruch
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (August 25, 2023). Prison Stories: āSherriā Masbruch. Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/prison-stories-sherri-masbruch
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (August 8, 2023). Prison Stories: āMaddisonā Hall. Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/prison-stories-maddison-hall
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (May 27, 2023). An Honest Answer (āWhat is a woman?ā I asked her). Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/an-honest-answer
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (April 30, 2023). The Nonbinary Child. Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/the-nonbinary-child
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (April 12, 2022).Transhausen by proxy: a few thoughts, Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/transhausen-by-proxy-a-few-thoughts
“Lorelei Hatpinwoman” (January 27, 2022). Autogynephilia. Substack https://loreleihatpin.substack.com/p/autogynephilia
“hatpinwoman” (July 17, 2020). āGender Recognition and the Rights of Transgender Peopleā: A Response to The Commonās Briefing Paper. Jane Clare Jones https://janeclarejones.com/2020/07/17/gender-recognition-and-the-rights-of-transgender-people-a-response-to-the-commons-briefing-paper/
“hatpinwoman” (September 25, 2020). Safeguarding and Mr. Blunt. Jane Clare Jones https://janeclarejones.com/2020/09/25/safeguarding-and-mr-blunt/
Jordan, Sarah-Louise [signatory] (February 28, 2019). Open letter in support of Graham Linehanās challenges to gender identity ideology. Feminist Current https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/02/28/open-letter-in-support-of-graham-linehans-challenges-to-gender-identity-ideology/
Jordan, Sarah-Louise [signatory] (June 2020). In support of J. K. Rowling, Woman Speak Scotland https://womenspeakscotland.com/open-letter/
Media
Letters Live (July 2, 2022). Olivia Colman reads a letter responding to an unsolicited penis photograph. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCSYBeWuDhw
Can I Get a Witness Voices (Mar 22, 2022). AGP Discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2GC4VSSirQ
Calmversations with Benjamin Boyce and Sarah-Louise Jordan (September 4, 2021). Frigid Women, Creepy Menāor, How Not To Be a Jerk and Get Along With The Opposite Sex | with Lorelei. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxLk6TRFeBQ
The ME Action Network (May 6, 2017). #BedFest 2017: Sarah-Louise Jordan (UK), Warriors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiY3mwbQKFg
Resources
The Radical Notion (theradicalnotion.org)
Ink In Strange Places (inkinstrangeplaces.com) [archive]
Facebook (facebook.com)
X/Twitter (x.com)
Substack (substack.com)
- loreleihatpin
- Loreleiās Newsletter
- loreleihatpin.substack.com
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
YouTube (youtube.com)
Crowdfunder (crowdfunder.co.uk)
- The First Statue Of Mary Wollstonecraft
- crowdfunder.co.uk/p/statue-for-mary-wollstonecraft
JustGiving (justgiving.com)
- Weight for ME
- justgiving.com/fundraising/Sarah-Louise-Jordan
Medium (medium.com)
Spinster (spinster.xyz)
Quora (quora.com)