Legal troubles for Denise Tree (aka Kiira Triea) expose more lies [2007]

Note: This post was originally published in 2007 about transgender troll and hoaxer Denise Magner. It is presented verbatim.

Denise Tree (aka Kiira Triea*) has a long history of lying to second-rate scholars who don’t independently confirm her many dubious statements before publishing them as fact. Tree is especially popular among a transphobic clique of academics that includes Simon LeVay, James Cantor, J. Michael Bailey, and Alice Dreger. They have published information provided by Tree in textbooks, papers, anthologies, and even coauthored with Tree in academic journals. Even respected journalist John Colapinto published Tree’s lies without confirming the facts independently.

Tree likes the attention, and these second-rate scholars want to believe what she says because it fits their ideologies. Tree’s latest effort has been to cast herself as a spokesperson for a “transkids” movement of teen transsexual girls. Tree claims that she herself transitioned from male to female at age 13 and had sex reassignment surgery in 1974 at age 14 from Howard W. Jones Jr. at Johns Hopkins.

Recent charges filed against Tree give further evidence that this already doubtful story is a fabrication.

Events leading to charges against Denise M. Tree

On June 22, 2005, Denise Michelle Tree was in her 1988 Jeep Cherokee XJ Limited at Amtrak Penn Station in Baltimore, where she was charged with driving on a suspended license, displaying expired plates, and failure to display registration on demand. Tree was fined a total of $90 (not including the costs of getting new licensing). Tree failed to appear at her September 26, 2005 court date. On September 7, 2007 court records have the notation “defendant committed” and that Tree was “released from commitment” that same day. According to Maryland DC/CR 13, this means Tree was taken into custody, booked, and released from commitment after posting a bond. Court notations indicate the amount was $5,000.00. On October 9, 2007 the judge set a December 10, 2007 trial date for Tree. Please contact me if you are in the Baltimore area and would like to attend the trial.

Denise Tree real date of birth exposed: currently 56 years old

Court records show that Denise Tree was born on September 2, 1951, making her 56 years old at the time of this posting. I have noted elsewhere that Triea has changed her birthdate many times over the years, eventually shaving over 13 years off her real age.

Tree has concocted a life story where at age 14 she was operated on without fully informed consent in 1974. Problem is, Tree was about 23 at that time. Hardly the waif-like “hermaphrodite” or “transkid” she often claims to be. In addition, she claims to have “tried living as a boy in my 20’s,” which would have occurred throughout the 1970s.

So, here we have someone two generations older than a current 14-year-old pretending to speak for them and with them based on personal experience, when in fact she’s just a 56-year-old online kook with a bad habit of lying. Tree is a poor man’s Laura Albert (creator of the JT LeRoy “transkid” hoax), as I have been saying for some time. Bailey’s “science” frequently relies on anecdotal evidence like Tree’s, or on anonymous claims that can’t be confirmed. Tree’s “transkids.us” site has several “contributors” whose specious claims can’t be verified, and Bailey wrote a transphobic cure narrative about a child only he knows, who was cured of “gender nonconformity” based on Bailey’s advice. Like Triea’s “evidence,” we have to take Bailey at his word that this child exists, since no one has independently confirmed it.

Now we have to take Bailey’s word that his coauthor Denise Tree/Kiira Triea is reliable, and not just another attention-craving eccentric seeking validation from a “respected authority.” Bailey has a pattern of exploiting eccentrics for personal gain, but in this case, the exploitation appears to be reciprocal. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t so pathetic. In fact, I’m not sure who is more pathetic, Tree or the hackademics like Bailey and Dreger locked in a masturbatory cycle of mutual exploitation with her.

Footnote on aliases

* Denise Tree began using aliases online in the 1990s, and her name evolved from Denise Michele (or Michelle) Tree to Kiira (or Kira) Denise Triea over a few years. She has also used the alias Arika Aeirt and appears to have employed several other online aliases (called “sockpuppets” in internet lingo). I plan to release a detailed report on Tree’s sockpuppets and associated personae in 2008.

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[note: this page was ported verbatim from tsroadmap.com and is presented for historical purposes. It may not reflect current views of the author or any people and organizations mentioned.]

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http://www.tsroadmap.com/notes/index.php/site/comments/legal_troubles_for_denise_tree_aka_kiira_triea_expose_more_lies/