Giles Fraser is a British journalist, broadcaster and clergymember. Initially trans-supportive, Fraser says he became a TERF in response to tactics used against supporters of anti-transgender activist J.K. Rowling.
Background
Giles Anthony Fraser was born November 27, 1964 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. He studied at Newcastle University and Ripon College Cuddesdon, then got his doctorate at University of Lancaster.
Fraser was ordained as a deacon in 1993 and as a priest in 1994. He taught at Wadham College, Oxford, and Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. He is the author of Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety of Unbelief, How to Believe: Investigating Wittgenstein, and Christianity with Attitude.
He hosts The Moral Maze and Thought for the Day on Radio 4. He is a Vicar of St Anne’s, Kew, part of the Church of England.
He has been married twice and has three children.
Anti-trans views
In 2015 he wrote a column about how the church needs to welcome trans people. When interacting with trans people, he says he uses their names and pronouns because “my default response is to affirm these decisions.”
His opinion shifted in 2023. After anti-trans activist Suzanne Moore introduced Fraser to J.K. Rowling at an event at Italian restaurant Pino, the restaurant was vandalized and review-bombed online.
Fraser said he became a TERF after that. He also revealed several anti-trans views:
I believe in limits, in the givenness of some things. And, it seems to me, biological sex is one of them. I find the use of medical technology to transgress these limits to be Faustian in its hubris.
Because some transactivists now behave as though anything they can do for the cause is justified, however cruel: get people sacked, ruin their businesses, be vile to others online. The public sphere is becoming so unpleasant, so full of vitriol and accusation, that many of us just put on our tin hats and retreat from the conversation. To be honest, I have been quite content that my privilege has, until now, encouraged me to think that the best thing for me to do is to sit this one out and say nothing. I have been hiding behind this terribly convenient self-denying ordinance, leaving the likes of J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Moore to take all the heat, my courage being a few pathetic “likes” on Twitter.
References
Fraser, Giles (May 22, 2015). Why the church needs welcome services for people transitioning gender. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2015/may/22/why-church-needs-welcome-services-people-transitioning-gender
Fraser, Giles (June 9, 2022). How pasta made me a Terf. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2022/06/how-pasta-made-me-a-terf/
Resources
Twitter (twitter.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)