On July 23rd, a letter was posted titled “Trans Men Fight Back”. Hosted by the Gender Dysphoria Alliance Canada and cosigned by TRans Educational Voices, it was signed by GDAC founder Aaron Kimberly, alongside TReVoices founder Scott Newgent, Buck Angel, Ken Pirie, Aaron Terell, and “those who don't wish to be named”. In the letter, a series of wild, vague accusations were leveled at unnamed trans women, who the signatories claim they have been silenced by.

We, the undersigned, speak against this letter, and the ongoing campaigns by these trans men to undermine and discredit current trans activism, particularly the activism done by trans women. We feel “Trans Men Fight Back” is a group of trans men presenting a convoluted regurgitation of the same anti-science rhetoric championed by fundamentalist Christians, alt-right grifters, and regressive “feminists” disguising their transmisogyny in the phrase “gender critical”. The language of “Trans Men Fight Back” repeatedly uses “LGB” to erase trans contributions to queer liberation and distance themselves from “gender identity”, something they picked up from “gender critical feminists”. We stand in solidarity with trans women, who are repeatedly misgendered in this letter.

We challenge the claims made in this post, and assert:

*Autogynephilia theory has been widely disproven by science [Autogynephilia in women, Moser (2009), Autogynephilia: A scientific review, feminist analysis, and alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model, Serano (2020), Making Sense of Autogynephilia Debates, Serano (2019)]

*Trans women are women, period.

*Conversion therapy is not simply psychotherapy, and is in fact a harmful practice, both for trans people [The Lies and Dangers of Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity, Human Rights Campaign (2019)] and for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people [LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy almost twice as likely to attempt suicide, UCLA School of Law (2020)]

*Trans people are diverse in their orientation [Injustice at Every Turn, National Center for Transgender Equality (2012), Autogynephilia, Ad Hoc Hypotheses, and Handwaving, Serano (2020)]

Many of us have been part of or adjacent to the sex positive, sex education and/or the feminist/queer porn communities, who claim to be supportive of our diversity and who say they stand with trans women. We are frustrated, therefore, that these communities have platformed Buck Angel without critique for too long and have stayed silent, enabling his misinformation campaign. Some of us have spoken up about his transmisogyny, transmedicalism, and mockery of nonbinary identities for over 10 years, but as individuals, we have been shut down as “divisive” (with trans women in particular shut down as self serving).

Now, we come together, all across the gender and orientation spectrum, to stand with all those who bear the impact of transmisogyny and say: No More.


There is a wider context of transphobia that this letter completely ignores. Anti-trans violence is on the rise in the United States. At a protest down in Southern California, two people were stabbed when the right wing fabricated a story about a predatory trans woman at a spa and proceeded to protest the spa. Various transphobic bills are being introduced all over the States under the guise of “protecting children”.

Many Americans claiming to be “gender critical” find open arms in the United Kingdom, where the head of media for Stonewall UK just stepped down, citing a “a tsunami of transphobia”, adding “I’m tired of the abuse”. The media and the government both have ramped up their vocal transphobia over the years, leading to cases like this one, where under 16s were found by a judge to be “unlikely to be able to give informed consent” when it comes to puberty blockers. J.K. Rowling has found celebrity status again, this time as a famous transphobe. Despite finding that changes to gender recognition laws would be beneficial to many, the Tory government shut down any such reform.

Ignoring this problem or whispered support behind closed doors is not enough. It never was.

We call upon the sex positive, sex education and/or the feminist/queer porn communities to stand with us in condemning transmisogyny, and transphobia more widely, by not platforming Buck Angel while he promotes these theories. This means not selling his merchandise, not inviting him to speak at their conferences or on their podcasts, not collaborating with him on videos or essays, until such a time as he has made a full, public apology acknowledging the harm he has caused to trans people by repeatedly spreading false scientific claims. We would also like to see a public apology from Buck Angel for repeatedly dismissing critiques as “divisive” and “homophobic”. We do not believe anyone is disposable, but we also feel that any attempts to reach out and address this behavior has been met with, at best, silence, and at worst, bullying, for over 10 years.

Enough is enough.


Kitty Stryker, editor of "Ask: Building Consent Culture"

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If you would like to cosign this letter, please fill out the below form. Your signature will be added ASAP. Thank you!

You can see this statement with relevant links here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17C8HT23n5BXTer5-ee3EFutFLkCN9k6yW6HN70rmS4g/edit?usp=sharing