Transphobia: The development of anti-trans hate groups in the UK

9 min readJul 18, 2022

Documenting the rise of ‘gender critical’ transphobes in the UK; a phenomenon that has given Britain the moniker ‘TERF island’…

This is the third in a series of five articles examining not just what transphobia is, but also how more and more people are becoming sucked into visible and aggressive transphobic lobbying to the point of extremism.

The emergence of transphobic groups

Transphobia has been around for as long as trans people, but with the advent of social media and online discourse, it has enabled like-minded haters to easily join forces, and an international cross-pollination of transphobic discourse to grow in a way not possible in previous decades. While there have been key anti-LGBT and specific anti-trans narratives that have been prominent in recent history — most notably emanating from the UK and US feminist and religious sectors — it is widely recognised that there has been a recent resurgence of specifically anti-trans discourse and campaigning since circa 2017.

It is generally considered that with the acceptance of same-sex marriage in 2013 in the UK and 2015 in the US, that the religious right and conservatives refocused their energies on attacking the ‘T’ in LGBT, with the intention of using lesser-known trans people as a ‘wedge issue’ with which to break apart the LGBT alliance. Three years after the ‘Transgender Tipping Point’ was hailed on the front cover of TIME magazine, the US hate-watch group ‘Southern Poverty Law Center’ detailed the strategy by the US Christian right to undermine transgender equality, in the 2017 article: ‘Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights: separate the T from the LGB’.

Simultaneously but separately, in the UK an anti-trans narrative was growing from the radical feminist left-wing. Triggered in response to the proposed review of the Gender Recognition Act, and in the wake of the #MeToo movement of 2017, trans exclusive radical feminism (TERF-ism) blossomed from the sex-essentialist second-wave feminism, in an environment in the UK where there was no prominent national feminist group. Anger towards men stirred up by #MeToo and the recognition that women’s rights still had battles to fight, was redirected by a small group of self-declared ‘feminists’ harnessing the ignorance and concern around GRA reform, and targeted towards trans women. Subsequently, this ‘concern’ also encompassed (predominantly assigned female at birth) trans youth, as fear about the status of ‘what a woman is’ along with ‘predator’ and ‘mutilated girls’ narratives were concocted and spread.

Central to this was the radicalising of women — called ‘peak transing’ — through triggering fears about sexual attack and ‘protecting girls’ on platforms like Mumsnet, Reddit, Twitter, private Facebook groups and via anti-trans group meetings throughout the UK. Various online social media accounts were created to target different demographics and covering different targeted areas: Trans kids, safeguarding, research, sport, activism, separating the T from the LGB. Such groups and individuals had a hotline to a handful of journalists in the mainstream media, ready to publish a trans-hostile article at a moment’s notice.

In addition to perpetuating trans-hostile narratives, anti-trans campaigning began to target trans-inclusive businesses and organisations, utilising social media and mainstream media to spotlight organisations and individuals to shame and intimidate them into rejecting trans-inclusive policies or talking points, and taking ‘gender critical’ anti-trans positions. The alternative was to bully trans people and allies into submission, many of whom disappeared from social media platforms or made accounts private, thereby silencing trans-positive voices. The typical process was one where a key ‘gender critical’ account — typically anonymous — would paint a target on the individual or organisation to be ‘piled on’ by anti-trans Twitter accounts or mass emailing campaigns — either to force them to change position, or to pressure them into disappearing. Typical targets were LGBT-inclusive businesses, retailers, brands and high-profile individuals, many of which have succumbed to convincing sounding, well-honed ‘gender critical’ narratives from ‘concerned women’.

The growth of transphobia in the UK: A timeline

The most recent wave of transphobia began in 2017 in the run-up to the announcement of reform of the Gender Recognition Act by the Government. In the beginning, several things happened in quick succession which could be said to have marked the beginning of the current anti-trans movement in the UK — which is now nicknamed ‘TERF island’:

July 2017: Times journalist, Janice Turner, writes article “How do you solve a problem like men in women’s changing rooms, Maria?” about then Chair of the Women & Equalities Committee, Maria Miller, wanting to update the Gender Recognition Act.
Sept 2017: Venice Allan organised her ‘We Need To Talk’ meeting — prior to the meeting a scuffle occurred at Speakers Corner in London where a group of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists and trans people faced off. Times journalist Janice Turner was at the event and wrote about it in her column. Video’s subsequently surfaced of speakers Julia Long and Sheila Jeffreys, giving talks at the WNTT event, saying incredibly transphobic things. The anti-trans campaign group ‘Women’s Place UK’ was also conceived of at the WNTT event.
Oct 2017: Anne Ruzylo was kicked out of the Labour Party (and of her position as Women’s Officer in a local CLP) because of her transphobia towards Lily Madigan — a young trans woman and Labour Women’s Officer at a nearby Labour CLP — this resulted in the entire CLP resigning in support of Anne Ruzylo. A number of whom became involved in setting up some of the initial anti-trans platforms, and a swathe of trans-hostile articles about Lily Madigan hit the media.
Also Oct 2017: Inflammatory Times story ‘Mermaids UK charity ban as boy forced to live as girl’ was published, about the court case involving a 7 year old trans girl being removed from her mother and Mermaids involvement in supporting the mother.
November 2017: The Times publishes Janice Turner’s article: ‘Children sacrificed to appease trans lobby’ which attracts numerous IPSO complaints and criticism due to its inflammatory language.
Jan 2018: A Labour Party member — Jennifer James — started the first ‘anti-trans’ crowdfunder, raising £30,000 to take legal action against the Labour Party for including trans women in AWS (subsequently dropped in 2022).
April 2018: A Parliamentary Inquiry by the Home Affairs Committee into ‘Hate Crime and it’s violent consequences’ interviews editors of national UK newspapers, where Stephen Doughty MP challenges the Editor of The Times on their hostile coverage of trans issues.
July 2018: Theresa May launches the consultation into the Gender Recognition Act at the Pink News Awards, despite increasing anti-trans backlash.
Up to this point trans topics (with a negative spin) had mainly only been reported in left-wing Morning Star (of which Venice Allan’s brother was an editor) and the occasional article in The Times by Janice Turner, but from 2018 onwards, right-wing news joined in, noticing an opportunity to attack both left-wing feminists and trans people fighting amongst themselves. This was documented by Tea Elleu in her project ‘Yours Sincerely, the Fourth Estate’ — where she documented all headlines in UK newspapers on trans topics between August 2018 — August 2019.
December 2018: Graham Linehan campaigns on Mumsnet to get £500,000 of National Lottery Funding removed from Mermaids
January 2019: Hbomberguy raises over $340,000 for Mermaids on a 48 hour Donkey Kong livestream, in retaliation to Graham Linehan’s lobbying getting their National Lottery funding suspended (subsequently reinstated). The event was visited by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chelsea Manning, which brought trans issues (and UK transphobia) to the attention of an international audience.
February 2019: Prominent anti-trans campaigner, Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshul, aka ‘Posie Parker’ visits Washington DC to attend an event at The Heritage Foundation and connect with right-wing US anti-trans campaigners. While there, she harasses Sarah McBride (future trans Senator) at her work, which was covered by US media, bringing UK TERFs to the attention of the US public. This moment was considered a turning point in the joining up between UK and US transphobes. From this point onwards, much of their campaigning and talking points were aligned.
May 2019: Ex Times editor and trans woman, Kathy O’Donnell took The Times to court in an employment tribunal specifically citing the transphobia at the publication. This involved dragging a number of senior editorial heads into court in Edinburgh. While she lost the case, it cemented the trans-hostile stance of The Times as editorial policy from that point onwards. In Summer 2019 Murdoch’s News Corp made the executive decision to export the overtly trans-hostile editorial practices at The Times and apply them to the Murdoch owned ‘The Australian’. This strategic change was noted by regional journalists.

In the next article “Transphobia: How the ecosystem of UK and US anti-trans hate works” I detail the different types of UK transphobes, how they differ from US transphobes, and how they joined together to create the ‘trans panic’ being seen in multiple countries today.

Some background

My name is Helen, some of you will know me from Twitter as @mimmymum — a cis feminist, the mum of a trans son, and a fierce trans ally. I’ve been monitoring trans discourse on social media, mainstream media, and elsewhere for the last six years, and have had many conversations with trans people, experts and allies over the years on multiple topics impacting trans people — all with the overarching intention of making the world a better place for trans and gender-diverse people. During my conversations, study and musings I have often wondered how transphobes actually become radicalised into transphobia, as a prelude to what can be done to stop this seeming tsunami of transphobic hate growing in multiple western English-speaking countries. This, and subsequent articles, are my attempt at answering that question. This is not an academic paper, but one borne out of informed observation, critical questioning and an interest in what makes people tick.

Transphobia: The development of anti-trans hate groups in the UK

The emergence of transphobic groups

The growth of transphobia in the UK: A timeline

Further reading:

This is the fourth of a series of five articles examining not just what transphobia is, but also how more and more people are becoming sucked into visible and aggressive transphobic lobbying to the point of extremism. You can read the full series of articles here:

Some background

You can find me at @mimmymum on Twitter here, and occasionally on Instagram here

Written by Mimmymum