Frieda Klotz is an Irish-American writer and anti-transgender activist. Klotz launders anti-trans extremism about gender diverse youth into mainstream
media outlets. Klotz has been cited by American anti-trans organizations supporting legislation harming our children.
Background
Frieda Marie Klotz was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1977 to Margaret Klotz and Frederick S. “Fred” Klotz, an American mathematician who died when Frieda was a child in an April 1988 Dublin cycle accident.
Klotz studied ancient Greek, earning a bachelor’s degree from Fred Klotz’s former employer Trinity College, Dublin, in 2000. Klotz then continued at University of Oxford, earning a master’s degree in 2001 and a doctorate in 2005. From 2005 to 2007 Klotz taught at King’s College London.
In 2007 Klotz began a long string of reviewing, editing, writing, fact-checking, and researching roles for Daily Telegraph, Euromoney, New York Times Syndicate, Irishcentral, journalism professor Susie Linfield, Salon, and New York Times Digital.
In 2011 Klotz co-edited The Philosopher’s Banquet with Katerina Oikonomopoulou. Klotz was then a contributor for The Chronicle Review, Forbes, Shimon Dotan at Roam Films, Irish Times, Prospect, The Guardian, Irish Echo, Irish Voice, the Irish Times, The Economist, MIT Sloan Management Review, Ireland’s Sunday Independent, and Diplomacy Dojo. Klotz has also written several white papers for the British government and the New York Times Company.
Klotz began attacking healthcare for transgender children while based in Brussels.
2022 Undark article
In 2022, Klotz began writing the first of many versions of the same article about gender diverse youth. These “cisgender person under siege” articles typically center a cisgender person as a hero facing assaults from “both sides.” For Klotz, the cis hero is Annelou de Vries and colleagues, and the two sides are:
- Right-wing politicians, religious conservatives, and some health care associations are calling for medical treatment of teens to be banned or avoided if at all possible
- Some activists and physicians say the protocol is too slow.
Klotz’s false equivalence between executing eliminationist policies and removing barriers to care is a hallmark of what biologist Julia Serano calls trans-suspicious reporting.
Klotz continues The Atlantic’s shameful leading role in “just asking questions.” This cognitive bias is called a framing effect. Here are Klotz’s questions:
But pediatric transgender medicine is a new field with a lot of questions yet to be answered by science. What is the long-term impact of blocking puberty on a young person’s health? Can practitioners correctly determine which youngsters will still identify as trans when they are adults? Do the psychological assessments contribute to children’s suffering by delaying access to puberty blockers and hormones? Why has the number of teens coming forward to receive transgender medical care, particularly those assigned female at birth, risen so dramatically in recent years?
Klotz then rattles off the litany of risks and complications recited by conservatives:
- “desistance”
- bone loss
- brain development
- genital atrophy (with an assumption of vaginoplasty)
- medical consent
- reproductive viability
For the “right-wing politicians, religious conservatives, and some health care associations” engaged in an assault on trans rights and autonomy we have a couple of sentences about:
- The Heritage Foundation
- Family Policy Alliance
All the usual suspects advocating “careful therapeutic assessments” and banning informed consent before age 26 are presented as the centrist position:
- Erica Anderson
- Louis Gooren
- Laura Edwards-Leeper
- Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine
- Genspect
- Stella O’Malley
- Michael Biggs
- Lisa Littman
- Alex Bakker
- Jos Megens
- Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal
- Peggy Cohen-Kettenis
- UK’s Cass report
- Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare
- France’s National Academy of Medicine
For the “some activists and physicians” side, we have:
- Diane Ehrensaft
- Diane Chen
- VU Gender (Mis)Treatment
- Jack Turban
- Aidan Key
- Florence Ashley
2023 Atlantic article
Klotz wrote the same article for The Atlantic the following year, but with Finland and Norway added as countries with concerns. This article tries to shore up an alleged clinical distinction between young children and “adolescent-onset gender dysphoria,” a euphemism for the fake disease “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.”
New clinicians
- Jilles Smids
- Chris Verhaak
- Hedi Claahse
- Louise Frisén
New journalists
- Jan Kuitenbrouwer
- Peter Vasterman
- Kaya Bouma
- Ellen de Visser
New activists and politicians
- Michiel Verkoulen
- Sam van den Berg
Response by Marieke Kuypers
A group of journalists have been hitting the same talking points as their English-speaking counterparts. As trans journalists and researchers work to stay on top of the flood of anti-transgender propaganda being being laundered into “centrist” publications, journalist Marieke Kuypers has given a first-blush overview of the Dutch political situation. Kuypers’ Twitter thread is below. More on this soon.
- A quick thread for any English speakers about something I’ve been afraid of ever since the publication of a Dutch article about the Dutch Approach that was heavily biased. It’s been used as more evidence of this “increasing” concern in an Atlantic piece
- Because I’ve been looking into anti-trans targeting of The Dutch Approach, I recognize the author. Frieda Klotz’s article on the same topic from last year was published on GLP, which is a Monsanto front – the article https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/06/27/transitioning-transgender-teenagers-are-not-new-this-dutch-clinic-has-been-doing-it-for-decades/……- GLP: https://sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project
- The same article by Klotz on Undark, a website tied to GLP: https://undark.org/2022/04/06/the-evolution-of-pediatric-transgender-medicine/……About the link between Undark and GLP:
- Kuitenbrouwer and Vasterman are not qualified to judge gender care. One is a media sociologist, the other a columnist. Kuitenbrouwer is rabidly transphobic, calling the “trans-movement bloodthirsty”. They were also on a Genspect sponsored podcast
- For some of Kuitenbrouwer’s massively transphobic work, check out these articles:
- Vasterman shared the Undark article by the same author as the Atlantic piece, Frieda Klotz in april last year
- Uitstekend gedocumenteerd overzichtsverhaal over de oorsprong van the Dutch approach, wereldwijd overgenomen maar nu onder vuur: “A Dutch clinic pioneered transgender medical care for kids, shaping decades of research amid criticism from all sides.” https://undark.org/2022/04/06/the-evolution-of-pediatric-transgender-medicine/
- To make the connection even more complete, Kuitenbrouwer apparently knew about the Volkskrant article before it was published, according to this tweet in which he says there’s an article coming about the Dutch approach. Did he influence the article? https://twitter.com/kuitenbrouwer/status/1627664286280519682?s=20
- I also spoke to someone who was interviewed for the article and retracted their story once they read the article. The told me and I have evidence that the authors spoke to anti-trans activist Michael Biggs. How much influence did he have?
- The influence of anti-trans groups does seem obvious, they even link to one in the Volkskrant article referencing SEGM as a “group of 120 doctors”. It does not have 120 members who are doctors, but about a dozen, amongst them Michael Biggs
- “SEGM is an ideological organization without apparent ties to mainstream scientific organizations. Its 14 core members are a small group of repeat players in anti-trans activities – a fact that the SEGM website does not disclose” Volkskrant ook niet
- The Volkskrant also talks to dr. Kaltiala who spread the debunked social contagion (ROGD) story and was a witness in Florida, and is linked to SEGM as well https://genderanalysis.net/entity/riittakerttu-kaltiala-heino/
- Furthermore, the detransitioner in the story matches (same process, ages of treatment, same very specific story about a back surgery and the account proudly retweeted the article) the Twitter account of someone who was invited by anti-trans group Genspect to a detrans house
- I’m rushing the analysis I was already writing about the Volkskrant article and how it was influenced by anti-trans groups and will try to publish a translated version as soon as possible and add it to this thread once it’s finished.
- Want to know what dr. De Vries thinks? Here are her own words in the book about the Dutch Approach by Alex Bakker:
- This is a critical response to the article by the Dutch Transgender Network. They link to a pdf with extensive references, you can throw that in Google translate as well using the documents tab …https://www-transgendernetwerk-nl.translate.goog/belangenorganisaties-trekken-aan-de-bel-over-onzorgvuldige-journalistiek/?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
- Oh look Kuitenbrouwer seems to admit he “crossed paths” with the Dutch journalists. (I wasn’t sacked by the way, shows how reliable this guy’s info is)
- Ahw I think he doesn’t like me so he blocked me. Here’s a screenshot
- So apart from Vasterman &Kuitenbrouwer being unqualified & transphobic, Frieda Klotz fails to mention that contrary to the moral panic about the increase in “girls” (trans boys) in the most recent Dutch research (2022) the ratio has actually reversed to more trans women
- You can find this recent research (in Dutch) here. Another interesting finding in light of the moral panic: years long waiting lists are causing mental distress (mostly in the form of depressive or suicidal feelings) for 70% of the group that was surveyed https://zorgvuldigadvies.nl/wp-content/upl
Klotz’s anti-trans writings
Klotz, Frieda (April 6, 2022). The fractious evolution of pediatric transgender medicine. Undark https://undark.org/2022/04/06/the-evolution-of-pediatric-transgender-medicine/
Klotz, Frieda (June 27, 2022). Transitioning transgender teenagers are not new. This Dutch clinic has been helping them for decades. Genetic Literacy Project https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/06/27/transitioning-transgender-teenagers-are-not-new-this-dutch-clinic-has-been-doing-it-for-decades/
Klotz, Frieda (March 24, 2023). Book review: Behind the demise of the Tavistock Gender Clinic. Undark https://undark.org/2023/03/24/book-review-time-to-think/
Klotz, Frieda (April 28, 2023). A teen gender-care debate is spreading across Europe. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/04/gender-affirming-care-debate-europe-dutch-protocol/673890/
References
Transgender Netwerk Nederland (March 10, 2023). Belangenorganisaties Trekken Aan De Bel Over Onzorgvuldige Journalistiek [Interest groups are sounding the alarm about careless journalism] https://www.transgendernetwerk.nl/belangenorganisaties-trekken-aan-de-bel-over-onzorgvuldige-journalistiek/
Irish Mathematical Society Bulletin 21 (December 1988), p. 6.
Resources
Frieda Klotz (friedaklotz.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Genetic Literacy Project (geneticliteracyproject.org)
WordPress (wordpress.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Muck Rack (muckrack.com)