Michael Knowles is an American writer and anti-transgender extremist.
Background
Michael John Knowles was born March 18, 1990 in Bedford Hills, New York. He grew up in a Catholic family. As a teen he trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. After he earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, he acted in Los Angeles.
He married Alissa Mahler in 2018 and has two children.
Anti-transgender activism
Knowles opposes marriage equality.
In 2019, Knowles gave a speech at the University of Missouri–Kansas City titled “Men Are Not Women,” which led to protests.
In February 2023, Knowles called for the elimination of the concept of being transgender, arguing that those who identify as transgender are “laboring a delusion, and we need to correct that delusion”. At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March, he further stated that “there can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism”, and that “for the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
Azeen Ghorayshi is an American writer and anti-transgender activist who has written about transgender healthcare for youth and other trans topics in several publications. Ghorayshi is a key historical figure in the oppression of trans and gender diverse youth.
Ghorayshi is the point person laundering anti-transgender extremism into the New York Times, similar to Times health reporters in the 1970s who helped get adult care shut down as “experimental.”
Ghorayshi believes that affirmative models of care for trans and gender diverse youth are an unfolding medical scandal, echoing Times colleagues and contributors in the late 1970s who helped set the trans rights movement back for 25 years. The real medical scandal is that trans and gender diverse youth have never been able to receive appropriate care, and Ghorayshi’s reporting is a major factor in making this care unavailable to hundreds of thousands of minors.
Each year, thousands of American cisgender youth receive gender-affirming treatments like surgeries for unwanted breast tissue, but Ghorayshi is focused exclusively on banning the same procedures for transgender youth.
Ghorayshi’s anti-trans views are colored by disease models of gender identity, particularly psychopathology models. Ghorayshi is a strong proponent of gatekeeping trans healthcare via psychology and psychiatry, especially for minors.
Background
Azeen M. Ghorayshi was born in October 1988 and earned an undergraduate degree in biology from University of California, Berkeley in 2010. While there, Ghorayshi interned in UC Berkeley’s notoriously conservative and transphobic psychology department and in the neurobiology department. Ghorayshi then earned a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London.
Ghorayshi began writing as an Editorial Fellow at Mother Jones, then worked at the weekly East Bay Express in the Bay Area. Ghorayshi freelanced from 2013 to 2015, placing stories in New Scientist, The Guardian, Newsweek, Wired UK, and other outlets.
Ghorayshi co-founded Method Quarterly, a publication about science with Christina Agapakis. Other personnel included:
Ellie Harmon (editor in 2014)
Rose Eveleth (editor – presence scrubbed from site)
Ghorayshi joined BuzzFeed in 2015 as a science reporter, rising to science editor prior to departing.
Ghorayshi joined the New York Times in 2021, brought in by former Buzzfeed colleague Virginia Hughes.
Shortly after expressing this love, Ghorayshi presented Dreger as a “liberal” academic instead of an inaugural member of the intellectual dark web, a gateway to the far right. In a “both sides” piece about trans healthcare for youth, Ghorayshi also presented transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey and geneticist Eric Vilain as objective or centrist scientists in the middle of the non-affirming coalition, and the transphobic American College of Pediatricians as “religious conservatives.” Ghorayshi also uncritically presented Jesse Singal’s false version of why Kenneth Zucker was fired (Zucker’s practices were outlawed in 2015 under Bill 77), and showcases Debra Soh’s claim that the affirmative model of care “reinforces outdated stereotypes.” Ghorayshi then cites a conservative Breitbart piece that quotes Zucker, summarizing their view that affirmative care is a dangerous new fad in parenting.
New York Times transgender articles
In the New York Times, Ghorayshi also published “cisgender person under siege” profiles featuring hospital CEO John Warner, surgeon Sidhbh Gallagher, and gender affirming healthcare critic Jamie Reed.
The Warner piece was about the closure of Genecis Children’s Medical Center in Dallas following abortion clinic protest tactics targeting practitioners and leaders. Ghorayshi had described Genecis in the 2016 BuzzFeed piece.
The Gallagher piece was favorably shared by many fascist, gender critical, and cis journalist accounts, including white nationalist Richard Spencer and Daily Wire writer Christina Buttons, as well as gender critical activists Katie Herzog, Jesse Singal, Kenneth Zucker, Cathy Brennan, Julia Mason, and Helen Lewis. It was also shared by a number of Ghorayshi’s current and former colleagues, including Virginia Hughes, Cliff Levy, Christina Jewett, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Ken Bensinger, Oliver Whang, Dan Saltzstein, Judy Rudin, Paul McLeod, Kadia Goba, Josh Barro, Ellie Hall, Derek Robertson, Alison Griffiths, Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, Tina S. Fondeles, Benjamin Goggin, Yeganeh Torbati, Steven Meiers, Jessica Garrison, Mark Yarm, Shannon Palus, Megan Twohey, and Michael Marshall.
“Low-quality evidence”
Ghorayshi wrote a piece about the American Academy of Pediatrics that prominently featured their critics, including anti-trans activist Julia Mason of the hate group Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Ghorayshi also parrots the “low-quality evidence” claim put forth by anti-trans activists, based on a scale devised by Gordon Guyatt. Federal judge Sarah E. Geraghty rejected these claims in a 2023 Georgia case where anti-trans activists Paul Hruz, Michael Laidlaw, and James Cantor testified against Yale University professor of pediatrics Meredithe McNamara:
The undisputed record shows that clinical medical decision-making, including in pediatric or adolescent medicine, often is not guided by evidence that would qualify as “high quality” on the scales used by Defendants’ experts. 30 (Doc. 70-1, McNamara Decl. ¶¶ 23–28; Tr. 74:11–75:1 (McNamara Testimony); Tr. 133:614 (Hruz Testimony).) In fact, the record shows that less than 15 percent of medical treatments are supported by “high-quality evidence,” or in other words that 85 percent of evidence that guides clinical care, across all areas of medicine, would be classified as “low-quality” under the scale used by Defendants’ experts. (Doc. 70-1, McNamara Decl. ¶ 25; Tr. 74:11–75:1.) Defendants do not refute Dr. McNamara’s testimony on this point, and indeed they “concede” that “low-quality” evidence “can be considered.” 31
Geraghty also noted the obvious biases of Hruz, Laidlaw and Cantor:
Defendants’ experts’ insistence on a very high threshold of evidence in the context of claims about hormone therapy’s safety and benefits, and on the other hand their tolerance of a much lower threshold of evidence for claims about its risks, the likelihood of desistance and/or regret, and their notions about the ideological bias of a medical establishment that largely disagrees with them. That is cause for some concern about the weight to be assigned to their views, although the Court does not doubt that those they express are genuinely held.
(“Dr. [Paul] Hruz fended and parried questions and generally testified as a deeply biased advocate, not as an expert sharing relevant evidence-based information and opinions. I do not credit his testimony.”); Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall, 603 F. Supp. 3d 1131, 1142–43 (M.D. Ala. 2022) (explaining that the court gave Dr. James Cantor’s “testimony regarding the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors very little weight”); C. P. by & through Pritchard v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, No. 3:20-CV-06145-RJB, 2022 WL 17092846, at *4 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 21, 2022) (noting that it was a “close question” as to whether Dr. Michael Laidlaw was qualified to testify about the medical necessity of gender-affirming care because he has treated only two patients with gender dysphoria and has done no original research on gender identity).
Ghorayshi also wrote an article centered on Jamie Reed, an activist who supports “a national moratorium on the medicalization of kids.” Reed is represented by anti-trans lawyer Vernadette Broyles, who has stated the transgender rights movement poses an “existential threat to our culture.”
Urquhart, Evan (September 3, 2023). “You Betrayed Us, Azeen”: A story on the allegations of former St. Louis gender clinic staffer Jamie Reed left parents who spoke with NYT reporter Azeen Ghorayshi crushed. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/you-betrayed-us-azeen-parents-of-trans-youth-reeling-after-speaking-to-the-nyt
Sapir Leor (August 25, 2023). A Slow Trek Back to Truth?City Journal https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-slow-trek-back-to-truth
Clark-Callender, Rebecca (August 11, 2023). How the Times Covers Trans Rights. On the Media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/what-we-missed-how-press-covers-trans-rights-on-the-media
Ghorayshi, Azeen (April 18, 2024). Scotland Pauses Gender Medications for Minors.New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/health/scotland-pauses-hormones-puberty-blockers-transgender.html
Ghorayshi, Azeen (September 26, 2022). More Trans Teens Are Choosing ‘Top Surgery.’New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transgender-teenagers.html
Ghorayshi, Azeen (April 20, 2022). When Texas Went After Transgender Care, Part 1. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/podcasts/the-daily/transgender-teenagers-clinic-texas.html
Ghorayshi, Azeen (November 2015). Conversations With Anne Fausto-Sterling.Method Quarterly http://www.methodquarterly.com/2015/11/conversations-with-anne-fausto-sterling/
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
James Damore is an American software engineer and conservative activist. Damore was fired from Google after writing a memo criticizing Google’s diversity policies, specifically about sex differences in cognitive ability.
Damore is considered part of the so-called intellectual dark web, a gateway to the far right. Damore was represented by anti-trans lawyer Harmeet Dhillon in subsequent legal matters. Damore was supported by many anti-trans activists and appeared on several shows connected to the alt-right.
Background
James Anthony Damore was born on April 24, 1989, in Romeoville, Illinois.
Damore earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois and a master’s degree form Harvard. Damore left the Harvard doctoral program in 2013 to work at Google. Damore was determined to be autistic as an adult.
In 2017, after attending a diversity training that solicited feedback, Damore wrote a memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” which asserted that due to sex differences, men are more suited to working in technology.
Activism
Damore gave interviews to numerous outlets, including many conservative and anti-trans people associated with the intellectual dark web:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author whose comments about transgender people have been criticized as transphobic.
Background
Adichie was born 15 September 1977 Enugu in Nigeria. Adichie’s seminal parent was a professor, and Adichie’s birth parent served as a college registrar. Their family is Catholic, and Adichie has five siblings.
Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria before coming to the US and enrolling at Drexel University before transferring to Eastern Connecticut State University, where Adichie earned a bachelor’s degree in 2001. Adichie then earned master’s degrees at both Yale and Johns Hopkins before winning a MacArthur Fellowship that took Adichie to Harvard.
Adichie began publishing work in 1997 and has since written many poems, short stories, and books that have earned a number of awards and prizes. Adichie gave a TED Talk in 2009 and a TEDx talk in 2012 that were well received.
Views on transgender issues
2017 comments
Although Adichie has criticized anti-LGBT laws in Nigeria, Adichie was accused of transphobia in 2017 when asked if trans women are women. Adichie said, “My feeling is trans women are trans women.”
Adichie later clarified on March 13:
Perhaps I should have said trans women are trans women and cis women are cis women and all are women. Except that ‘cis’ is not an organic part of my vocabulary. And would probably not be understood by a majority of people. Because saying ‘trans’ and ‘cis’ acknowledges that there is a distinction between women born female and women who transition, without elevating one or the other, which was my point. I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people.
2020 comments
In 2020, Adichie voiced support for J.K. Rowling after Rowling complained about the “new trans activism” that had labeled Rowling a TERF and a transphobe. After Adichie got criticism for calling Rowling’s piece “perfectly reasonable,” Adichie complained about “cancel culture” and “the American liberal orthodoxy.“
There’s a sense in which you aren’t allowed to learn and grow. Also forgiveness is out of the question. I find it so lacking in compassion. How much of our wonderfully complex human selves are we losing?
I think in America the worst kind of censorship is self-censorship, and it is something America is exporting to every part of the world. We have to be so careful: you said the wrong word you must be crucified immediately.
[…] The orthodoxy, the idea that you are supposed to mouth the words, it is so boring.In general, human beings are emotionally intelligent enough to know when something is coming from a bad place.
2022 comments
In 2022, Adichie expanded on these views about “this whole trans thing” in The Guardian:
This is the driving logic of her fear for free speech: that she can’t say biological sex is inalienable without sparking a storm. “So somebody who looks like my brother – he says, ‘I’m a woman’, and walks into the women’s bathroom, and a woman goes, ‘You’re not supposed to be here’, and she’s transphobic?”
When the interview countered that if her sibling really were trans, “You’d probably think treating him with dignity and respect was more important than where he went to the toilet?”
[Adichie] “But why is that?” she asks. “Why can’t they be equal parts of the conversation?”
[reporter] “Maybe because dignity is more important?”
[Adichie] “Not if you consider women’s views to be valid. This is what baffles me. Are there no such things as objective truth and facts?”
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Clarifying. Facebook Archived from the original on 26 February 2022.
Flood, Alison (16 June 2021). ‘It is obscene’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pens blistering essay against social media sanctimony. The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2021. we have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow. I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.
Choire Sicha is an American writer and anti-transgender activist.
While running the New York Times Style section, Sicha claimed, “We will aggressively cover politics, gender, sexuality, health, crime, shoes and contouring,” but the only notable gender coverage was a piece by John McDermott sympathetically profiling numerous anti-transgender public figures.
Background
Choire Arthur Sicha was born November 19, 1971 and grew up in Southern California, according to self-reports.
Parent Jeffrey Sicha (born 1940) is a Rhodes Scholar and philosopher who currently lives in Atascadero, California with Sadie Kendall, creator of Kendall Farms Crème Fraîche. The elder Sicha occasionally publishes philosophical texts. Sicha’s other birth parent is often mythologized in various origin stories and appears to have been the primary caregiver. Sicha graduated from Evanston Township High School in Illinois in 1989.
From 1991 to 1997, Sicha did HIV/AIDS activism at organizations including Larkin Street Youth Services, People with AIDS Coalition, HIV Law Project, and Visual AIDS. From 1997 to 2003 Sicha was director of Manhattan art gallery Debs & Co. During that time Sicha reportedly shared a “shitty East Village rabbit warren with Dale Peck” and was a key figure in developing “blog voice,” the snarky Gen X tone that further metastasized into millennial Twitter and Tumblr voice.
On October 22, 2011, Sicha married commercial real estate executive David Michael Valdez. They spend much of their time in the Hudson Valley north of New York City.
Gawker
Nick Denton founded Gawker in 2002 and appointed Elizabeth Spiers editor. When Spiers left, Sicha served as editor for a year before Jessica Coen replaced Sicha in August 2004. While Sicha was editing at Jared Kushner’s New York Observer from 2005 to 2007, then writing for Radar, the Gawker feature “Gawker Stalker” became more and more invasive. Sicha returned to Gawker and continued ramping it up:
Gawker had always sold itself as mean but it now became, actually, very mean. Sicha, who liked to pretend to be a news organization, had sent “correspondents” and “interns” to official media events. Coen found more of them, and she sent them not only to launches and readings but also to private parties, where they took embarrassing party photos. This was the important development: the decision to treat every subject, known or unknown, in public or private situations, with the fascinated ill will that tabloid magazines have for their subjects. Spiers had invented the best-known element of Gawker, “Gawker Stalker,” which compiled reports of celebrity encounters. Really this had started as a support group for Condé Nast assistants, who wrote in to say what it felt like to see Anna Wintour in person and, also, what she was wearing. As the feature expanded, under Spiers and Sicha, it remained a record of that nice New York moment: seeing a Hollywood face. During Coen’s tenure, Gawker Stalker morphed from a list, to a list with photographs, to an interactive map that tracked its subjects through Manhattan with unnerving immediacy.
Sicha later called Gawker Stalker “the bane of my existence.”
Libertarian anti-trans activist Nick Gillespie named Sicha one of the “50 Most Loathsome NYers.”
When Spiers left, […] she handed the reins to Choire Sicha (yes, folks, that’s pronounced “Cory”, and yes, it’s a dude) who turned Gawker into an unreadable circle-jerk for the cream of New York City’s wannabe media asshole crop. To read Gawker now is no longer an enjoyable five minutes in the morning; it’s stumbling into a horrifying online cocktail party hosted by a humorless, obnoxious prick and attended by his even less interesting obnoxious prick friends.
The Awl and 2013 book
Sicha co-founded The Awl with David Cho and Alex Balk in 2009 and edited there until taking the Style section job at the New York Times. The Awl folded in 2018.
Sicha authored the 2013 book Very Recent History.
2019 New York Times piece
Sicha claimed on many occasions that gender would be covered at the Times:
“[The] Style desk covers change, it covers generational change, it covers change in how we talk about gender, it covers young people. It covers technology, and it covers love, marriage and how we look. Those are all things that are incredibly fraught at this time, and they’re supposed to upset people.”
Gender was conspicuously absent from subsequent coverage, with one notable exception. Sicha greenlit and published John McDermott’s 2019 puff piece about gender critical media figures. Sicha and McDermott interviewed zero trans people or media watchdogs critical of these bigots.
Conspicuously absent from the Times piece are quotes and stories from the people who have been deemed—both by the canceled and their chroniclers—supporting players in the culture war debate: the trans individuals the canceled have concerned themselves with, and whose lives and health are at stake.
People Sicha and McDermott profiled sympathetically include:
Katie Herzog: “Herzog became a member of a unique emerging class of people — journalists, academics, opinion writers — canceled for bad, conservative or offensive opinions.”
Jesse Singal “Mr. Singal has written frequently on trans people in ways that have upset vocal members of that community. His stature has only grown, including on Twitter, where he mocks woke culture and identity politics. He is one of many who simultaneously talk about their cancellation experience while also noting that they also haven’t really been canceled.”
Sicha has had a relationship with Vox Media starting in 2016, returning to their property New York after the stint at the New York Times. Sicha profiled Daniel and Grace Lavery and their partner, Lily Woodruff in 2024.
Sicha has wisely deleted almost all tweets interacting with anti-trans media figures. Those have been left out for now as a courtesy. In 2024, Sicha scrubbed the account, noting for a time “find me on other less transphobic platforms.”
Chafin, Chris (June 3, 2014). The Awl and the rise of downtown Brooklyn. Brooklyn Magazine http://www.bkmag.com/2014/06/03/the-awl-and-the-rise-of-downtown-brooklyn/
Gregory, Alice (August 13, 2013). Choire Sicha, the anti-blogger. The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/choire-sicha-the-anti-blogger
Gender Wars are a set of “gender critical” playing cards depicting people involved in activism around gender identity and expression. Black suites (clubs and spades) depict people who annoy or offend gender critical activists. Red suites (diamonds and hearts) depict gender critical activists and their supporters.
Background
The cards were created in 2023 by Heterodorx podcasters Nina Paley and Corinna Cohn and illustrated by Paley. Paley offered the cards via pre-payment because a previous crowdfunding campaign for Paley’s Agents of H.A.G. comic was cancelled for violating Indiegogo’s terms of service.
Jennifer Pritzker is an American investor and philanthropist who focuses on military causes. Pritzker is the first out transgender billionaire.
Background
Jennifer Natalya Pritzker was born on August 13, 1950 in Chicago, Illinois. Pritzker has two siblings and two half-siblings. Pritzker’s family founded the Hyatt hotel chain and controlled a diversified holding company that was sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2013. In 2023 the family’s net worth was estimated at about $37 billion, with Jennifer Pritker’s share around $2 billion.
At age 23, Pritzker enlisted in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant. Pritzker earned a bachelor’s degree in 1979 from Loyola University of Chicago, then returned to the Army to serve as a commissioned officer until 1985. Pritzker then served in the Army Reserves and Illinois Army National Guard until 2001 rising to rank of lieutenant colonel.
In 1995, Pritzker founded the nonprofit Tawani Foundation. In 1996 Pritzker founded wealth management firm Tawani Enterprises. In 2003 Pritzker founded the Pritzker Military Library. Pritzker is involved in a number of private equity and national security ventures.
Pritzker has been married three times and has three children. Pritzker came out as transgender in 2013.
Transgender philanthropy
In 2003, the Tawani Foundation made a $1.35 million donation to the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to study the feasibility of transgender people serving in the military and in the ranks of police and fire departments.
In 2016, through Tawani Foundation, Pritzker gave a $2 million donation to create the world’s first endowed academic chair of transgender studies, at the University of Victoria in British Columbia; Aaron Devor was chosen as the inaugural chair.
Pritzker was a major Republican donor until the party began sustained legislative attacks on transgender people un Donald Trump.
Some anti-transgender activists, including Rick Wiles, Jennifer Bilek, and Helen Joyce, have concocted a conspiracy theory that a cabal of Jewish billionaires including Pritzker are behind the transgender movement.
Butler, Jack (June 28, 2022). The Money behind the Transgender Movement.National Review https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-money-behind-the-transgender-movement/
Leveille, Lee (July 5, 2021). The Mechanisms of TAnon: Where it Came From. Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2021/07/05/the-mechanisms-of-tanon-where-it-came-from/
Leveille, Lee (April 12, 2021). The Mechanisms of TAnon: What is “TAnon”?Health Liberation Now! https://healthliberationnow.com/2021/04/12/the-mechanisms-of-tanon-what-is-tanon/
The Daily Signal is a conservative American media organization. By 2025, they had published over 2,500 anti-trans posts.
Background
The Heritage Foundation started a blog called The Foundry in 2008. In 2014, The Foundry was redirected to The Daily Signal (dailysignal.com) in June 2014. In June 2024, it became an independent publication.
Ad Fontes Media rates The Daily Signal in the Strong Right category of bias and as Unreliable, Problematic in terms of reliability.
Susan Evans is a British psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Evans was a key critic of trans healthcare for gender diverse youth at the Tavistock. The clinic was later closed.
Evans and spouse Marcus Evans co-authored the 2021 book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults.
Evans worked for 12 years at the Tavistock in the Adult Department, Youth Gender Identity Service and for the Portman Clinic in Probation officer supervision and as Programme Organiser and senior clinical lecturer. Evans was also a Senior Fellow of the University of East London.
Evans has been a member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation, London Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Service, and the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC).
2021 book
The following people are mentioned in the acknowledgements:
We are grateful to the following people who have generously given their time and expertise to the development of this book: Annie Pesskin, Ian Williamson, Richard Stephens, Margot Waddell, Frances Grier, and Ema Syrulnik, as well as all our colleagues at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. We are grateful to Kate Pearce at Phoenix for offering to publish this book.
2022 Tavistock closure
Evans was involved in the attacks on gender affirming care for gender diverse you at the Tavistock clinic, a federally funded gatekeeping facility with unethically long wait times due to underfunding.
Evans’ version of things was reported via anti-trans activist Bari Weiss:
I was a nurse working on a team that recklessly prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. I blew the whistle in 2005. Now the government is finally listening.
References
Evans, Sue (August 4, 2022). How Tavistock Came Tumbling Down.The Free Press https://www.thefp.com/p/how-tavistock-came-tumbling-down
Natalie Wynn is an American cultural critic whose YouTube channel Contrapoints won a 2022 Peabody Award in the Immersive & Interactive category.
Background
Wynn was born on October 21, 1988 in Arlington, Virginia and grew up in nearby Vienna. Wynn’s parent William is a psychology professor at Georgetown, and parent Marian is a doctor. Wynn has two siblings who also went to Georgetown.
Wynn studied piano at Berklee College of Music, earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2012, and a master’s degree from Northwestern University, then decided not to pursue a doctorate. Wynn did gig work before becoming a video essayist in 2008. Wynn’s work is considered part of “BreadTube,” a loose affiliation of YouTubers who posted videos to challenge right-wing views on subjects.
In 2016, Wynn began the ContraPoints channel. In 2017, Wynn came out as trans and removed all pre-transition videos. In 2020 Wynn came out as lesbian.
Video essays
2024
Twilight
2023
The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling
2022
The Hunger
2021
Envy
J.K. Rowling
2020
Voting
Justice
Cringe
Shame
Canceling
2019
Opulence
Men
“Transtrenders”
Beauty
Gender Critical
The Darkness
“Are Traps Gay?”
2018
The Apocalypse
Pronouns
The Aesthetic
Incels
The West
Tiffany Tumbles
Jordan Peterson
2017
What’s Wrong with Capitalism (Part 2)
America: Still Racist
Autogynephilia
What’s Wrong with Capitalism (Part 1)
Violence
Degeneracy
The Left
Decrypting the Alt-Right: How to Recognize a Fascist
References
Weiss, Max (June 2024). Who Exactly Is Natalie Wynn?Baltimore Magazine https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/natalie-wynn-viral-baltimore-youtuber-profile/
