Helen Pluckrose is a British writer and anti-transgender activist.
Pluckrose is critical of postmodernism and cultural constructivism. While purporting to take a centrist position that is generally trans-supportive, Pluckrose has espoused many anti-transgender views.
Background
Pluckrose was born in August 1974. Pluckrose earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of East London and a master’s degree from Queen Mary University of London.
Pluckrose was a social care worker from age 17 to 34.
In 2017 Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian, and James A. Lindsay carried out the “grievance studies” affair, where they submitted 20 hoax papers to academic journals in hopes of getting them published. One recommended that people challenge their transphobia by inserting sex toys into their anuses.
Pluckrose was editor of Areo Magazine from 2018 to 2021. Pluckrose and Lindsay published the book Cynical Theories in 2020. Pluckrose founded Counterweight Support Limited in 2021.
Pluckrose and spouse David have one child.
Anti-transgender activism
Pluckrose asserts that “extreme trans activists” want to compel people to accept the following:
- people must believe that trans people “straightforwardly are the gender they experience themselves to be”
- people must use language that reflects a trans person’s gender
- people must be trans-inclusive when choosing sexual partners
Pluckrose’s most significant anti-trans position is that “transitioning children is difficult to justify ethically.”
Pluckrose’s reasoning is a form of cisgender supremacy that prioritizes the well-being of cisgender children over the well-being of transgender children. According to Pluckrose, giving parental consent to medical transition for a trans youth “cannot justify permanently damaging the bodies” of young people who might not benefit in the long term from medical transition. In Pluckrose’s argument this “collateral damage” is worse than collateral damage to trans young people denied medical transition.
Pluckrose’s position is predicated on the potent “regret” narrative and its medicalized manifestations: “desistance” in minors and “detransition” in adults. Regret narratives are vastly overrepresented in mainstream media because it taps into parental anxiety and justifies suspicion about all trans people. Those who believe being trans is a medical problem like “social contagion” often believe there is a cure. Those who believe being trans is an ideology or cult often cling to the powerful fantasy of trans apostasy.
Ideologues who wish to involve themselves in the bodily autonomy of others often amplify regret narratives. For instance, though abortion regret is rare, abortion opponents amplify regret narratives to make abortion less accessible for those who might benefit, including minors.
During Pluckrose’s tenure at Areo, there were several articles critical of trans people (written by people like anti-trans activist Louise Perry), and no articles written by trans people.
In a 2020 Quillette interview, Pluckrose complained about trans activism:
People are being no-platformed, fired, and cancelled for disagreeing with these ideas. Here in the UK, the police have investigated somebody posting a limerick on Twitter that did not adhere to trans activism’s concept of gender identity and a journalist publishing an interview with a historian who said slavery was not genocide. Gender critical feminists are routinely threatened and intimidated for making arguments that self-ID is a threat to women’s sex-based rights.
References
Pluckrose, Helen (September 27, 2017). An Argument for a Liberal and Rational Approach to Transgender Rights and Inclusion. Areo https://areomagazine.com/2017/09/27/an-argument-for-a-liberal-and-rational-approach-to-transgender-rights-and-inclusion/
Hill, Jason D. (December 16, 2020). On Activist Scholarship: An Interview with Helen Pluckrose. Quillette https://quillette.com/2020/12/16/on-activist-scholarship-an-interview-with-helen-pluckrose/
Perry, Louise (July 8, 2019). Minds Without Bodies: Transgenderism and the Authentic Self. Areo https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/07/minds-without-bodies-transgenderism-and-the-authentic-self/
Smith M (pseudonym) (2018). Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria and Transphobia through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use. Sexuality & Culture. 22 (4): 1542. 10.1007/s12119-018-9536-0
Resources
Twitter (twitter.com)
Substack (substack.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)