Helen Lewis is a British author and anti-transgender activist who launders gender critical extremism into mainstream media. Lewis is a sex segregationist who claims to be writing from a feminist/leftist viewpoint. Lewis demonstrates that anti-trans sentiment extends into every political point of view and movement.
Lewis’ anti-trans views center around:
- Challenging legal recognition of trans people in systems developed on the basis of sex, particularly opposing the UK’s Gender Recognition Act
- Maintaining systems of sex segregation, particularly in matters of law, public accommodation, prisons, sports, and other sex-segregated institutions
- Maintaining the strict gatekeeping of trans healthcare via government control, developed under nationalized heath systems (so-called “gender clinics”) in the 20th century
- Maintaining medico-juridical control over trans and gender diverse people though disease models and medical requirements for legal recognition (sterilization requirements, etc.)
- Maintaining non-affirming models of care for gender diverse youth, developed last century for “the prevention of transsexualism” and now widely outlawed
- Promoting anti-trans reports created as pretexts to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for minors, including the Cass Review and the 2025 Trump HHS report.
Lewis frequently promotes and collaborates with other anti-trans activists, including Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog of Blocked and Reported.
Background
Helen Aexandra Lewis was born on September 30, 1983, grew up Catholic in Worcester, and attended St Mary’s School there. Lewis then read English at St Peter’s College, Oxford, followed by a journalism degree from City University London. Lewis no longer identifies as Catholic.
After graduating, Lewis worked at the Daily Mail, then joined the New Statesman in 2010. Lewis married designer and creative director Matthew “Matt” Hasteley in 2010 and wrote professionally as Helen Lewis-Hasteley from 2010 until their divorce in 2013. During the marriage, Lewis met and got involved with someone else, eventually leaving the marriage. Like many gender-critical public figures, this starter marriage seems to have had a significant impact on Lewis’ views about sex and gender.
Lewis married Guardian digital editor Jonathan Haynes in 2015. In 2019 Lewis joined the staff of The Atlantic, which has never had an out trans person listed on their masthead in its 160+ years of existence. In 2020 game developer Ubisoft removed Lewis’ voice from in-game audio in Watch Dogs: Legion due to transphobic views.
Anti-trans activism
In 2013, Lewis devoted a week at the New Statesman to trans issues, inviting trans-supportive authors to publish pieces. By late 2015, Lewis began writing increasingly frequent anti-trans pieces there.
2017 Times op-ed
Lewis has been critical of the UK’s Gender Recognition Act, claiming that what used to be called the “real life test” that lasts for two years should be required for anyone to be legally recognized as their gender. In a piece for The Times titled “A man canât just say he has turned into a woman,” Lewis wrote:
What the government proposes is a radical rewriting of our understanding of identity: now itâs a question of an internal essence â a soul, if you will. Being a woman or a man is now entirely in your head. In this climate, who would challenge someone with a beard exposing their penis in a womenâs changing room? Thatâs why feminists have raised the alarm over the move to self-identification, along with some older trans people who fear that âtrendstersâ will erode the goodwill they have worked hard to acquire.
Removal from Watch Dogs: Legion
By 2018, Lewis’ anti-trans views were so well-known that Lewis was removed as a featured voice in the game Watch Dogs: Legion. This “cancellation” caused Lewis to start making even more strident and frequent attacks on trans people.
2018 New Statesman op-ed
While writing for The New Statesman, Lewis was accused of laundering transphobic talking points into a major media outlet around the topics of sex segregation and trans healthcare for youth.
Want to talk about how letting people self-define their gender might affect female-only spaces such as prisons and changing rooms? Then youâre a bigot, cloaking your bigotry in the language of âlegitimate concernsâ. Want to discuss whether we are rushing to medicalise gender non-conforming children because they and their desperate parents have been sold the idea there is a universal âfixâ for their profound, genuine unhappiness? These are yet more âlegitimate concernsâ that can be dismissed, even as medical professionals warn that not every gender non-conforming child will benefit from puberty blockers and (later) medical transition.
We should all be in favour of the right of transgender people to live their lives free of discrimination, harassment and abuse. […] But the right of someone who has been through male puberty, with the consequences for skeleton and muscle development that brings, to compete in womenâs sports that depend on raw strength? Thatâs more difficult. […]
Our ideas about gender are undergoing a profound shift. I hope that they will end up in a place where a boy can wear a princess dress without people assuming he is âreallyâ a girl.
2018 GQ interview of Jordan Peterson
In September 2018, Lewis interviewed fellow anti-trans activist Jordan Peterson for GQ. It quickly turned into a tense but civil debate that went viral. One of the few times they agree in the 90-minute conversation is on what Lewis calls “transgender issues.” At about 1:09.45, Lewis’s views overlap significantly with Peterson’s anti-trans viewpoints. Lewis repeats the unsupported generalization that “transgender activists” believe they have a “female soul.” Lewis also believes “We are very quick to diagnose and treat children in a way that I find â and not waiting for the research â and that I find concerning.”
The Atlantic
In July 2019, Lewis joined anti-trans publication The Atlantic as a staff writer and began writing anti-trans pieces even more frequently.
References
Urquhart, Evan (August 8, 2023). Helen Lewis is Cosplaying as a Moderate. Assigned Media https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/ideologue-helen-lewis-cosplays-as-a-moderate
Urquhart, Evan (September 14, 2023). On Reading the Atlantic While Trans. Assigned Media https://www.assignedmedia.org/newsletter/on-reading-the-atlantic-while-trans
Urquhart, Evan (August 8, 2023). Helen Lewis’ Latest Bait and Switch Misleads Readers on the Risks of Gender-Affirming Care. Assigned Media https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/helen-lewis-atlantic-puberty-blockers-hormones-transgender
Urquhart, Evan (May 4, 2023). The Atlantic Really Wants You to Think Europe is Turning Against Trans Youth. Assigned Media https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/gender-affirming-care-europe-redux
White, Charlotte (May 19, 2023). All Trans Kids Deserve Care: A Response To Helen Lewis. Left Voice https://www.leftvoice.org/all-trans-kids-deserve-care-a-response-to-helen-lewis/
Steinfeld, J. (2020). Not my turf: Helen Lewis argues that vitriol around the trans debate means only extreme voices are being heard. Index on Censorship, 49(1), 34â35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306422020917609
Wang, Esther (1 April 2019). The Atlantic has a transphobia problem. Jezebel https://jezebel.com/the-atlantic-has-a-transphobia-problem-1833677331
Jackman, Josh (25 July 2017). Left-wing magazine boss says gender reforms will lead to bearded men exposing their penises to women. PinkNews. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/25/backlash-against-the-governments-plans-to-reform-transgender-laws/
Stone, Gemma (28 September 2021). Helen Lewis: âWe Need to Record Gender and Sex Separatelyâ An Injustice Magazine https://aninjusticemag.com/helen-lewis-we-need-to-record-gender-and-sex-separately-3717c76a2061
Duffy, Nick (10 November 2020). âGender criticalâ journalist cut from Watch Dogs video game after developers discovered her views on trans people. PinkNews https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/10/watch-dogs-legion-helen-lewis-transgender-trans-podcast/
Muncy, Julie (11 November 2020) Ubisoft Removes a Controversial Voice in Watch Dogs: Legion. WIRED https://www.wired.com/story/war-dogs-legion-podcasts/
Duffy, Nick (26 July 2017). What will actually happen if the UK adopts a ‘self-declaration’ gender recognition law? PinkNews https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/26/what-will-actually-happen-if-the-uk-adopts-a-self-declaration-gender-recognition-law/
Jackman, Josh (25 July 2017). Left-wing magazine boss says gender reforms will lead to bearded men exposing their penises to women. PinkNews https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/25/backlash-against-the-governments-plans-to-reform-transgender-laws/
Books
Lewis, Helen (2025). The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea. Thesis, ISBN 979-8217178582
Lewis, Helen (2021). Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights. Vintage, ISBN Â 978-1784709730 alternatively titled Difficult Women: An Imperfect History of Feminism
Lewis, Helen [presenter] (2021). The Spark: 11 Ideas to Change the World. BBC Audio, ASIN B091FTHY11
- with Emily Oster, Hilary Cottam, Paul Krugman, Roy Baumeister, Margaret Heffernan, Stuart Russell, Peter Macfadyen, Pragya Agarwal, Paul Collier and John Kay, Kiran Gill, Chris Daw
Selected anti-trans writing by Lewis
Lewis, Helen (June 29, 2025). The Liberal Misinformation Bubble About Youth Gender Medicine. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/
Lewis, Helen (June 9, 2025). The Trump Administrationâs Nasty Campaign Against Trans People. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/trump-transgender-treatments-gender/683046/
Lewis, Helen (April 18, 2025). Britain Rules on What a Woman Is. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/britain-rules-woman-supreme-court/682511/
Lewis, Helen (March 30, 2025). The White Lotus Is the First Great Post-âWokeâ Piece of Art. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/white-lotus-is-post-woke-art/682231/
Lewis, Helen (February 24, 2025). The Internetâs Favorite Sex Researcher.The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/aella-internet-sex-researcher/681813/
Lewis, Helen (December 30, 2024). What the Left Refused to Understand About Womenâs Sports. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/democrats-trans-rights-sports/681130/
Lewis, Helen (December 16, 2024). The Push for Puberty Blockers Got Ahead of the Research. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/why-supreme-court-puberty-blockers/680998/
Lewis, Helen (November 10, 2024). The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-dishonest-gender-conversation-2024-election/680604/
Lewis, Helen (October 23, 2024). The Positions That the Democrats Wonât Defend. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-rachel-levine-trans-issues/680333/
Lewis, Helen (August 9, 2024). The Olympics Could Have Avoided the Ugly Boxing Debate. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/olympic-boxing-gender-debate-imane-khelif/679410/
Lewis, Helen (April 12, 2024). Britain Is Leaving the U.S. Gender-Medicine Debate Behind. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/cass-report-youth-gender-medicine/678031/
Lewis, Helen (March 19, 2024). The Worst Argument for Youth Transition. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/trans-youth-transition-andrea-long-chu/677796/
Lewis, Helen (December 8, 2023). The Left Canât Afford to Go Mad. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-biden-democratic-left-opposition/676141/
Lewis, Helen (August 8, 2023). The Gender War Is Over in Britain. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/uk-trans-rights-labour-party/674944/
Lewis, Helen (June 18, 2023). The Feminists Insisting That Women Are Built Differently. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/reactionary-feminism-differences-between-sexes/674447/
Lewis, Helen (May 4, 2023). The Only Way Out of the Child-Gender Culture War. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/texas-puberty-blockers-gender-care-transgender-rights/673941/
Lewis, Helen (May 4, 2023). The Hogwarts Legacy Boycott That Wasnât. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/hogwarts-legacy-game-jk-rowling-transphobia-accusation/673583/
Lewis, Helen (February 15, 2023). What Happens When Politicians Brush Off Hard Questions About Gender. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/nicola-sturgeon-resignation-scotland-transgender-bill/673067/
Lewis, Helen (September 2, 2022). What If Joan of Arc Wasnât a Woman? The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/joan-of-arc-nonbinary-globe/671321/
Lewis, Helen (August 18, 2022). How Social Justice Became a New Religion. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/social-justice-new-religion/671172/
Lewis, Helen (May 14, 2022). The Abortion Debate Is Suddenly About âPeople,â Not âWomen.â The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/abortion-rights-debate-women-gender-neutral-language/629863/
Lewis, Helen (February 27, 2022). The Twitching Generation. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/social-media-illness-teen-girls/622916/
Lewis, Helen (26 October 2021). In Defense of Saying âPregnant Women.â The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/pregnant-women-people-feminism-language/620468/ [headline stealth edited to Why Iâll Keep Saying âPregnant Womenâ]
Lewis, Helen (13 October 2021). Dave Chappelleâs Rorschach Test. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/dave-chappelle-the-closer/620364/
Lewis, Helen (March 16, 2021). The Identity Hoaxers. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/03/krug-carrillo-dolezal-social-munchausen-syndrome/618289/
Lewis, Helen (April 2021). What Happened to Jordan Peterson? The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/what-happened-to-jordan-peterson/618082/
Lewis, Helen (July 14, 2020). How Capitalism Drives Cancel Culture. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/07/cancel-culture-and-problem-woke-capitalism/614086/
Lewis, Helen (July 2020). Why Millennial Harry Potter Fans Reject JK Rowling. [stealth edited to How J. K. Rowling Became Voldemort] The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/07/why-millennial-harry-potter-fans-reject-jk-rowling/613870/
Lewis, Helen (February 27, 2020). Feminismâs Purity Wars. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/02/feminism-mens-rights-activism-cancel-culture/607057/
Lewis, Helen (26 February 2020). Things You Only Know If Youâre Divorced Before 30. Grazia https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/divorce-before-30/
Lewis, Helen (22 May 2019). How an email with a secret location led me to the most vibrant feminist meeting of the year. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/05/how-email-secret-location-led-me-most-vibrant-feminist-meeting-year
Lewis, Helen (3 January 2019). Maria Miller called me a fake feminist over gender self-ID. Now she says I was right all along. The New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/01/maria-miller-called-me-fake-feminist-over-gender-self-id-now-she-says-i
Lewis, Helen (30 October 2018). My experience of interviewing Jordan Peterson. GQ https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/helen-lewis-jordan-peterson
Lewis, Helen (17 October 2018). The problem that gender self-ID is designed to solve is real but the debate has failed. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2018/10/problem-gender-self-id-designed-solve-real-debate-has-failed
Lewis, Helen (20 April 2018). The madness of our gender debate, where feminists defend slapping a 60-year-old woman. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/04/madness-our-gender-debate-where-feminists-defend-slapping-60-year-old
Lewis, Helen (19 March 2018). From immigration to gender, the left is avoiding the hard work of persuasion. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2018/03/immigration-gender-left-avoiding-hard-work-persuasion
Lewis, Helen (25 July 2017). A man canât just say he has turned into a woman. The Times (London) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-man-can-t-just-say-he-has-turned-into-a-woman-m5lltcgv7
Lewis, Helen (28 October 2016). Would you let your child change their gender? New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2016/10/would-you-let-your-child-change-their-gender
Lewis, Helen (27 May 2016). So many teenage girls donât want to identify as girls any more. And who can blame them? New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/05/so-many-teenage-girls-don-t-want-identify-girls-any-more-and-who-can-blame
Lewis, Helen (28 January 2016). Deciding which jail to send a trans prisoner to isnât always clear-cut. And accusations of bigotry donât help. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2016/01/deciding-which-jail-send-trans-prisoner-isn-t-always-clear-cut-and-accusations
Lewis, Helen (27 October 2015). What the row over banning Germaine Greer is really about. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/10/what-row-over-banning-germaine-greer-really-about
Lewis, Helen (14 January 2013). Introducing Trans Issues Week. New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/introducing-trans-issues-week
Media
British GQ with Jordan Peterson and Helen Lewis (Oct 30, 2018). Jordan Peterson: âThere was plenty of motivation to take me out. It just didn’t work.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYQpge1W5s
Resources
GLAAD Accountability Project (glaad.org/gap)
Trans Data Library (transdatalibrary.org)
- Helen Lewis
- transdatalibrary.org/person/helen-lewis
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Helen Lewis Writes (helenlewiswrites.com)
X/Twitter (x.com)
The Atlantic (theatlantic.com)
- Helen Lewis
- theatlantic.com/author/helen-lewis/
The Guardian (theguardian.com)
- Helen Lewis
- theguardian.com/profile/helen-lewis
The New Statesman (newstatesman.com)
- Helen Lewis
- newstatesman.com/helen-lewis [archive]
- blog
- newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley [archive]
Tumblr (tumblr.com)
Flickr (flickr.com)
- lewishasteley [deleted in 2022 in response to this profile]
Instagram (instagram.com)
Bluesky (bsky.app)
Muck Rack (muckrack.com)
Substack (substack.com)
- helenlewis
- The Bluestocking
- helenlewis.substack.com
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