This is a list of ordinary UK gender-critical campaigners who have been maliciously reported for their legitimate views by transactivists to their employer or other organisation. This ‘doxxing’ is a project of concerted malicious in-depth detective work carried out with the sole aim of deliberately spreading lies in order to discredit the victims and to stifle debate. It is classifiable as a witch-hunt under the terms of Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) in that the accusations arise quickly, are seen as crimes against the collective, charges are often trivial or fabricated, and (Bergsen’s addition) there is a fear of defending the accused.
No one listed here has ever spoken a word against trans people for being trans; all believe trans people need proper civil rights and protections. All have been contacted personally and consented to being included, though some have withheld their names out of fear for their families. They critique the transitioning process, its long-term effects on mental and physical health, the lack of scientific studies showing its long-term effectiveness and the promotion of it to vulnerable people as a solution to their mental health problems. They critique the malicious spreading of lies about them and the failure of organisations to deal with them fairly. They critique violence, threats of violence, name-calling and the closing down of debate by transactivists.
Importantly, it is almost exclusively women who are being attacked in this way, which makes it a sexist, misogynistic initiative. Organisations should therefore take particular care before accepting these doxxings at face value.
For background on processes contributing to an environment of safetyism and over-protection of students from over-estimated potential harms, see Lukianoff and Haidt, which covers reactionary student protests in US universities leading to dismissals, doxxing and violent protest there, transactivist tactics now copied here in UK.
In addition to the people listed below, reputable academics such as Prof Sheila Jeffreys and Germaine Greer, and innovative feminist journalists like Julie Bindel, stalwart media figures like Dame Jenni Murray have been repeatedly no-platformed, harassed and doxxed by protectionist and faux-protest groups.
The ordinary women and one man listed below have been doxxed, reported and witch-hunted from a variety of professional areas, with the aim of intimidating them and others into silence about the very real harms of transgendering vulnerable people. There are dozens of others in the US and UK. Some have successfully warded off the challenge, and we hope that this document will help others – maybe including you – to do the same.
See also OBJECT’s Guidance on what to do if you are ‘doxxed’.
1. VENICE ALLAN
Venice Allan was repeatedly reported for transphobic views after she organised a series of public meetings in cities around the UK entitled ‘We Need To Talk about the GRA’ (Gender Recognition Act) starting in 2016. Her employers stood by her. Venice was also asked to leave a Labour Party Xmas party because it was said she had made trans person Liam/Lily Madigan feel uncomfortable. A full transcript of the ridiculous charges levelled against her by the Labour Party can be found here
2. DR HEATHER BRUNSKELL-EVANS
Dr Brunskell-Evans, an academic, was duly elected at the Women’s Equality Party conference to the voluntary post of Violence Against Women Advocate. After Dr Brunskell-Evans stated on Radio 4’s ‘The Moral Maze’ that she believed transgendering children was a form of child abuse, there was a media outcry. The WEP went through her every contribution on social media and took her through its disciplinary procedure before removing her from her role. Dr Brunskell-Evans defence can be found here
3. DR JULIA LONG
Dr Long held an academic post at the University of East Anglia and was reported for ‘transphobic views’ by her colleagues several times during 2016-17. Each time she was investigated and completely cleared of any wrong-doing. Dr Long resigned from UEA earlier this year. The university were at pains to stress that she did so of her own free will and not under any cloud whatsoever as a result of her lawful gender- critical academic work and campaigning activities.
4. PAM BIRCUMSHAW
In January 2018 Pam’s employer and also her constituency Labour Party were sent copies of some gender critical Tweets she had made. Her local Labour branch were fairly sympathetic and took no action against her. At work, she had to go to a meeting about it with her manager and the trustees, but they were happy that she had never discriminated towards anyone in her line of work and it was dropped.
5. BRONWEN DAVIES
Bronwen Davies, a long-standing member of the Humanists UK and the Labour Party, was doxxed to the Labour Party which she has now left, along with many other gender critical women.
6. ANON
Ms Anon was involved in a creative protest group whose actions received widespread media coverage and highlighted the weakness of gender self-identification to a far wider audience than had previously been aware of it. Ms Anon has been subject to such strenuous harassment, abuse and doxxing that she cannot allow her name or the name of her group to be mentioned here, but you will have read about it. For example, her elderly mother was cold-called at home and asked for comments on Ms Anon’s activities and her home address was identifiable from material printed about her.
7. JANICE WILLIAMS
Janice Williams is Chair of OBJECT, the first and oldest feminist organisation to take a stand on the issue of transgender. Representing OBJECT, Janice (an occasional Funeral Celebrant working with Humanists UK) participated peacefully in the London Pride ‘Get the L Out’ protest in July 2018, acting non-violently in line with humanist principles of free speech, science, rationalism and standing up for oppressed minorities (in this case, lesbians). During the protest she was interviewed live by Pink News and gave gender-critical opinions. There followed a media pile-on where unsubstantiated, untrue and speculative statements were made about Janice, eg that she is transphobic, that she is unsuitable to be a funeral celebrant, and that she would mispronoun people at a funeral. There have never been any complaints about Janice’s work as a celebrant; she has received nothing but compliments for this work.
Humanists UK contacted Janice with a complaint against her because of her Pride action. It transpired that the complaint came from within Humanism UK and relied entirely on misleading and inaccurate reports of the Get the L Out Protest. She was not asked for her side of the story
After some delay and a counter-complaint by Janice that Humanists UK had not followed its own procedures, a Hearing was held and the complaint against her was not upheld.
8. NATALIE BIRD
Reported by The Times on 19th October 2018:
‘A victim of domestic abuse was removed as judge of a radical thinking prize and ‘’hounded’ out of her role within the Lib Dems for saying that she did not believe that men who identified as women should have access to women’s refuges.
The Times Leader of 19.10.18 also covered this topic: ‘Feminist gatherings have been protested and attacked. Academics have been harassed and ostracised. Times journalist Janice Turner, whose pioneering journalism has highlighted the implications of legal and social change, has been targeted with abuse.’
9. ANGELOS SOPHOKLEOUS
Angelos Sophokleous, the only male on this list, was a philosophy student at Durham University who held two voluntary editor posts on student magazines. In 2018 he was asked to stand down from them on account of his publicly stated gender critical views. Angelos asked the Student Union to conduct an independent assessment of the process he had been put through. The investigation concluded that proper procedures had not been used in determining his suspensions and ordered those publications to apologise to Angelos and to reinstate him.
10. MAYA FORSTATER
Reported by The Times on 5th May 2019
Maya Forstater worked at the think tank the Center for Global Development. When she started tweeting and writing about concerns about the negative impacts of gender self-ID on women and girls, she was told that this was “exclusionary” and “offensive”. Following internal complaints her tweets and writing were investigated and her appointment was not renewed. She is making a discrimination claim against her ex-employer. This will be an important test case on whether having ‘gender critical’ beliefs is protected under the Equality Act 2010. If this can be established it would help people who are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs, as well as those facing discrimination by political parties, membership organisations and service providers such as Facebook and Twitter.