Michael Foran: 'Thinking it from within the perspective of the groups that might be affected'

Five days ago, a YouTube video was posted in which Michael Foran explains how he ended up on Julie Bindel's anti-transgender side.

“I initially wrote a short blog post," he begins, "in a specialist constitutional law blog about the definition of sex in the Equality Act, and how that feeds into what, at that point, was an ongoing trajectory of legislation through the Scottish Parliament: the Gender Recognition Reform bill, which would have introduced self-ID as a legal policy into Scotland.” At that time, he wasn’t interested in activism, he says; rather, he “just kind of posited...that there was a legal mechanism here that the UK government could have relied on if it wanted to block this bill.” He said that one could claim that the bill could have “adverse impacts” on equality law for “women and girls” and especially for “communities like Muslim women or Orthodox Jewish women.”

His blog post was published on “the second day of the reading of the bill in the Scottish Parliament,” and Pauline McNeill cited it on the floor.

Foran says it used to be that anti-discrimination protections only covered people who were “proposing to undergo, you are undergoing, or you have undergone a process, or part of a process, of changing aspects of your sex,” so that if they came out to their employer, their employer couldn't fire them just because they were starting a gender transition.

Bindel chimes in: “Which of course feminists have always supported. We shouldn’t discriminate against people because of the way they live their lives — in the sense that they live as the opposite sex. It started to get very difficult, didn’t it, when trans activists started to say ‘we are women, we are female, we will enter the spaces, and we don’t agree with exemptions.’” (She ignores the obvious fact that telling a transgender person that they do not belong to their own gender and that they cannot use a bathroom that corresponds to their gender is a form of discrimination. A person — transgender or cisgender alike — is made unsafe when others question or deny their gender and tell them they're in the wrong bathroom.)

Bindel refers to Foran’s blog post as "your baptism of fire." She notes that he’s supported "organizations such as LGB Alliance, particularly with the vexatious case taken against them by Mermaids." (Mermaids has been "supporting trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families since 1995," according to its website. LGB Alliance is a four-year-old anti-transgender hate group.)

Update, October 2024

Resuming...

Bindel says this has been “a very, very painful and bitter time for feminists, and has been for some years, because of the gender ideology and the capture of institutions and the like.”

Foran says he had been “following these debates” without “thinking it from within the perspective of the groups that might be affected by it.” (He doesn’t mean trans people. At no point in the 35-minute discussion is the perspective of a trans person ever considered. In this sentence, trans people are the "it" that requires "thinking," and cis people are the people with "perspective" who are in "the groups that might be affected by it," where the "it," again, is trans people.)

Regarding “Muslim women or Orthodox Jewish women,” he says: “In an ideal world, you might think, we" — he means people like himself, outside of the specified groups — "don’t want to have women wear headscarves, we don’t want to have women in contexts where they’re being separated. But in the world that we’re in, we have to deal with the fact that these women do exist and that they do believe these things and they find deep spiritual satisfaction from them. And they’re not going to alter their behavior in the way that people expect.” For example, he says, Muslim women realistically won’t remove their headscarves even if scarves are formally banned. (At no point does he say anything like: We have to deal with the fact that trans people exist, believe what they believe, find deep satisfaction in their own lives, and aren't going to alter their behavior in certain ways just because random strangers might expect them to.

Bindel adds that, “largely,” such religious women are pressured to wear headscarves and don’t choose to do it “from an absolute open vacuum of free choice.” (Does anyone engage in any behavior from a vacuum in which they make decisions free of anyone else's influence?)

Foran says “there’s slight parallels to be had between what happened to Kathleen Stock and an experience that I had.” He says “she was not safe on campus” and “now basically has police protection pretty much everywhere she goes.” He says he hasn’t suffered to that degree, but some people likewise tried to get him fired from his university. He adds: “I had a very senior colleague — Professor Adam Tompkins, who’s the chair of constitutional law at Glasgow — who very publicly said: You come for Michael, you come for me.” He said Kathleen Stock didn’t receive such support.

Separately, I wrote about Kathleen Stock's book.

Please see my essays on transphobia.

Climate comedy

A recommendation from Bill McGuire:

"Because comedy can engage people in ways that other approaches to climate change can’t, it can be an effective way of getting the message across.

This is why ventures like “Climate Science Translated,” which I took part in earlier this year, are so important. The British-based project — brainchild of ethical insurer Nick Oldridge and the climate communications outfit Utopia Bureau — teams climate scientists up with comedians, who ‘translate’ the science into bite-sized, funny and pretty irreverent chunks that can be understood, digested and appreciated by anyone.

Four film shorts have now been made — all of which can be viewed on Youtube — the first ‘starring’ me and brilliant comedian and actor, Kiri Pritchard-McLean."

— "Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. This is why I’m laughing," Bill McGuire, CNN, December 15, 2023

Is the state taking away kids from parents who object to their child being transgender?

You may have heard a rumor: Governments everywhere are taking children away from their parents, because the kids say they want to change their gender, the parents object, and the government decides the parents are wrong and shouldn't have a say.

When we hear narratives like this, we should immediately challenge them and dig a little deeper. Imagine, for example, the child in the story is gay, and the state has removed the child from parents who don't approve of the child being gay. What details might we fill in to help ourselves understand what's going on? We might guess that the parents are extremely homophobic and inflict severe punishments on the child, causing physical and psychological damage, to an extent that the state has to intervene. That seems plausible. It's one possibility. It would be an explanatory reason for the state's action. If we really wanted to know the answer, we'd ask: What was going on in that situation? We'd learn the relevant facts.

But for some reason, when the child is transgender — by which here, in this immediate context, I mean that the child has expressed a transgender or nonbinary identity, or that they commonly "crossdress," etc. — people are more likely to assume that the parents were having calm and reasonable conversations with their child, whose well-being they always supported, and that the state took the child away "for no reason" except to impose a postmodern queer agenda on faithful Christians.

When we hear a story in which the state got involved with the welfare of a trans child, the first thing we ought to remember is that the best interests of the child are what matter most. Every child is unique, and if we don't know this child nor anything about their family situation, we aren't equipped to know what's in this child's best interests. And so we might quell our curiosity and drop our inquiry there, as perhaps the family's situation is not our business.

But if we are inclined, we might look to see what details of the case are publicly available. Here's a court opinion, M.C. v. Ind. Dep't of Child Servs. (In re A.C.), dated October 21, 2022. The case summary says that the child had identified themselves as "a child in need of services (CHINS) pursuant to Indiana Code Section 31-34-1-6 (CHINS-6) because Child was substantially endangering Child's own health." The court goes on to review the facts: "on May 11, 2021, DCS received a report alleging that Mother was verbally and emotionally abusing then-sixteen-year-old Child by using rude and demeaning language toward Child regarding Child's transgender identity, and as a result, Child had thoughts of self-harm." Ten days later, "DCS received a second report alleging that the Parents were verbally and emotionally abusing Child because they do not accept Child's transgender identity, the abuse was getting worse, and the Parents were being mean to Child due to Child's transgender identity. A DCS family case manager (FCM) investigated these reports, met with the Parents, Child, and Child's siblings, and spoke by phone to a representative from Child's residential school." The investigator concluded that the child [emphasis mine]:

"had been suffering from an eating disorder for the past year but had yet to be evaluated by a medical professional; the Parents had withdrawn Child from school, and DCS was unaware of the family's intent to enroll Child in a new school for the upcoming school year; Child had been in therapy, but the Parents had discontinued it; Child did not feel mentally and/or emotionally safe in the home; Mother said things such as '[Child's preferred name] is the bitch that killed my son'; and Child 'would be more likely to have thoughts of self-harm and suicide if [Child] were to return to the family home due to mental and emotional abuse.'"

The mother was uncooperative with investigators and "refused to sign any consents so that DCS could verify any medical concerns or past therapy services."

Oh.

These are parents who are not getting their child the physical and mental healthcare they need and are not encouraging their child to attend high school.

Yes, a Christian magazine leads an article by describing the child as "trans-identified," the parents as "devout Christians," the core issue as "disagreements over their child’s gender identity," and the detail as "the parents’ refusal to use their son's self-declared female name and pronouns after he decided to start identifying as a girl." That framing is sympathetic to the parents, and the information is incomplete.

The Christian Post does note: "The case has also inspired legislation in Indiana, with House Bill 1407 aiming to prevent courts from removing trans-identified children from parents who refuse gender-affirming care. However, the bill did not pass."

Trans kids are not only trans. They are unique individuals who might also have common healthcare problems like eating disorders. They are human beings who deserve to be cared for; they have a right to be taken to doctors and psychotherapists. When there is an issue involving a trans kid, the issue might also involve some other thing. It might be a complicated or private thing.

(By the way, this is why it's harmful to treat "trans" as a synonym for "fake," as Peter Boghossian explicitly does. When trans kids are assumed to be fakers and liars or to be deluded, it predisposes adults not to trust them on other issues that affect their lives.

Were this an issue between divorcing or separated parents, they could write their values in a parenting plan, and they might go to trial if they couldn't reach agreement.

However, people who are not involved in that child's life or court case are not people who are positioned to make a decision about that child's life.

In this case, it appears that the parents have the time and energy to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, yet they originally couldn't find the resources to take their anorexic child to the doctor. So, yes, there is a dispute that goes beyond the parents not wanting to call their child by the child's preferred name and pronouns, and someone will examine the facts and make a decision about what's right for this teenager.

At this time, the parents seem to have updated their thinking:

"...the parents say they’re willing to treat the eating disorder, just not affirm the child’s trans identity. The court said ... sending this particular child back while the conflict over gender is ongoing would risk a relapse of her eating disorder..." — Evan Urquhart, Assigned Media

(Incidentally, this kid is approximately right now a legal adult and will soon begin making decisions for themselves.)

So, yes, in this case, the parents object to their kid being transgender and the state took the kid away. But that is not a full and accurate characterization of the story. Here, the word "and" is not "therefore." The parents' values about gender may have contributed to the outcome, but it was not the full reason. This characterization is so incomplete that it's misleading.

The parents are acting as if the eating disorder is entirely separate from the gender identity, and the court is saying: Look, it's the same kid. The same kid is happy or unhappy, eating or not eating, having her gender or having the gender someone else wants her to have. For her, the issues do not separate, and the family history is complicated.

If you hear a rumor that a parent refused to change their child's pronouns, and the state took the child away, please question that narrative. It is likely not the whole story. Just like any other kid, a trans kid is a full human being with complex family relationships and narratives. There is no need for strangers to simplify a trans kid's story by concluding that the parents are being persecuted by the state simply for being "devout Christians."

I am asking everyone to please reduce your anxiety over the idea of trans kids. Thank you.

Also in Indiana

Hemant Mehta tells us on December 22, 2023: "Months after courageously announcing that transgender women would be considered for admission beginning next fall, Saint Mary’s College, an all-women’s Catholic school in Indiana, has reversed course..."

Indiana Republicans want to re-write the law to eliminate the word “gender”, LGBTQ Nation, January 17, 2024

Read more

"You can find ten versions of 'Christian parents fight for custody of children because they refuse sex change' and its an abusive father in a custody battle with his ex-wife because she refuses to lock their kid in a basement."
Gillian Branstetter, Bluesky, October 27, 2024

Father Knows Best: Divorce, fascism, and transgender children, Gillian Branstetter, The Autonomy, Mar 10, 2024

About the kid who was taken from the US to Cuba

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Them (@them)

saying trans minors can't consent to trans healthcare or understand that they're trans is the same logic that's used when adults dismiss allegations of abuse from kids and yet they want to say we're the child abusers for supporting children's autonomy

— isaac 🌻 (@androgynyfiend.bsky.social) May 20, 2026 at 9:39 PM

Trans people have trans community even if Rich Lowry says we don't

Trans people have always formed community

This is true in the US, for example:

"...a few well-heeled trans women and drag queens began the first American trans periodicals, establishing new platforms of community news, art, and inevitably, gossip. Pharmacologist Virginia Prince started widely distributing her underground journal Transvestia in 1960 (under her own publishing banner “Chevalier Productions,” named for the famous French spy Chevalier d’Éon), and in 1963, Siobhan Fredericks began Turnabout: A Journal of Transvestism. Prominent drag queen Lee Brewster, the owner of “Lee’s Mardi Gras Boutique” in Greenwich Village and sometime STAR collaborator, followed suit in 1971 with the debut of Drag magazine. In 1978, publisher Merissa Sherrill Lynn introduced TV/TS Tapestry, which was eventually renamed Transgender Tapestry and managed to last until 2006."
— This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet, Samantha Riedel, them, November 22, 2023

It's true in many cultures, across space and time.

You can literally make long-running periodicals documenting your community's existence, and transphobes still won't believe that you exist.

Rich Lowry says there isn't any such community

On April 2, 2023, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, published a short opinion in the magazine, headlined: "There Is No Trans Community." (The link goes to an archived version of the article on archive.ph.)

This is typically incoherent queerphobia. The most charitable version of Lowry's argument that I can come up with is:

A community is "a discrete set of people, often living in close proximity, who share common practices, values, and norms." In other words, neighbors. "Your neighborhood is a community, your church is a community, and your pickleball league is a community." So you can refer to an "Italian-immigrant community" in "North Beach in San Francisco."

Whereas LGBTQ people, he says, have diverse experiences and identities and are "spread out across the entirety of the country."

So he's saying there's no gay community either. Great, tell him thanks for his opinion.

I think I see traces of that idea here:

"It was not a crisis of one form of organizing societies, but of all forms. The strange calls for an otherwise unidentified 'civil society', for 'community' were the voice of lost and drifting generations. They were heard in an age when such words, having lost their traditional meanings, became vapid phrases. There was no other way left to define group identity, except by defining the outsiders who were not in it."
— Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century (1914–1991), London: Abacus, 1994. "The Century: A Bird's Eye View" [an introduction], p. 11.

But, the thing is, the fact that queer people are everywhere doesn't mean we don't form communities in the places where we are and also across long distances using this tool called the internet.

(I don't link to Twitter anymore, but here's a link to her YouTube, her writing on genderanalysis.net, and her writing on Medium.)

Zinnia's Twitter thread continues:

"That was another way of designating a minority group as inherently lacking in whatever human traits are necessary for us to participate in the universal phenomenon of lasting, lifelong commitments to one another Not only are we a community, we are a force. Just by existing, we are a threat to their plans.

We are a power. The transgender community is a fact. And all that Rich Lowry can do is close his eyes and make a wish that will never come true."

We make a come-truable wish — and that means we put in the work, financially and philosophically.

SPLC's CAPTAIN report against 'anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience'

Samantha Riedel in Them informs us:

"In a sweeping new report, researchers at the Southern Poverty Law Center say they have identified a network of more than 60 organizations pushing anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation, as well as 100 of their most common sources of “junk” science.

SPLC published the report, titled Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives (CAPTAIN), on Tuesday this week. The anti-hate watchdog group said the CAPTAIN report is intended to document an extensive network of right-wing propaganda and pseudoscience, all of which is aimed at rolling back the clock for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. and abroad."

The CAPTAIN report is in six sections.

Anti-trans groups include:

• 4thWaveNow
• Women’s Liberation Front
• Transgender Trend
• American College of Pediatricians
• Transition Justice Project

More:

"The report especially highlights harmful work from the Heritage Foundation, a decades-old anti-LGBTQ+ group that veered sharply into trans issues (and voter suppression) after losing the battle against gay marriage. In 2017, SPLC first broke the news that Heritage Foundation leaders had chosen trans rights as a 'wedge issue' through which they could weaken the broader LGBTQ+ rights movement by 'separating the T from the LGB.' The CAPTAIN report especially raises the alarm about one of Heritage’s latest projects: Project 2025, a 900-page plan for Republican governance after the 2024 U.S. elections which involves reshaping the federal government and enacting sweeping regressive legislation. SPLC called Project 2025 'a significant node in the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network' that needs to be monitored over the next year."

Also: "The CAPTAIN report also references the trove of anti-trans emails obtained by Mother Jones earlier this year, which exposed coordinated efforts between Republican politicians and far-right lobbyists to push anti-trans laws."

Please read the article

"A New Report Exposes the Network of Extremist Groups Behind the Anti-Trans PR Machine: Researchers stressed that anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation is part of a larger reactionary conservative movement. Samantha Riedel, them, December 15, 2023

Caitlyn Jenner's words will prevent other trans women from having the same opportunity to transition

Caitlyn Jenner won Olympic gold competing against men in 1976. Four decades later, shortly after coming out publicly as a transgender woman, she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015 to reveal her new image.

She said she voted for Trump in 2016. She ran as a Republican for governor of California in the 2021 recall election (she did not win). She remains a Republican. And she's absorbed the Republican line on transphobia.

'Different'

‘I think I’m different from trans people’ was her headline quote in a Sunday Times (UK) interview (Polly Vernon, October 4, 2023).

John Cleese

She was recently interviewed by John Cleese, who signed a letter in transphobic solidarity with J.K. Rowling in September 2020. Two months after he signed the letter, a Twitter user asked him to "be upfront" about his "thoughts on JKR's position on trans folks," and he replied: "I’m afraid I’m not that interested in trans folks." (Despite having signed a letter against the inclusion of trans folks?) Another Twitter user asked more directly: “Why the fuck can’t you just let people be who they want to be?” and Cleese replied: “Deep down, I want to be a Cambodian police woman. Is that allowed, or am I being unrealistic?” A third commenter observed Cleese’s “superficial understanding,” to which Cleese replied that a trans woman in sports "has an advantage, because she inherited a man’s body, which is usually bigger and stronger than a woman’s. Does that prove phobia?” (A problem here is that he's more concerned with his own image, i.e., whether people view him as a transphobe, and not so much about trans people, since by his own admission he's "not that interested in trans folks," and one solution here would simply be to stop talking about the trans people in whom he's uninterested and about whom he's non-phobic, yet he doesn't take the easy way out? He has to keep running his mouth?)

The Cleese–Jenner interview aired on the U.K. TV show The Dinosaur Hour. It was uploaded to YouTube on December 10, 2023 by GBNews.

I watched a 9-minute clip on YouTube.

Cleese says: "Tell me, are there other aspects of 'woke' that you have sympathy for?"
[A taxidermied weasel on the coffee table, silently bares its teeth.]
"Sympathy?" Jenner responds, puzzled. She raises her eyes toward heaven.
"The fairness end," Cleese clarifies.
There's a long pause, so the camera cuts to a cat napping on an armchair.
"Welp, I'm for fairness," she says, hemming and hawing. "Number one."
"But I don't think — I just think the woke movement has just gone too far!"
"Yeah."
"OK. I can be fair and not be woke."
"Yes, I agree," Cleese says.
"I can be a caring person and not be woke, you know?"

She says she had a personal conversation with God before she transitioned: "I just got the feeling that he — It was like, it’s OK. You know, you can do this. You know, you can live your life authentically. I felt like He said yes."

She acknowledged that her traits, as a Republican and a conservative, are “not on the normal side of what trans people are. You know, they [trans people], they’re all kind of ‘woker’ than I am.”

She says she hasn't gone in a men's bathroom in eight years, and she reports that the women's rooms are much nicer. Cleese laughs congenially: "You're part of the few people who would know that."

She says: “I support President Trump. He did phenomenal things for our country in the four years he was there.”

She then says “I know so many trans people that are just wonderful human beings — hardworking, great. … It is this small percentage that are out there speaking into a microphone—“

She is of course speaking into a literal microphone on a TV show, saying that trans people who have a platform to speak are the opposite of “hardworking” and “wonderful human beings.”

Cleese interrupts to ask: “Why do they have so much effect on the people who don’t really like their policies, the other trans people?” He assumes that the majority of trans people to which Jenner referred (the wonderful, hardworking ones who don’t speak into microphones) must disagree with whatever “policies” are proposed by a small percentage of trans people who do have their voices heard publicly.

Jenner says she believes that trans people who use social media are just trying to become famous. “I didn’t start off wanting to be a celebrity in this thing,” she says. “I had no choice, OK? I was already a very big celebrity.” Ah, so that’s her explanation. She gives herself permission to use her fame to speak because she didn’t originally become famous for being a trans person — even though her current burst of fame over the past eight years, and the reason she has this particular interview right now with John Cleese, is indeed because she transitioned. She also doesn't consider the obvious truth that famous people can and do seek more fame throughout their lives, just as rich people can and do seek more money throughout their lives. Pointing out that she was already famous to begin with just doesn't prove that she wasn't seeking fame when she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair or when she sat for this interview with John Cleese, nor does the fact that most trans people aren't famous prove that all of us are seeking fame every time we go on social media.

Jenner begins to say “In my family—“ and Cleese cuts her off, saying: “I’m interested in the fact that they don’t really want to debate the subject.” Jenner tries to answer: “Because my views are different than theirs.” Cleese clarifies that he doesn’t mean that other trans people don’t want to debate Jenner specifically. “I’m saying in general, they want— in general they don’t want to debate or discuss it, because for some reason they regard that [debate] as unnecessary.” Jenner agrees: “They think it’s their way or they highway.”

Jenner mentions Riley Gaines: “I’m a big supporter, she’s a good friend and has done wonderful work.” She says that trans women make themselves look “selfish” when they say that trans women should play in women’s sports. She uses herself as an example, saying she’s refrained from joining the women’s golf club because “I can out-drive them by 100 yards. I haven’t been on testosterone in eight years, and I can still hit the ball 280 yards, OK?” But please look at this situation: Jenner, over 6 feet tall, was an Olympic athlete. She did the Decathlon. Of course she can beat the ladies at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousands Oaks. She can probably beat the gentlemen too. Probably none of them have a background as athletes in elite competition as Jenner does. Perhaps she’s making the point that Olympic athletes shouldn’t play at Hollywood golf clubs just to make a big show of beating the celebrities, but she hasn’t made the point that this is gender-specific.

Then, she explains that she’s changed her name and gender marker on all her IDs, and that she only uses the women’s room and has “never had a problem” and is “respectful of the other women.” (The cat begins drinking from her water glass, next to the taxidermied weasel.)

She says: “So I live my life as a woman, but I’m not — I don’t consider myself this, like, ‘I am a woman now,’ and on and on. No. I consider myself a trans person.”

I would like to point out that Caitlyn Jenner got everything she wanted in her transition — her name change, her gender-marker change, the opportunity to have long hair and wear makeup and women's clothes, widespread recognition of herself as a woman such that she is generally called "she," welcomed in women's bathrooms, and invited to join the women's golf team at her fancy club. She's even invited to be on TV in conversation about her gender with John Cleese, a man who is disrespectful to trans people, with extant tweets (i.e., he hasn't deleted them yet) saying that he's "not that interested in trans folks," that trans people have "unrealistic" expectations about their transitions, and that because a man's body is "usually" (emphasis mine) stronger than a woman's, therefore all trans women have "an advantage" in sports against all cis women, and that no one can demonstrate that he's transphobic as long as he gives something that has the appearance of being a reason for his attitude. Again, Jenner transitioned successfully and has the life she wants. She is trying to take those opportunities away from other trans people. When she says trans women aren't women, she's one more voice chipping away at trans women's opportunities to change their gender markers on their IDs and live in their genders. J.K. Rowling would not endorse her having the life she has. She is enabling John Cleese to feel good about himself, while he simultaneously supports hardline Rowling policies that try to suppress trans people from having their genders in the most fundamental way.

In this Dec 13, 2023 article by Trudy Ring in the Advocate, the Cleese interview is discussed.

Sad

More context

The Advocate gives the context that Jenner "founded the Fairness First PAC" to oppose trans women's participation in women's sports, and she is "friends with Riley Gaines," a young person who is now a Fox personality complaining about diversity.

The Advocate explains:

"The Biden administration has proposed a rule that would term categorical bans on trans inclusion in school sports a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. Jenner claimed that if the rule becomes final, it would 'kill women's sports,' and she alleged that the effort is backed by George Soros, a liberal philanthropist who is a favorite target of right-wingers."

October 2024, LGBTQ Nation:

"Sophia Hutchins is the young transgender manager of right-wing trans conservative Caitlyn Jenner. Hutchins has distanced herself from the broader LGBTQ+ community, describing herself as a proud Roman Catholic and MAGA conservative.

Hutchins has worked for the transphobic right-wing media outlet Fox News and is a board member of the Log Cabin Republicans, a self-proclaimed group for LGBTQ+ conservatives that actively opposes transgender civil rights."

Hutchins died in an accident in the summer of 2025.

Caitlyn Jenner Slammed After Asking Trump To Fix Her Passport Gender: ‘This Is A Safety Factor’: “Even to vote, now, you need proper identification — and I don’t have that,” she said. Pocharapon Neammanee, HuffPost, Apr 18, 2026

When people cite Rowling, Shrier, and Walsh and curse the 'evils of the trans movement,' they're transphobic

On November 22, Katya — a drag queen, you can buy her book — tweeted "FREE PALESTINE" (context: the war following October 7). Someone responded 40 minutes later: "You should visit Gaza, I am sure they are going to like you over there. All chopped parts of you." Katya replied 13 minutes later saying that this wasn't relevant, since queer people are murdered everywhere, and while we're at it, she'd like not to be murdered in Massachusetts for being queer.

Talking back to an annoying internet troll to defend one's dignity is a valid choice, and not wanting to be murdered for being queer seems a reasonable position.

Two days later, Michael Broukhim complained about "posts like the one below" (i.e., Katya's) which, according to him, is one example of how "the trans movement" manipulates language, in this case (so he says) to imply that there are no meaningful differences between Gaza and Massachusetts. Which is reading a lot into Katya's tweet, and I don't believe that's what she was saying. She was saying that queer people are under attack everywhere, so pointing out that a nation is homophobic or transphobic is not a very good reason for her not to have solidarity with their political goal of freedom. She was responding briefly to a person who aggressively said that Gazans would turn her into "chopped parts," and who was using that claim as a reason to say she couldn't have her political opinion. That person didn't really deserve a reply at all. Broukim, in attacking Katya, chose to turn his ire at a drag queen who was rolling her eyes at a jerk making annoying murdersome comments at her.

I say he attacked her because he used the word "evil" three times in his tweet.

Who are Rowling, Shrier, and Matt Walsh?

So glad you asked. See my articles:

— "On the 3rd Anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s Pledge for Trans Rights" It's a 6-min read on Medium.

— "Books Like This Cause Irreversible Damage". It's a 42-minute read on Medium.

— What I wrote about Matt Walsh on this blog.

People who cite Rowling, Shrier, and Walsh — that's Michael Broukhim — are the sort of people who refer to trans people as "evil" three times in a single tweet — also Michael Broukhim. Calling trans people evil is called transphobia.

Anyhow, I hadn't heard of Michael Broukhim until I heard that he was co-CEO of FabFitFun and was siding with Elon Musk. Elon Musk is also obscenely, powerfully transphobic. That's that.

---

Regarding who's blurring biological and scientific truths:

"Ted Cruz joined that push [to distance the term abortion from the procedures that many people sympathize with] on his podcast last week [in 2022], insisting that television host Chrissy Teigen was mistaken about her experience when she revealed that she’d had an abortion in 2020 to treat a pregnancy that had led to a partial placental abruption, a life-threatening complication. Cruz explained that he didn’t see her personal medical experience the way Teigen did: “She may want to characterize it as abortion in this political context, but she described it at the time as a miscarriage, and it certainly sounds like that was an accurate description,” Cruz said on the show."

He also told host Liz Wheeler, “If there’s a medical procedure in that context, it’s not an abortion.”

That might feel true to Cruz based on the vibes, but according to medical professionals, the context of the procedure doesn’t change what the procedure is called.

— The Effort to Redefine Abortion Goes Beyond Ted Cruz, Dan Solomon, Texas Monthly, September 27, 2022

Bill Maher is one of the transphobes:

"Recently Abigail Shrier was on Real Time with Bill Maher and she said JK Rowling is a crucial ally to gender critical feminism and a big source of recruitment in UK politics."
— "The Labour Party is Willing to Meet With JK Rowling?: So apparently both parties in Britain hate trans people," ElizaBeth, Medium, Jun 25, 2024

I think it's important to understand that the rhetoric around transmasculine people re. irreversible damage etc. is less of actual sympathy or concern for the trans person themselves, and more addressed to the Patriarch: "Look at what transgender ideology is doing to Your Property".

— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 5:24 AM

This is also why I would be slightly critical of the notion that transmasculine people are treated as "victims" of transness. Can your stolen iPhone be a "victim"?

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— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:05 AM

Victim as a term accurately implies the lack of agency and the anger over what has happened, but I think overestimates the actual sympathy for the trans person involved.

— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:08 AM

To be fair, they're donning a pretense of feminism and a veneer of left-wing cosplay, attributing the desire to transition to societal misogyny. In that sense I'd say they play-act at considering transmasculine people victims to make their regendering appear more palatable than it is.

— Talia Bhatt, Third-Sexed Transfeminist ♀︎♀︎♀︎♀︎♀︎ (@enkiducoin.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:45 AM

Because transphobes see trans men as women, and they are massive misogynists, it’s not us but our families who are seen as victims. Like women who had children out of wedlock, we are treated as damaged goods, worthless to our parents or future husbands.

— Ziedrich Pengels (@thebigzeo.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 7:49 AM

Real transphobes pretend to care about us to attract the concerned liberals, but once you get them talking and they start ranting about the waste of our “healthy breasts” or the need to remove our medical autonomy over the age of 18, it becomes abundantly clear they don’t actually care about us.

— Ziedrich Pengels (@thebigzeo.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 7:52 AM

Ted Cruz Chokes While Ranting About 'Sex Change Surgeries In Guatemala' On Fox News: The conservative senator was so riled up while cartoonishly ranting on "Hannity" that he nearly delivered a spit-take while seemingly choking on his own water. Marco Margaritoff, HuffPost, Feb 26, 2025

Shrier talks to Bill Maher (see the screenshot of the social media post dated June 8, 2024 (Shelley B. Woke, Medium)