Skip to content

“Arty Morty” / Robbie Luster vs. transgender people

“Arty Morty” is the stage name of Robbie Luster, a Canadian bar manager and anti-transgender extremist. Luster is best known for being sidekick to anti-trans extremist Graham Linehan and for co-founding LGB Alliance Canada.

“Arty Morty” is originally a pseudonym that refers to a Sherlock Holmes case.

Self-reported background

note: Luster’s self-reported biographical claims below have not been independently confirmed and should not be treated as facts.

Robbie James Luster was reportedly born in the United States, claiming “my Canadian mother was in the US when she gave birth to me.” Luster claimed this parent, who reportedly died in January 2023, “endured terrible abuse from my late father.”

Luster claimed: “I’ve been a prison rights (and reform) advocate ever since my father was murdered when I was a child and the man who murdered him was sentenced to death,” adding “My father was shot in the head.”

In the late 1990s, Luster reportedly worked at a Toronto bar frequented by trans people.

Independently confirmed details

In the 2010s, Luster was general manager at TRANZAC (originally Toronto Australia New Zealand Club), a nonprofit performing arts venue. Luster stepped down from the manager role in 2018 but continued working at the venue.

In around 2017, Luster moved into public housing managed by Toronto Community Housing Corporation. In March 2024, Luster wrote: “Right now as I write this, I’m sitting in my rental apartment, which has been in a state of construction for over a year. My landlord, an agency of the City of Toronto, has mired my building in a dodgy renovation contract with dubious claims to improve energy efficiency. The project managers evaded building code standards in order to slash costs — even going so far as to doctor the engineering plans in an attempt to circumvent regulators. Now, years of planning and tens of millions of dollars later, the work is halted and my apartment’s stuck in limbo. I’m sitting here writing this amid a heap of exposed wiring, hole-riddled drywall, and mechanical equipment where the finished walls and ceiling of my living room should be.” In June 2024, Luster spoke to CBC about the issue using the pseudonym “Robbie James.”

Anti-trans activism

The Mess We’re In

As “Arty Morty,” Luster was an original sidekick on Graham Linehan’s anti-trans podcast, The Mess We’re In.

YouTube channel

In February, 2020, Luster began a “Arty Morty” YouTube channel that has included interviews with other anti-trans extremists, including

Guest appearances

“Arty Morty” has appeared as a guest in interviews with other anti-trans extremists, including Benjamin Boyce, Sasha Ayad, and Stella O’Malley.

References

Smee, Michael (June 14, 2024). TCHC lowers man’s ceiling below city standard. CBC https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tchc-lowers-man-s-ceiling-below-city-standards-1.7234196

Girard, Gabe (undated). Sanctum // Inferred Views :: The Tranzac. Weird Canada https://weirdcanada.com/posts/sanctum-inferred-views-the-tranzac

Dagan, Dri (February 27, 2012). The Devil’s Music. The Whole Note https://www.thewholenote.com/index.php/newsroom/beatcolumns-sp-2121861476/intheclubsjazz2/15783-the-devils-music

Anti-trans coverage

White, Sasha (March 5, 2021). “A Lot of Adult Gays and Lesbians Quietly, Secretly Agree” -Arty Morty. Plebity https://www.plebity.org/article/a-lot-of-adult-gays-and-lesbians-quietly-secretly-agree-arty-morty/

Selected writing by Luster

[Luster, Robbie] (March 8, 2024). Forget it, Jake. It’s Canada. Arty Morty’s Substack https://artymorty.substack.com/p/forget-it-jake-its-canada

[Luster, Robbie] (July 26, 2022). Keeping the Faith: Gays played a major part in the founding of trans ideology, but over the last 25 years it’s become a religion that has completely run us over. Arty Morty’s Substack https://artymorty.substack.com/p/keeping-the-faith

Media

CBC with “Robbie James” (June 14, 2024). Toronto Community Housing lowers resident’s ceiling below city standards. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6423582

Gender: A Wider Lens with Stella O’Malley, Sasha Ayad, and “Arty Morty” (December 25, 2020). EPISODE 3 – Feminine Boy to Gay Man: A conversation with Arty Morty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-THqe2_0XE

Resources

YouTube (youtube.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Instagram (nstagram.com)

Gettr (gettr.com)

Urban Dictionary (urbandictionary.com)

  • Robbie Luster
  • urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Robbie%20Luster

TRANZAC (tranzac.org) [archive]