Jane Chotard Wheeler is an American lawyer and anti-transgender conspiracy theorist who financially supports “gender critical” political projects like Genspect and Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics (ReIME).
In 2017, Wheeler planned to chair a panel that claimed the trans rights movement is a “homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.” It was canceled by the organizers after protests.
Background
Wheeler was born January 14, 1952. Wheeler’s parent George Yandes Wheeler II (1917â2000) was an RCA lobbyist and was married to Katherine Gatch Orthwein Wheeler (1924â2022).
In a 2017 comment about an article by Lisa Marchiano on 4thWaveNow, Wheeler stated:
I was a Tomboy and into sports but a Washington Debutante. Working my way through cultural stereotypes took many years â but bascially came down to accepting that an essential part of my feeling âotherâ â was due to how I thought â its intensity, itâs precision, its objectivity which culturally was defined as masculine â so it felt like there was âsomthing about me that was essentially maleâ â this with my interest in competive sports gave rise to a feeling of dysphoria. In adolecence this can be painful because there are things about yourself that keep you from deeply fitting in, that are lonely making â and unfortunately Trans has stepped in to give simple answers to complex questions that with time are dealt with in more creative ways of integration and self acceptance.
Wheeler (2017) [reproduced verbatim with errors]
Wheeler started college at age 30, earning a bachelor’s degree from University of Arizona in 1986 and a law degree from UCLA in 1990. Wheeler was admitted to the California bar in 1990. While practicing law, Wheeler was a member of the American Health Lawyers Association. Wheeler’s specialty was regulatory healthcare, including Standards of Care and Informed Consent. Wheeler participated in the formation of California Lawyers for Human Rights, as well as the Womenâs Committee at GLAAD in the 1990s. Wheeler stopped practicing law around 2005. Since retiring, Wheeler has worked in the area of Contemplative Care for those facing end-of-life issues.
Wheeler wrote a play titled Gustie Returns that had a reading in 2011 at The Ensemble Studio Theatre: “A renowned conservation biologist trying to return to her island home off the coast of Chile is snowed in at a hotel in New York on Christmas Eve. The arrival of her ex-husband and now-grown son forces her to confront her long-ago choice to send her son to live with his father.”
Wheeler identifies as lesbian and began a committed relationship with filmmaker Lesli Klainberg in around 1992. Klainberg has worked at New York Film Festival and Film at Lincoln Center since 2011. The couple has two children, Ethan Wheeler-Klainberg and Henry Wheeler-Klainberg.
Left Forum 2017 panel cancellation
In 2017, left-wing conference Left Forum announced that Wheeler (under the name Jane Chotard) would chair a June 4th panel titled “Misery for Profit: Who is Funding the Transgender Movement and the Impact on LGB.” The synopsis stated:
We will be showing that the immense funding funneled to the transgender movement is coming from giant pharmaceutical and biotechnology Industries and what their aim is. We will also be showing how the corporately controlled media is interfaced with these same Industries and are blocking any alternative to the pro-trans propaganda now being disseminated. We will be showing that the transgender movement is not in fact a civil rights issue, but a business arrangement and an advertising arm of these industries. We will cover the implications of this on the LGB community and show how transgender is a political coup, positioned as an ally alongside the LGB, but are actually a homophobic element introduced by the 1% to control homosexuality, reinstate male supremacy, and utilize gay children as fodder for scientific experimentation.
Left Forum, cited in Riedel (2017)
Participants and provided bios:
- Jane Chotard: Chair and speaker
- “Jane Chotard is an out lesbian for over 30 years, mother of two teenage boys, past healthcare attorney, currently works to provide better care services to patients and residents facing serious illnesses and end-of-life issues.”
- Jennifer Bilek: Panel organizer and speaker
- “Jennifer Bilek is a bisexual artist/activist/writer living in NYC for a lot longer than is probably healthy.”
- Taylor Fogarty: Speaker
- “Taylor Fogarty is a Brooklyn dwelling twenty-something year old who writes about feminism and politics.” Twitter: @theloudlesbian
The panel was canceled following protests.
2017 WLRN podcast interview
In 2017, Wheeler appeared with host “Sekhmet She Owl” and Taylor Fogarty on Women’s Liberation Radio News to discuss cancellation of an anti-trans panel they were scheduled to present.
I think that there are pressures on kids to transition. I think that the trans movement sort of feels like this is all coming from an innate gender thatâs self-expressing it. And therefore youâre allowing someone to be trans as opposed to making them trans. And of course I donât agree with that concept-conception to begin with, of what gender is and what is expressed. I also think that obviously if it didnât, what theyâre essentially saying is it doesnât matter if youâre male or female. The reason that I say that is because I do think that your relationship to your body is fundamental. It is a fundamental experience. And to be at odds with your body throughout the course of your life because you have to take the hormones for the rest of your life. And you will be experiencing things like vaginal atrophy and pelvic problems, and all of these conditions
A child cannot have a concept of that to begin with, and a child doesnât even know. My gender nonconformity actually just may be an aspect of my sexuality and therefore, I might be quite comfortable being lesbian or gay when I turn fifteen. They donât have any options.
[…] We donât want to oversexualize our kids, we talk to them about gender way before we will talk to them about sexuality. So their introduction to the concepts around gender nonconformity is all within the rubric of gender. And as I compare it to myself, when I grew up, my gender nonconformity was the first sign that perhaps I was a lesbian. And, and today that would be considered the first sign would be that you are trans. And it would put me on the course to be at odds with my body, for the entire course of my life, without having any other options. And this is being set up for somebody whoâs five years old, who not only cannot begin to fathom what theyâre asking for for themselves, but they donât fully understand that they will never be the opposite sex. And I donât even know that children are capable of fully understanding the limitations there are on that.
So I-I guess, you know, I would like to say as a lesbian, of course, being lesbian is a very valid lifestyle that has intrinsic value to the people that are lesbian and-and to our culture. Um. I just find that tracking people one way or the other, at a young age is inappropriate. As a way of encouraging full development, as a person, as a psyche within a body, as a body that is functioning in concert with the psyche. I just donât see child development being handled that way as being healthy. I wouldnât have wanted somebody as-as, you know to come to me as a gender nonconforming child and say to me well you must lesbian. But we allow people to say that, to children, well you must be trans. I just find it totally inappropriate.
I would have a problem with anyone dictating what my gender nonconformity actually meant. For my entire life.
In a 2017 comment on an article by missingdaughter on 4thWaveNow, Wheeler said:
I wish I thought Transgenderism were a transient contagion. Is it possible that bad medical outcomes may chill the fervor? Yes. And at some point it wonât be the latest thing that seems to be the newest answer â and the media will lose interest in another âgeneration genderâ story. But we are not going back to the way it was. Too much money is being invested in normalizing the medicalization of gender expression â it is the gateway drug to bigger and better hybrids. And the Internet and virtual identities and objectification and fetishizing of oneself and others are not going away either. But will we be caught so flatfooted, will we be so smothered in the crib as we are now â No. There re many chapters left to this saga. Even for your daughter. No one is done yet.
Wheeler (2017)
2019 NYT binder article
Wheeler was quited in a Times piece on chest binders:
But some worry that parental efforts to affirm a young personâs identity by supporting binding may contribute to self-hate. Jane Wheeler, a co-founder of an organization called Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics, which examines standards of care for gender-variant children and youth, said binding âfeeds into a normalization of body hatred, that some forms of body hatred are O.K.â
References
[archive]
Riedel, Sam (July 7, 2017). Why Trans Activists Canât Trust The Left. The Establishment https://medium.com/the-establishment/why-trans-activists-cant-trust-the-left-3bfa22928ddd
Sohn, Amy (May 31, 2019). Chest Binding Helps Smooth the Way for Transgender Teens, but There May Be Risks. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/well/transgender-teens-binders.html
EsmĂ© E. Deprez (July 20, 2011). âMa and Maâ Shops Benefit as New York Prepares for Gay Weddings. Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-20/-ma-and-ma-shops-benefit-as-new-york-prepares-for-gay-weddings
Staff report (February 4, 1970). Miss Orthwein Is Making Plans For June Bridal. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/04/archives/miss-orthwein-is-making-plans-for-jung-bridal.html
Staff report (February 4, 2000). George Yandes Wheeler III [sic] at Age 82. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/02/04/george-yandes-wheeler-iii-at-age-82/1ae6ed1c-92e2-4bf0-8206-be925039075f/