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Charles Fain Lehman vs. transgender people

Charles Fain Lehman is an American writer, crime policy analyst, and anti-transgender activist. Lehman is a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Lehman writes for anti-trans publications Washington Free Beacon, The Free Press, Tablet, New York Post, The Dispatch, and City Journal.

Background

Charles Fain Lehman was born on February 24, 1995 to Jill Fain Lehman and Philip Lehman, both of whom are affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University. Lehman grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a sibling and attended Temple Sinai. Lehman earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 2016. During college, Lehman was a research intern at the Center for International Relations and Politics, the Atomic Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. In 2016, Lehman was a research analyst at America Rising.

In 2017, Lehman joined the Washington Free Beacon and began freelancing. In 2020, Lehman joined the Manhattan Institute. In 2021, Lehman became an editor at Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

Lehman has a spouse and children.

Anti-trans activism

In 2025, Lehman led off an article on New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani by criticizing Mamdani’s campaign promise to support transgender New Yorkers.

In the dwindling days of his run for Gracie Mansion, Zohran Mamdani has picked a strange priority: publicly funding gender change treatments for minors.

If elected, the New York Sun reported, Mamdani plans to spend $65 million on “gender-affirming care.”

He also promised to investigate New York hospitals that have stopped providing the services, fearing the Trump administration’s wrath, and create an “Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs” at City Hall.

That Mamdani decided gender changes for teenagers deserved his campaign’s attention typifies his problem as a candidate — and danger to the city.

In a 2022 Manhattan Institute podcast episode, Lehman opined that the left overreached on “the current trans trend”:

Do I think that there’s a rational connection, there’s a deeper structured worldview that links Obergefell and the current trans trend? Yes, absolutely. Do I think that most Americans think about it that way? No, not really. I don’t think that they see that framework. The thing about same-sex marriage, part of the reason that the left got so out over its skis in the post-Obama era and the post-Obergefell era is that same-sex marriage is too generous, right? It’s insane. That’s not even a normal judgment. It’s a positive description of the sudden opinion and version that happened over about 20 years. It’s same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization. They’re just these sudden transformations in the population. Nothing else looks like it. And I think that what activists decided in the wake of Obergefell was it’s really pretty easy. We can run this playbook for anything. We can be successful at radically altering public morality like nothing. And it turns out that’s not true.

Selected writing by Lehman

Lehman, Charles Fain (June 23, 2025). How bad is Zohran Mamdani for New York? Let us count the ways. New York Post https://nypost.com/2025/06/23/opinion/how-bad-is-zohran-mamdani-for-new-york-let-us-count-the-ways/

Lehman, Charles Fain (December 14, 2022). Statement before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform: A Hearing on “The Rise of Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and Violence in the United States.” Manhattan Institute https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/lehman-statement-house-oversight-extremism-violence-12-14-22.pdf

Media

10 Blocks with with Jesse Arm, Emily Ekins, Ben Domenech, Nate Hochman, and Charles Fain Lehman (September 22 2022). Are Culture Wars a Policy Issue? https://www.city-journal.org/multimedia/are-culture-wars-a-policy-issue

Institutionalized with Charles Fain Lehman, Aaron Sibarium, and Leor Sapir (August 17, 2022). Institutionalized: Transgender Issues and the Civil Rights State with Leor Sapir. https://manhattan.institute/multimedia/institutionalized-transgender-issues-and-the-civil-rights-state-with-leor-sapir

Resources

Manhattan Institute (manhattan.institute)

City Journal (city-journal.org)

The Atlantic (theatlantic.com)

Washington Free Beacon (freebeacon.com)

New York Post (nypost.com)

The Free Press (thefp.com)

Tablet (tabletmag.com)

The Dispatch (thedispatch.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Philadelphia Citizen (thephiladelphiacitizen.org)

Institute for Family Studies (ifstudies.org)

Hertog Foundation (hertogfoundation.org)

X/Twitter (https://x.com/)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)