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Milo Yiannopoulos vs. transgender people

Milo Yiannopoulos is a British right-wing extremist and troll. Yiannopoulos is a key figure in the alt-right and intellectual dark web movements.

Background

Milo Hanrahan was born on October 18, 1983 in Chatham, Kent, England to Catholic parents who soon divorced. Yiannopoulos is the surname of Milo’s subsequent stepparent.

Yiannopoulos attended University of Manchester and Wolfson College, Cambridge, but did not earn degrees from either. Yiannopoulos published works and photos as Milo Andreas Wagner around this time. Yiannopoulos founded Wrong Agency Limited in 2009. It dissolved in 2011.

Yiannopoulos wrote for the Catholic Herald and covered technology for the Daily Telegraph. There, Yiannopoulos developed a knack for clickbait and anti-progressive trolling. Yiannopoulos co-founded technology “drama” blog The Kernel and subscription newsletter The Nutshell with Stephen Pritchard. Following closure over unpaid debts, investor Berlin42 purchased the domain and settled all debts, relaunching The Kernel with Yiannopoulos as editor. In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by Daily Dot Media, and Yiannopoulos stepped down.

From 2014 to 2017, Yiannopoulos covered technology for Breitbart News. While there, Yiannopoulos was a key figure in Gamergate, a complex misogynistic online harassment campaign and right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture. Yiannopoulos was also a key figure in the 2016 presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.

Yiannopoulos left Breitbart in 2017, founded Milo Worldwide LLC, and self-published the book Dangerous after it was dropped by publisher Simon & Schuster after earlier comments Yiannopoulos made about pedophilia resurfaced. The ACLU filed suit on behalf of Yiannopoulos after transit ads for Dangerous were rejected by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority,.

In 2018, Yiannopoulos self-published the books How to Be Poor and How to Be Straight. In 2021 Yiannopoulos claimed to be an ex-gay and began fundraising to create a conversion therapy center in Florida. In 2023, Yiannopoulos was involved in the presidential campaign of Kanye West.

Anti-transgender activity

Yiannopoulos made countless inflammatory statements about transgender people during the 2010s, especially in connection with Donald Trump.

Here’s the dirty secret that only the progressive left doesn’t understand: Nobody cares about trannys. There aren’t any of them anywhere. No one cares. If you’re obsessed with gay issues, if you are gay and you go to gay clubs and you only read the left wing press, all you’ll ever hear about is “people want to cut their (expletives) off.” But the rest of the country doesn’t care. There just aren’t that many of them around. Who cares? And Donald Trump knows this, which is why it wasn’t damaging to him when he said he doesn’t care what bathroom Caitlyn Jenner uses, and it’s not damaging to him now when he’s gone the other direction and said he doesn’t want them in the military. No one in America actually cares, and Donald Trump instinctively understands this.

Mitchell (2017)

References

Dowell, Ben (July 7, 2012). Milo Yiannopoulos – meet the ‘pit bull’ of tech media. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jul/08/milo-yiannopoulos-kernel-technology-interview

Williams-Grut, Oscar (June 2, 2013). The Kernel’s back to make new enemies. The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-kernel-s-back-to-make-new-enemies-8640597.html

Dunbar, Max (January 9, 2013). Milo Yiannopoulos and the Kernel. WordPress https://maxdunbar.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/milo-yiannopoulous-and-the-kernel/

Reynolds, Daniel (October 26, 2016). Milo Yiannopoulos Takes Transphobia on Tour. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/10/26/milo-yiannopoulos-takes-transphobia-tour

Lynskey, Dorian (February 21, 2017). The rise and fall of Milo Yiannopoulos – how a shallow actor played the bad guy for money. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-rise-and-fall-shallow-actor-bad-guy-hate-speech

Long, Camilla (February 26, 2017). Milo Yiannopoulos is not so ‘funny and hot and right’ any more. The Australian https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/milo-yiannopoulos-the-pied-piper-of-hate-goes-up-in-flames/news-story/a302709bea5b6fdc571c3a025992f3ff

Mitchell, Conner (July 31, 2017). Yiannopoulos doesn’t hold back on transgender rights, women in military, more. The Palm Beach Post https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/31/yiannopoulos-doesn-t-hold-back/7089635007/ [archive]

Resources

RationalWiki (rationalwiki.org)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

  • nero [suspended]
  • KernelMag

Wrong Agency Limited [UK]

  • Company number 07035584

Sentinel Media Ltd [UK]

  • Company number 07837639

The Kernel (kernelmag.com) [archive]

Milo Worldwide LLC

Milo Entertainment Inc.

Milo Inc.

Dangerous (dangerous.com) [archive 2017-2019]

Flickr (flickr.com)

  • Milo Andreas Wagner
  • flickr.com/photos/milo_wagner/
  • The Kernel
  • flickr.com/people/37025991@N08

Daily Dot (dailydot.com)

  • The Kernel [archive]
  • kernelmag.dailydot.com