Hontas Farmer and transgender people

Hontas Farmer is an American educator and “autogynephilia” activist. Farmer has an extensive online presence and has identified as a Muslim, Republican, physicist, “homosexual transsexual,” and sex worker. Farmer is part of the conservative trans community.

Hontas Farmer on Fox News in a burqa — Hontas Farmer appearing on Fox News in a burqa in 2008.

Background

Hontas Freeman Farmer was born in July 1980. Farmer has stated the given name Hontas is an abbreviation of Pocahontas. It is also a given name previously used in Farmer’s family. As with many African Americans, Farmer has claimed Native American ancestry. Farmer grew up in the Chicago area and attended Proviso West High School in Hillside.

In 1998, Farmer was arrested and given a psychiatric evaluation for allegedly threatening to shoot up the high school after being turned down by a girl for the prom. Local police also confiscated two firearms from Farmer’s family home. Farmer was allegedly bullied in high school with the nickname “The Unabomber.”

As an adult, Farmer began using the alternative name Aisha Abd Al-Rashid, including on the cover of Farmer’s 2008 self-published book Quantum Space-Time Dynamics (ISBN 978-0578007328).

Farmer earned a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University in 2005 and a master’s degree from DePaul University in 2013.

Farmer has subsequently worked as a tutor and taught in adjunct positions in the Chicago City Colleges system as well as at College of DuPage and Elmhurst University. Farmer has also been involved in union organizing, serving as an officer representing other part-time educators via the City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee (CCCLOC), part of Region 67 of the Illinois Education Association (IEANEA), the state-level union of the National Education Association.

In 2019, Farmer filed a lawsuit against Randall Miller, an apparent colleague of Farmer’s.

Online activity

Farmer has been a major forum contributor on the transkids.us hoax site, the Hung Angels forum, Wikipedia, and the Science 2.0 blogging platform. Farmer has used a number of usernames, including:

BrendaQG
Hfarmer
Hontasfx
Lucasain
Smartgirl62
Gravitygirl62
Zahara_TS
Aisha_a_ts

“Autogynephilia” activism

Farmer became heavily involved in Wikipedia editing of “autogynephilia” and related concepts in 2006.

In 2008, Farmer gained access to the apartment of economist Deirdre McCloskey through McCloskey’s assistant Beth while McCloskey was out of town. McCloskey is a prominent critic of “autogynephilia.” Via Farmer’s blog:

Dr. McCloskey on the other hand. I have an impression of her based on seeing her home and hearing people around UIC talk about her and compare her to me (when they thought I couldn’t hear them). According to Beth her RA who is watching her house Dr. McCloskey was in south Africa. There are those at UIC who call her Dierdre McKrazy and say she is pushy and mannish. Having seen her house that surprises me a bit. A persons home says allot about them. Dr McCloskey’s Condo in downtown Chicago is quite nice, quite large and very comfortable looking. On the inside the furnishings are of good classic taste which would be expected of a lady of her age and means. Walking in I felt like Gill Chesterton seeing Frasier’s condo for the first time, very impressed. It is actually two condo’s joined by stairs. A large part of one is devoted to her personal library which is quite extensive. My friend Beth, a PhD. Student in philosophy’s job for the summer is to put that large library in order. A notable and surprising thing to me was that Dr. McCloskey has a copy of “The man Who Would Be Queen”.

At the 2009 Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil in Chicago, Farmer approached “Juanita,” one of the trans women featured in the transphobic book The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. Farmer was wearing a burqa and asked several questions that prompted “Juanita” to alert the community about Farmer’s questioning.

References

Circuit Court of Cook County, Case number 2019-M1-013188 (May 30, 2019).

OII (2009). Hontas Farmer File: Background information and links to evidence. http://www.intersexualite.org/Hontas-Farmer.html [archive]

OII (2009). Unscientific blogging. http://www.intersexualite.org/Unscientific-blogging.html [archive]

Farmer, Hontas (May 17, 2008). A Talk With Julia Serano, Then Walking Dr. McCloskey’s Dog. Science 2.0 https://www.science20.com/quantum_gravity/blog/a_talk_with_julia_serano_then_walking_dr_mccloskeys_dog

Wright, Catherine (June 3, 1998). Classmates threatened. Melrose Park Herald

Roeper, Richard (June 4, 1998). School threats deserve a hard-line response. Chicago Sun-Times

Selected publications by Farmer

Farmer H (2022). Genetic Causation of Transgender Neruobiological [sic] Identity, An Annotated Bibliography. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.22541/au.164303998.80261664/v1