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Tom Chivers vs. transgender people

Tom Chivers is a British science writer and anti-transgender activist. Chivers was the science editor at UnHerd when they published numerous unscientific articles about sex, gender, and biology. Chivers and podcast co-host Stuart Ritchie frequently logroll for anti-trans activist Jesse Singal.

Note: for the British poet and archaeologist born in 1983, see thisisyogic.com

Background

Thomas “Tom” / “Tommy” Chivers began writing for The Telegraph in 2007. Chivers was science editor at UnHerd from 2018 to 2022, then became a science writer at the i newspaper.

Chivers has written for the Times, the Observer, the Guardian, politics.co.uk, New Scientist, CNN, Wired, Smithsonian Air & Space, and BuzzFeed UK.

Chivers is author of The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy (2019), How to Read Numbers (2021), and Everything is Predictable (2024).

Anti-trans activism

Setting aside some questionable pieces on “Thai transvestites” and what-not, Chivers’ first salvo in anti-transgender activism was a 2014 piece criticizing Kevin Williamson for using Laverne Cox to assert that trans women are not women:

This, Williamson would no doubt claim, is the-emperor-has-no-clothes telling-it-like-it-is. “Sex is a biological reality,” he points out, unarguably. Indeed it is. No amount of surgery or hormone therapy will allow Cox to become pregnant, no terms of address will turn that stubborn Y chromosome into a second X. That is, indeed, a simple fact of human biology.

But who disagrees with that? No one. Williamson’s fearless truthsaying is, in fact, a fatuous statement of the obvious, dressed up as iconoclasm.

Chivers appended a note in 2016, adding: “In fact some people DO dispute that sex is a biological reality.” While some people might take issue with the term “biological reality,” the central issue is that what we call “sex” describes a collection of traits. This collection of traits includes potential gamete production, chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy, which often align but sometimes do not. Saying that this collection of traits is a binary is inaccurate and unscientific. It erases a lot of natural human variation, particularly regarding people with differences of sex development.

Chivers characterizes biologists who use value-neutral terms and conceptualizations as engaging in “science denial.” Chivers defends the term “biological sex ” and supports anti-transgender reparative therapy.

Chivers is situated within the right-wing media landscape in the UK:

The UK has an increasing number of small but influential online-only media, in addition to the websites, apps and podcasts of many of the titles listed above. On the political right, sites like Conservative Home, Spiked, UnHerd, CapX, Reaction and The Spectator’s Coffee House blog are sources of right-wing opinion and debate but play relatively little role in breaking news stories.

CMDS (2021)

Podcast

In July 2023, Chivers and Ritchie launched The Studies Show, a podcast on controversial scientific issues. The podcast was later rebranded in September 2025 as Science Fictions, which is the title of a 2020 book by Ritchie. Episodes include:

References

Center for Media, Data and Society (November 2021). Media Influence Matrix: United Kingdom. https://cmds.ceu.edu/sites/cmcs.ceu.hu/files/attachment/basicpage/1923/mimukfinalreport_0.pdf

Selected writing by Chivers

Chivers, Tom (December 7, 2021). Trans counselling is not conversion therapy. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/12/trans-counselling-is-not-conversion-therapy/

Chivers, Tom (December 10, 2019). Of course biological sex exists. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2019/12/yes-of-course-biological-sex-exists/

Chivers, Tom (December 10, 2019). The Left’s science denial. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2021/09/the-lefts-science-denial/

Chivers, Tom (April 2, 2015). 25 Quite Unexpected Facts About Sex. Buzzfeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/facts-about-sex

Chivers, Tommy (June 1, 2014). Whether or not Laverne Cox is a woman is not a question of biology; it’s a question of language. https://tommychivers.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/whether-or-not-laverne-cox-is-a-woman-is-not-a-question-of-biology-its-a-question-of-language/

Tom Chivers (June 1, 2008). Thai transvestites compete in Miss Tiffany Universe. The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2061631/Thai-transvestites-compete-in-Miss-Tiffany-Universe.html

Media

Science Fictions with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (November 26, 2025). Unpaywalled: Jonathan Haidt vs. social media. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/unpaywalled-jonathan-haidt-vs-social

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (July 7, 2025). Paid-only Episode 21: Psychological sex differences. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-21-psychological

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers, Stuart Ritchie, and Jesse Singal (May 12, 2025). Paid-only Episode 20: The Studies Show LIVE with Jesse Singal. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-20-the-studies

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (December 30, 2024). Un-paywalled: Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/un-paywalled-youth-gender-medicine

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (December 9, 2024). Paid-only Episode 15: Sex and sport: The battle of the sexes. Or is it “genders”? https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-15-sex-and-sport

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (September 16, 2024). Paid-only Episode 12: Jonathan Haidt vs. social media. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-12-jonathan-haidt

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (August 26, 2024). Episode 47: The 25 year old brain. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/episode-47-the-25-year-old-brain

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (August 19, 2024). Paid-only Episode 11: Sex education. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-11-sex-education

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (April 23, 2024). Paid-only Episode 7: Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review. https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/paid-only-episode-7-youth-gender

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (January 22, 2024). Paid-only Episode 4: Male and female brains. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/paid-only-episode-4-male-and-female

The Studies Show with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie (December 4, 2023). Episode 19: Science and politics. https://sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/episode-19-science-and-politics

Resources

Tom Chivers (tomchivers.com)

WordPress (wordpress.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

i news (inews.co.uk)

Substack (substack.com)

UnHerd (unherd.com)

The Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)

  • Tom Chivers
  • telegraph.co.uk/authors/t/tk-to/tom-chivers