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Kevin D. Williamson vs. transgender people

Kevin D. Williamson is a conservative American writer, online troll, and anti-transgender activist. Williamson has written for National Review and The Dispatch.

Background

Kevin Daniel Williamson was born on September 18, 1972 in Oklahoma and grew up in Lubbock, Texas. Williamson attended University of Texas at Austin, then joined the Bombay-based Indian Express Newspaper Group as part of a team that redesigned the Express’s English-language dailies. Williamson worked as a writer and editor for Morris Communications, Journal Register Corp., and other newspaper publishers. Williamson has contributed to The New York Sun and Our Sunday Visitor.

In 2004, investment banker Thomas G. Rice named Williamson editor of The Bulletin, a conservative daily newspaper based in Philadelphia. Williamson left around 2007, and The Bulletin ceased publication in 2009.

In 2007, Williams was named director of communications programs at the Koch-funded Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

Williamson joined The National Review in 2008 and left in 2022. While there, Williamson wrote a number of incendiary anti-trans articles, such as attacking Laverne Cox and Chelsea Manning while praising Paul McHugh and other anti-trans extremists.

From 2009 to 2016, Williamson contributed theater criticism to The New Criterion and served as an editor during part of that time.

In 2018, Williamson was announced as a contributor to The Atlantic. Editor Jeffrey Goldberg soon cut ties between The Atlantic and Williamson after following public criticism of Williamson’s past Twitter posts and comments that advocated hanging people who get an abortion, as well as executing abortion providers.

Someone challenged me on my views of abortion. You know, saying if you really thought it was a crime, you would support things like, you know, life in prison, no parole for treating it as a homicide. And I do support that. In fact, as I wrote, what I had in mind is hanging. […] I would totally go with treating it like any other crime up to including hanging. Which kind of you know, as I said, I’m kind of squishy about capital punishment in general, but I’ve got a soft spot for hanging as a form of capital punishment. I tend to think that things like lethal injection are a little too antiseptic

Williamson later deleted the Twitter account.

Williamson was a lecturer at “anti-woke” school University of Austin as part of the “forbidden courses” series.

Williamson joined anti-trans group blog The Dispatch in September 2022.

References

Staff report (September 19, 2022). Kevin D. Williamson Joins The Dispatch. The Dispatch https://thedispatch.com/article/kevin-d-williamson-joins-the-dispatch/

Dougherty, Michael Brendan (September 19, 2022). Sad Goodbyes. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/sad-goodbyes/

Feinberg, Ashley (May 3, 2018). Leak: The Atlantic Had A Meeting About Kevin Williamson. It Was A Liberal Self-Reckoning. HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leak-the-atlantic-had-a-meeting-about-kevin-williamson-it-was-a-liberal-self-reckoning_n_5ac7a3abe4b0337ad1e7b4df

Grynbaum, Michael M. (April 5, 2018). The Atlantic Cuts Ties With Conservative Writer Kevin Williamson. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-williamson-atlantic.html

Kann, Sharon (April 4, 2018). Kevin Williamson also said on his podcast that people who’ve had abortions should be hanged. Media Matters for America
https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/kevin-williamson-also-said-his-podcast-people-whove-had-abortions-should-be-hanged

Weissmann, Jordan (March 27, 2018). Why Would the Atlantic Hire Kevin Williamson? Slate https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/the-atlantics-bad-reasons-for-hiring-kevin-williamson.html

Honl-Stuenkel, Gustav (August 20, 2018). New Atlantic opinion columnist fired two weeks after inflammatory tweets and podcast interview unearthed. The Free Speech Project https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/atlantics-new-opinion-columnist-kevin-d-williamson-fired-two-weeks-after-inflammatory-tweets-and-podcast-interview-unearthed/

O’Keefe, Benjamin and 1,827 signatories (2014). Retract Your Disgusting and Transphobic Op-Ed on Laverne Cox. https://www.change.org/petitions/chicago-sun-times-retract-your-disgusting-and-transphobic-op-ed-on-laverne-cox

Richards, Jen (2014). Laverne Cox is a woman—and publishing transphobia is a disgrace to us all. Daily Dot http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/chicago-sun-times-laverne-cox/ [archive]

Women, Action, & the Media (2014). Chicago Sun Times: Apologize to Laverne Cox and institute standards for covering transgender people. http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50835/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14161 [archive]

Rice, Thomas G. (July 15, 2009). A Special Message from the Publisher. The Bulletin http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/07/15/news/doc4a5b95eba20e3398983922.txt

Yates, Maura (December 7, 2004). Philly’s Bulletin Newspaper Is Resurrected. New York Sun https://www.nysun.com/article/new-york-phillys-bulletin-newspaper-is-resurrected

Staff report (November 22, 2004). In Philadelphia, A New Paper with an Old Name. Associated Press via Editor & Publisher http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000724678

Selected writing by Williamson

Williamson, Kevin D. (November 14, 2021). ‘Trans Nonbinary Liberation Is Eco-Justice!’ National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/trans-nonbinary-liberation-is-eco-justice/

Williamson, Kevin D. (June 16, 2020). The Emperor’s New Law: Magical thinking replaces jurisprudence at the Supreme Court. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-emperors-new-law/

Williamson, Kevin D. (October 29, 2019). Glorious, Indeed: Headline writing is a fine art. Wired is not very good at it. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/transgender-athlete-story-wired-headline-obscures-story/

Williamson, Kevin D. (April 8, 2019). Politics and the Not-Quite-English Language. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/politics-and-the-not-quite-english-language/?amp

Williamson, Kevin D. (August 19, 2018). The Compulsory Society: We owe a debt of gratitude to the cranky dissidents such as Jack Phillips. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/masterpiece-cakeshop-case-about-compulsion-not-civil-rights/

Williamson, Kevin D. (April 25, 2018). Opinion: Kevin Williamson: The punishment I favor for abortion. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kevin-williamson-the-punishment-i-favor-for-abortion/2018/04/25/5001c6cc-48c5-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html

Williamson, Kevin D.(April 24, 2018). How They Do ‘Journalism’ at New York Magazine. Washington Examiner https://www.weeklystandard.com/kevin-williamson/what-new-york-magazine-told-kevin-williamson-about-abortion

Williamson, Kevin D. (April 20, 2018). When the Twitter Mob Came for Me. Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-twitter-mob-came-for-me-1524234850

Williamson, Kevin D. (June 13, 2016). The Transgender Culture War. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/06/13/transgender-rights-movement-toward-accomodation-not-enough/

Williamson, Kevin D. (December 12, 2014). A New York State of Dysphoria. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/12/new-york-state-dysphoria-kevin-d-williamson/

Williamson, Kevin D. (June 13, 2014). Another Beastly Hatemonger Heard From. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/another-beastly-hatemonger-heard-kevin-d-williamson/

Williamson, Kevin D. (May 30, 2014). Laverne Cox Is Not a Woman: Facts are not subject to our feelings.. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/05/laverne-cox-not-woman/

Williamson, Kevin D. (August 23, 2013). Bradley Manning Is Not a Woman: Pronouns and delusions do not trump biology.. National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/08/bradley-manning-not-woman-kevin-d-williamson/

Media

National Review / Mad Dogs & Englishmen with Charles C.W. Cooke and Kevin D. Williamson (September 29, 2014). Episode 71: Everyone Hates Kevin . . . Again. https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/mad-dogs-englishmen/mad-dogs-englishmen-everyone-hates-kevin-again/ [archive]

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

DeSmog (desmog.com)

The Dispatch (thedispatch.com)

National Review (nationalreview.com)

National Review Institute (nrinstitute.org)

  • Kevin D. Williamson
  • https://nrinstitute.org/fellows/2006 [archive]

Facebook (facebook.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

  • KevinNR [deleted]

Competitive Enterprise Institute (https://cei.org/experts/kevin-williamson/)

Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org)

  • Kevin D. Williamson
  • fee.org/people/kevin-d-williamson [archive]

Commentary (commentary.org)

New York Post (nypost.com)

The New Criterion (newcriterion.com)

The Bulletin (thebulletin.us) [2006–2009 – archive]

Institute for Human Studies (theihs.org)

  • Kevin Williamson, Director of Communicators Programs
  • http://www.theihs.org/people/id.808/people.asp [archive]

C-SPAN (c-span.org)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

Washington Examiner (washingtonexaminer.com)