These bans have been successful in part because of a toxic and ruthless ecosystem of far-right influencers, like Riley Gaines, who have formed entire careers around attacking trans athletes by prioritizing hate and misinformation.
“So much of what we see … just seems like it’s wrapped up in really hateful and negative messages that aren’t good for anyone,” says Mary Fry, a professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Kansas. “We’re creating issues where maybe we don’t need to.”
The anti-trans attacks in sports are also affecting cis women. Ayala, a competitive cyclist, remembers one race where she and her trans friend both made the podium. When photos of the event were posted on Facebook, people accused her of being trans, and she was added to a “list of males who have competed in female sports” maintained by Save Women’s Sports.
Earlier this year, 16-year-old AB Hernandez became the target of nationwide hate and harassment when the president of a local school board publicly doxxed the track and field athlete and outed her as transgender. Right-wing activists misgendered her and called her mom “evil;” swarms of adults showed up to heckle her at games; Charlie Kirk pushed state governor Gavin Newsom to condemn her; and President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over her participation.
While transgender athletes are very rare, this type of harassment towards them is playing out across the country and internationally. A trans girl was harassed at a soccer game in Bow, New Hampshire, by adult protestors wearing XX/XY armbands, representing an anti-trans sports clothing brand. And in British Columbia, a 9-year-old cis girl was accosted by a grown man who accused her of being trans and demanded that she prove her sex to him.
While research into the relative athletic capabilities of trans and cis women is ongoing, far-right groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Leadership Institute, have been putting hate before science to turn the public against trans athletes since at least 2014. And it’s working.
Laws, rules or regulations currently ban trans athletes from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity in 29 states, with 21 beginning the ban in kindergarten. The majority-conservative Supreme Court announced this month that it’ll be taking on the question of the constitutionality of the bans. Meanwhile, the federal government is pressuringstates without bans to change their policies in compliance with a Trump executive order that attempts to institute a nationwide ban.
Trump signs an executive order calling for bans on trans women and girls from women’s sports. Photo by: The White House.
These bans have been successful in part because of a toxic and ruthless ecosystem of far-right influencers, like Riley Gaines, who have formed entire careers around attacking trans athletes by prioritizing hate and misinformation.
“So much of what we see … just seems like it’s wrapped up in really hateful and negative messages that aren’t good for anyone,” says Mary Fry, a professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Kansas. “We’re creating issues where maybe we don’t need to.”
Harassment and Mental Health
Grace McKenzie has been deeply affected by these hate campaigns. A lifelong athlete, McKenzie has stayed healthy by playing multiple sports where she’s met “amazing people.” Shortly after she transitioned in 2018, she was thrilled when she was invited to join a women’s rugby team at the afterparty of a Lesbians Who Tech conference.
Grace McKenzie. Photo courtesy of McKenzie.
“Rugby became my home, it was my first queer community, it was the space where I really discovered my own womanhood,” McKenzie told Uncloseted Media. “I could be the sometimes-masculine, soft-feminine person who play[s] rugby and loves sports.”
But that started to change in 2019, when McKenzie and others on her team started to hear rumors that World Rugby was considering a ban on trans athletes. Fearing the loss of her community, she started a petition that racked up 25,000 signatures—but it wasn’t enough, and the ban took effect in 2020.
As anti-trans rhetoric in sports has ramped up, McKenzie says she’s had soul-crushing breakdowns that have left her “sobbing uncontrollably and unconsolably.”
“It would be these waves of such intense despair and rage—it was like going through grief for five years,” she says. “I have to wake up every single day and read about another state or another group of people who say that they don’t want me to exist.”
While McKenzie says she’s found the strength to keep playing where she can, sports psychologist Erin Ayala has seen clients leave sports altogether due to the hate toward trans athletes.
“It can be really difficult when they feel like they’re doing everything right … and they still don’t belong,” says Ayala, the founder of the Minnesota-based Skadi Sport Psychology, a therapy clinic for competitive athletes. “Depression can be really high. They don’t have the strength to keep fighting to show up. And then that can further damage their mental health because they’re not getting the exercise and that sense of social support and community.”
That was the story of Andraya Yearwood, who made national headlines in high school when she and another trans girl placed first and second in Connecticut’s high school track competitions. The vitriol directed at her was intense: Parents circulated petitions to have her banned; crowds cheered for her disqualification; the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom launched a lawsuit against the state for letting her play; and she faced a torrent of transphobic and racist harassment.
“It’s a very shitty experience,” Yearwood, now 23, told Uncloseted Media.
Fearing more harassment, she quit running in college.
“I understood that collegiate athletics is on a much larger and much more visible scale. … I just didn’t want to go through all that again for the next four years,” she says. “Track obviously meant a lot to me, and to have to let that go was difficult.”
It’s understandable that Yearwood and other trans athletes struggle when they have to ditch their favorite sport. A litany of research demonstrates that playing sports fosters camaraderie and teamwork and improves mental and physical health. Since trans people disproportionately struggle from poor mental health, social isolation and suicidality, these benefits can be especially crucial.
“In some of these cases, kids have been participating with a peer group for years, and then rules were made and all of a sudden they’re pulled away,” says Fry. “It’s a hard world to be a trans individual in, so it’d be easy to feel lonely and separated.”
Caught in the Crossfire
The anti-trans attacks in sports are also affecting cis women. Ayala, a competitive cyclist, remembers one race where she and her trans friend both made the podium. When photos of the event were posted on Facebook, people accused her of being trans, and she was added to a “list of males who have competed in female sports” maintained by Save Women’s Sports.
Ayala isn’t alone. Numerous cis female athletes have been “transvestigated,” or accused of being trans, including Serena Williams and Brittney Griner. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Donald Trump and Elon Musk publicly accused Algerian boxer Imane Khelif of being trans after her gold medal win, as part of a wave of online hate against her. She would later file a cyberbullying complaint against Musk’s X.
While women of all races have been targeted, Black women have faced harsher scrutiny due to stereotypes that portray them as more masculine.
Yearwood remembers posts that would fixate on her muscle definition and compare her to LeBron James.
“I think that is attributed to the overall hyper-masculinization and de-feminization of Black women, and I know that’s a lot more prevalent for Black trans women,” she says. “It made it easier to come for us in the way that they did.”
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A Big Distraction
Joanna Harper, a post-doctoral scholar at Oregon Health & Science University and one of the world’s leading researchers on the subject, says that the jury is still out on whether the differences in athletic performance between trans and cis women are significant enough to warrant policy changes.
“People want simple solutions, they want things to be black and white, they want good guys and bad guys,” Harper says, adding that the loudest voices against trans women’s participation do not actually care about what the science says.
“This idea that trans women are bigger than cis women, therefore it can’t be fair, is a very simple idea, and so it is definitely one that people who want to create trans people as villains have pushed.”
Even Harper herself has been the victim of the far-right’s anti-trans attacks. Earlier this year, she was featured in a New York Times article where she discussed a study she was working on with funding from Nike into the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on adolescents’ athletic performance.
Riley Gaines and OutKick founder Clay Travis attack Harper’s study on X.
“That Nike chose to fund a study on trans athletes doesn’t actually say that they’re supporting trans athletes. They’re merely supporting research looking into the capabilities of trans athletes,” Harper says. “You don’t know what the research will show until you get the data … but the haters don’t want any data coming out that doesn’t support what they want to say.”
Harper says this anti-trans fervor and HRT bans are making it more difficult to conduct studies in the first place.
And while the far-right argues that they are “protecting women’s sports” in their war on trans athletes, multiple athletes and experts told Uncloseted Media that this distracts from bigger issues in women’s sports, including sexualharassment by coaches and a lack of funding.
“If the real goal was to help women’s sports, they would try to increase funding [and] support for athletes,” says Harper, noting that women’s sports receive half as much money as men’s sports at the Division I collegiate level. “But that’s not what they’re doing, and it becomes pretty evident the real motivation behind these people.”
Since Trump’s reelection, Grace McKenzie has somewhat resigned herself to the likelihood of attacks on trans people getting worse. Despite this, she finds hope in building community with other trans athletes, such as the New York City-based trans basketball league Basketdolls.
“If that’s the legacy that [the anti-trans movement] wants to leave behind, good for them,” McKenzie says. “Our legacy is going to be one about hope, and collective solidarity, and mutual aid, and I would much rather be on that side of the fence.”
Meanwhile, Fry remains hopeful that conflicts can be resolved and that trans people may be able to find a place in sports over time.
“If we could all have more positive conversations and not create such a hateful environment around this issue, it would just benefit everyone.”
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To win, Democrats must inspire the public in a fractured information age, engage meaningfully with the cultural shifts around race, gender, family, and migration, make democracy work despite obstructionists like Manchin and Sinema, and—most critically—deliver tangible results that improve people’s lives.
Kamala Harris pauses while speaking on stage as she concedes the election, at Howard University on November 6, 2024, in Washington, DC.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
In the aftermath of Kamala Harris’s loss, many pundits and politicians are turning to a familiar scapegoat. Critics like Adam Jentleson, a former aide to senators Harry Reid and John Fetterman, claim that “woke” advocacy groups made Democrats adopt extreme policies and drove voters away from the Democratic Party, sealing Donald Trump’s victory. But the truth is simpler—and more uncomfortable for the Democratic establishment. Despite the noise, voters didn’t reject Harris because of leftist rhetoric or activist slogans. They rejected her because she and her party failed to address the economic pain of working-class voters, who chose change over more of the same.
There’s a generation of Black and brown organizers, often the first in their families to step into positions of power, navigating institutions historically dominated by others. Alongside them are downwardly mobile white millennials, raised with expectations of stability but battered by an economy that delivers none. These activists, working within nonprofits and campaigns, fighting for causes once central to Democratic values, have somehow become scapegoats for the party’s electoral woes.
Why, after every electoral loss, is the left always the scapegoat? It’s easier to blame activists for pushing a progressive agenda than confront the real issue: the Democratic Party has long been shaped by far more powerful forces—corporate interests, lobbyists, and consultants—whose influence has neglected the real crises facing everyday Americans. We see this cycle again and again.
Contrary to establishment narratives, the Democratic leadership has often resisted advocacy organizations pushing for bold reforms on immigration, Big Tech, climate, debt, healthcare, rent, mass incarceration, Palestinian rights, and for policies like the Build Back Better agenda. This tension isn’t just about differing priorities—it reveals the actual balance of forces in the party. Corporate donors on Wall Street and Silicon Valley pour billions into campaigns, shaping agendas to suit their interests.A consultant class reaps millions from flawed strategies and failed candidates yet continues to fail upward, perpetuating a pattern of mediocrity. They, not progressives, are the roadblock preventing Democrats from becoming a populist force that could disrupt the status quo and win back voters of all stripes.
It was these elements within the party that kneecapped the Democrats’ most ambitious efforts to help ordinary Americans. The Biden administration entered with huge plans, notably Build Back Better, which would have delivered immediate relief: expanded child tax credits, free community college, universal child care and pre-K, paid leave, and more. Progressives pushed mightily for Build Back Better to pass. It was centrist obstruction—namely Senators Manchin and Sinema—that blocked those policies. The result was a patchwork of long-term measures like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, whose benefits won’t be felt until 2025 at the earliest, if at all. By failing to pass Build Back Better, Democrats lost the chance to deliver easy-to-understand, tangible economic benefits and solidify their image as the party of working people.
And it was corporate Democrats—particularly lobbyists like Harris’s brother-in-law, former Uber executive Tony West, and David Plouffe—who held the most sway over Harris’s campaign. They advised her to cozy up to ultra-wealthy celebrities, Liz and Dick Cheney, and Mark Cuban, and avoid populist rhetoric that could have distanced her from the corporate elites who dominate the party. In 2024, the biggest spenders in Democratic Party politics weren’t progressives—it was AIPAC, cryptocurrency PACs, and corporate giants like Uber, all of whom poured millions into Democratic campaigns without regard for public opinion or the will of the people.
The Harris campaign’s messaging failed because, while populist economic appeals resonated with voters, the public face of the campaign was discouraged from embracing them. Instead, the focus was on issues like democracy and abortion, which, while important, couldn’t by themselves capture the priorities of working-class voters. In her public remarks and interviews, Harris, drawing on the advice of corporate leaders, frequently adopted a Wall Street–friendly tone that resonated with business interests, even if it alienated many of her core supporters.
It’s easy to forget that in 2020, Democrats saw historic turnout, driven largely by young voters who were energized by the largest left-wing and Black freedom protests since the 1960s. Biden won, and Democrats seemed to capture the nation’s hunger for justice and change, even as protesters marched with polarizing slogans like “Defund the Police.” Despite the controversy surrounding these messages, Biden triumphed decisively, calling for racial justice. The energy in the streets reflected a moment of possibility, a vision that real change was within reach. But by 2024, that grassroots energy had dissipated, and the Biden-Harris administration did little to revive it.
The loss of energy that Biden and Harris presided over showed up in youth turnout, which dropped to 42 percent in 2024, down from 50 percent in 2020 and closer to 2016 levels. However, battleground states saw higher youth turnout, around 50 percent. Young voters favored Harris over Trump by four points (51 percent to 47 percent), a sharp decline from Biden’s 25-point lead in 2020. The administration’s failure to offer a compelling narrative or deliver meaningful economic reforms alienated many young voters, especially on issues like unconditional weapons transfers to Israel.Trump capitalized on this vacuum with false promises and an anti-war message. Meanwhile, young workers, hit hardest by inflation and stagnant wages, saw little relief from the administration’s policies, leaving them feeling unseen and unmotivated. The simplest explanation may be the most accurate: after four years in opposition, Democrats under Biden had no plan for countering centrist obstruction from Manchin and Sinema. Nor did they have a clear strategy for transitioning to a new candidate, as Biden once suggested, or supporting a contested 2024 primary.
This disconnect was made worse by the administration’s lackluster communication strategy. Biden has avoided the media more than any modern president. In contrast, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) dominated the narrative with daily, three-hour, entertaining, and combative press conferences that have earned him one of the largest YouTube followings in Mexico. AMLO’s approach to the attention economy helped his party to secure another presidential term, defying global anti-incumbent trends.
Biden and Harris’s reluctance to embrace what some Democratic elites might view as “tasteless” or “uncouth” populist appeals allowed their opponents to seize the public’s attention, creating a void that ultimately drained the administration of the energy and momentum it once had. Trump’s simple, emotionally charged narrative about fixing the economy, winding down foreign wars, restoring order, and protecting “traditional” American values may have been filled with bigotry and lies. But it commanded the public discourse, pushing the Biden-Harris administration off center stage.
It’s true that some younger leftists embrace purity politics. But as Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin points out, the most polarizing moments in recent Democratic campaigns—like Beto O’Rourke’s “Hell yes” remark on gun confiscation or Julián Castro’s call to decriminalize border crossings during the 2020 primaries—were driven by the candidates themselves, not external activist pressure. Why did Kamala Harris take the positions she did in 2019? Because she was trying to distinguish herself in a crowded Democratic primary, where Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were surging and Biden seemed to have the center locked down. Ultimately, these moves were about gaining media attention in a competitive primary, not a direct result of pressure from advocacy groups—many of which, like Sunrise Movement, Working Families Party, and Justice Democrats, with which I was affiliated, have spent years working within the system to create lasting change and deliver real policy results that resonate with voters
The backlash against “wokeness” often rests on vague critiques, offering little more than cultural hand-wringing without any clear solutions. And when those solutions do emerge, they’re often morally indefensible. Jentleson’s criticism of progressive advocacy groups rings especially hollow when you consider the track record of his own political mentors. In 2010, his former boss, Harry Reid, publicly opposed the “Ground Zero mosque,” a proposed Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center. While technically acknowledging the developers’ rights, Reid capitulated to Republican culture wars by suggesting Muslim Americans build the mosque elsewhere. This wasn’t a principled stance—it was a political maneuver that lent legitimacy to Islamophobia, feeding into narratives from figures like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who compared the center to a Nazi building next to the Holocaust Museum. In doing so, Reid allowed bigotry to flourish, leaving a vulnerable community to bear the brunt of political scapegoating.
From asylum seekers to transgender rights, today’s debates mirror the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy. From 2017 to 2020, Democrats, including Harris, were eager to condemn Trump’s cruel immigration policies. Now, however, they seem more focused on dodging the topic altogether. These are issues demanding a new approach, one that emphasizes year-round persuasion and agenda-setting over political convenience. Thermostatic public opinion might be a reality of politics, but voters appreciate when you stand for something with conviction and authenticity.
This is where movements and parties work best together: movements push the boundaries of what’s possible, creating the political space to reframe issues like transgender rights and immigration in majoritarian terms, and politicians follow when the political weather aligns with their self-interest. These two sides will clash, but it’s in that tension that progress lies.
Democrats can’t be scared of that process. They must stop ceding the narrative to far-right framing and instead invest in populist campaigns that aren’t afraid to antagonize villains, highlight the humanity of marginalized communities, and expose the Republican Party’s divide-and-conquer tactics. Only then can they build the political power necessary to shift the conversation and secure real change.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m critical of the academic jargon and misguided tactics that sometimes dominate activist circles. But to blame activists for the party’s struggles is to overlook the much larger battles they’re engaged in: 11 million undocumented Americans left in limbo, a prison system that incarcerates more people than any other in history, and an economy where three people hold more wealth than the bottom half of the country. These are the moral tests of our time—tests that any party claiming to stand for justice will be judged by. Scapegoating those pushing for change isn’t just unfair; it’s counterproductive, fracturing necessary coalitions and undermining the ability of the party to tackle the crises ahead.
Harris’s defeat should prompt serious introspection for Democrats—but not the narrow, one-sided critique Jentleson offers. Everyone, including progressive advocacy groups, has lessons to learn. The path forward isn’t about hippie-punching—it never has been. Time and again, the center-left’s response to electoral defeat has been to blame the unpopular and disruptive activists pushing for progress, whether abolitionists, suffragettes, labor unions, civil rights leaders, or environmentalists.
History reveals that oversimplified approaches often sidestep the harder questions. Success doesn’t come from rejecting the complexity of a diverse coalition but from learning to navigate it. To win, Democrats must inspire the public in a fractured information age, engage meaningfully with the cultural shifts around race, gender, family, and migration, make democracy work despite obstructionists like Manchin and Sinema, and—most critically—deliver tangible results that improve people’s lives.And if the corporate, status quo–loving forces within the party are standing in the way of that mission, they must be moved aside.
Success will come not by pointing fingers but by telling a story of transformation—with clear villains, bold vision, and conviction that democracy can, indeed, make a difference.
September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland, overwhelming the Polish Army with 58 German divisions and air cover from the German air force, the Luftwaffe. This action started the second world war, prompting England and France to declare war on Germany two days later.
September 1, 1945 The Emperor of Japan surrendered unconditionally to the U.S. and its allies in a ceremony on the deck of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, ending the second world war.
September 1, 1986 Angelo (Charlie) Liteky & George Mizo, both Vietnam veterans, began an open-ended Fast For Life on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.They were calling attention to their opposition to U.S. support of the Nicaraguan contras and repressive regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala. Charles Liteky “our expression of a deeply felt desire to do everything and anything we can . . . to stop the war with Nicaragua.” George Mizo Liteky was a Catholic chaplain in the Vietnam War and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Charles Liteky and his subsequent peace efforts
September 1, 1987 During a nonviolent protest at the Concord (California) Naval Weapons Station, a Navy munitions train ran over Brian Willson. An Air Force and Vietnam veteran, Willson and the other protesters were attempting to stop shipment of weapons to Nicaragua and El Salvador. Brian Willson bird-watching California, 1997. They considered U.S. policy in Central America a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. (Here is a link to those principles.) Willson lost both legs and suffered other injuries but has remained an active and articulate leader in the anti-military movement. Ron Kovic (author ‘Born on the Fourth of July’) and Brian Willson (also born on the Fourth of July) Willson’s testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations
September 1, 1989 White House staffers decided to purchase some crack cocaine so President George H.W. Bush could hold the illegal drug in his hands during a national address. On the first attempt, the drug dealer didn’t show up. On the second try, an undercover drug agent’s body microphone didn’t work. Trying for the third time, Bush’s team managed to purchase the crack, but the camera operator videotaping the deal missed the action as a homeless person assaulted him.
September 1, 1997 Kurdish and British activists blockaded an arms trade exhibition outside London. 89 members of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT)were arrested for protesting the presence of Turkish, Chinese and Indonesian government representatives in Britain to purchase weapons. The Labour government had pledged “[We will] not permit the sale of arms to regimes that could use them for internal repression or external aggression . . . .” Great Britain is the world’s second largest arms manufacturer (by dollar volume) after the U.S.. Campaign Against the Arms Trade home
September 1 – International Day of War Tax Resistance. “Refusing to pay taxes for war is probably as old as the first taxes levied for warfare…” War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
This article is long but worth the read. This expert refuses to talk to trans people and has never treated a trans person. His knowledge is from what he believes to be true color by his biases, so he also ignores the views of the majority of medical societies opinions and views. The so called expert refuses to accept that anyone at any age felt they were trans without someone putting the idea in their head someway. To him it is not natural so it can’t exist. He thinks being gay is wanting to be the other sex, so a gay male wants to be female and he questions if they can be any happier as the other sex. And he is a gay man himself. This is who the anti-trans Christian haters hire to lie about trans issues so that they have cover to make bans on needed gender-affirming medical care. Plus he is a real prima donna wanting the center stage and being the star. Hugs
No. See? It’s not either one. The tiny fraction of repris- One in tens of thousands who, at this point, kind of essentially born gay, but so gay, they really are happier living as the other sex. Won’t know it until later in life, but they exist.
No 8-year-old ever said that. Eight-year-olds repeat what they’re told, and what they are getting told are from activists. It’s not credible to say that all of this existed, this was so extreme and obvious, and nobody ever noticed it, including the experts doing the research on it who could have gone either way. But everybody all of a sudden noticed it at exactly the same time when smartphones got invented and hit 15 percent. That’s just a coincidence that the demographic who is doing this the most are exactly the same demographic most given to other social contagion issues. Usually young adolescent females, the same group most likely to report suicidality. Not actual suicide, but suicidality. Most likely to report eating disorders. Most likely to dislike their bodies. All sheer coincidence!
But what about so there’s 8-year-olds can’t say that? Sure, I understand that argument. But there’s 14-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 25-year-olds, 40-year-olds. There are people of every single age.
JC:Find me one who didn’t get it from the website.
SM: Who didn’t get being transgender from a website?
JC: Ah ah ah.The “my rights, you’re hurting us,” the “suicide.” Verbatim they are all saying the same thing. None of these are their words. These are words that they’re repeating because of everybody else in their social group.
SM: I want to be clear, because I want to make sure we characterize everything accurately. Do you believe that all transgender people are trans due to social contagion?
JC: No.
SM:. So you believe a lot of people are born trans and feel that way from birth?
JC:
SM: But you said one in 10,000—
JC:We also have a cluster who, until they’re in their 40s or 50s, are just turned on by the idea of being female. They’re attracted to women. They’re not gay. They’re always men. So we have one in tens of thousands and one in tens of thousands. And then we have this 5% of the entire population which came out of nowhere when smartphones were invented. They are dominating the conversation. They, except for one in ten thousand, they are not trans. They just hate their own bodies and here’s a narrative that’s close enough that says, “It’s not me, it’s everybody else on the planet and somebody else, no effort to me, I just have to lie there, the doctor will come and fix me. It’s not that I have issues to work on because I hate my body.” Taking the easy way out.
Editor’s note: This interview was originally conducted on August 7, 2024.
James Cantor is a Canadian psychologist and sexologist who has been hired by Alliance Defending Freedom—a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group—and by Republican states to serve as an expert witness in defense of laws that ban or restrict gender-affirming health care.
Last year, Uncloseted Media interviewed Cantor for a larger investigation into expert medical witnesses paid to defend restrictions on trans kids’ access to health care.
Since then, attacks on gender-affirming care have escalated—121 anti-trans bills have been passed in state legislatures this year and a recent Supreme Court decision upheld the constitutionality of bans on gender-affirming health care for minors nationwide. Cantor, who has never treated a trans kid and whose primary research centers around pedophilia, kink and BDSM, has had his expertise called into question by some judges.
Despite this, he’s remained active since we published our article, testifying in support of gender-affirming care bans in South Carolina and North Dakota. And while Cantor didn’t speak at the Supreme Court, his expert testimonies were cited by the defendants.
Since Cantor continues to influence trans health care policy in the U.S., we decided to share a longer cut of our interview to provide more context on one of the most prolific faces in the fight over trans health care.
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer Macnaughton: Tell me how you came to know Alliance Defending Freedom. How did they get to you? Or did you get to them?
James Cantor: No, they came to me. I never, in any of these controversies that I’ve been [in]—this is, I guess, the biggest one now. But I’m a sex researcher, I’ve been through several controversies.
SM: Sure.
JC: They came to me. In 2018, I guess it was, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a policy, essentially saying, “Do whatever the kid wants.” And I’m just reading and reading. As I went, I [knew] these papers he’s citing. This isn’t what they say. So all I did is take the policy and go through the reference list, every single one, and say, “This is what you said they said,” and then I quoted them directly. Here they are saying the opposite.Just, again, because somebody who obviously doesn’t know this field was grossly misrepresenting the science of it.
SM: So then how did they find you? Because you’re in Canada.
JC: So I published that paper as a peer-reviewed study. So when the Alliance Defending Freedom had its first couple of lawsuits on the topic, they, of course, in any issue like this, need experts to testify to what the content of the science was. They were already working with Stephen Levine, very, very well-established and well known in my field. And so he suggested to ADF, “There’s this guy who always follows the science no matter what and isn’t afraid of the politics.” So then they came to me. We did our first case together. Josephson, freedom of speech case, essentially was a professor who said what a bunch of activists didn’t want to hear. He got disciplined for it. He didn’t let them get away with it. He started his lawsuit challenging his treatment. That was the first one. Then when they say, “Oh, this guy knows how to talk.” So it was networking since then.
SM: And do you actually go? Do you zoom in or do you go? How many cases have you worked with them on?
JC: For them, just that one. All the others, I’ve been hired by the state directly. As I say, it’s really just kind of networking amongst those, and there are not many people willing to do it at all.
SM: Did they like you because of the expert testimony you gave for Alliance Defending Freedom and then they would find you? Cause it’s random to me that you’re from Canada being thrown into the mix in all these states. Is it not or no?
JC: Oh, no, not really. It’s just there are very, very few people able to talk about this and have a mastery of the science at all. But yes, so the Canadian thing really just doesn’t matter. [I’m] just a person who is well spoken, can get an idea across under pressure on the stand, [I have] experience at it. And the state AG offices are networked together in a bunch of different ways and they often have similar kinds of cases. This person knows that person who knows the other person. They’re always looking for experts for whatever their cases are. So when they start looking for someone, I was one of the first people with a peer reviewed paper on the topic. So that very quickly put me on their radar screen. And then it’s just case after case. The ADF—again, although they only hired me for that one case—they also hold events and conferences and so on. And this is one of the topics where they asked me to speak. And so many people from many offices in conservative states are also attending. So when they get a case [they think,] “Oh, I saw this guy who…”
SM: Okay, so the AG offices could go to a conference that the ADF puts on, Dr. Cantor speaks, the AG office says, “I like that,” they reach out and then could have you testify in their state. But it’s the AG officers, with that exception of the one, that would be the ones reaching out to you.
JC: Yes, exactly. So the ADF are assisting with networking like any group. They’re politically conservative. But like any other group, including the ACLU on the other side, sponsor conferences and people network. And so when they need somebody on whatever topical issue like this one, they assist the networking. But they don’t have any direct financial or other connection.
SM: How much do you get paid? How much do they pay you for that?
JC: Same as experts on the other side, 400 an hour U.S.
SM: And they pay for all flights and everything, obviously that would be paid for?
JC: Yeah, the state, yes. That’s part of their usual expert budget.
SM: And how many hours would you spend on a case typically?
JC: Uh, generally anywhere between 15 and 80.
SM: Can you make a salary off it?
JC: It’s ended up pretty much that way for me, which was an unexpected surprise.
SM: Like over 150?
JC: It varies year by year, but somewhere around there per year. But I wouldn’t call it… Again, it’s just dumb luck on my part. I’m towards the end of my career. I’m within five, six years of retiring. So I don’t have a lot to lose. As I say, this was not a plan. It just kinda happened.
SM: What’s your experience treating trans kids? Like how many have [you treated?] I’m assuming, [because] you’ve taught like you’ve treated dozens.
JC: No, I don’t treat kids at all. I’m a sex therapist. If you wanna know if whatever procedure works, you can’t ask the people who use the procedure. Easiest to understand by analogy: You will never find out if astrology works if you only ask the astrologers. If you want to know if Childhood Transition works, you can’t ask the people whose careers and practices depend on the answer being yes. You’re just going to get yes!
SM: Do you talk to kids? I’m assuming you at least talk to trans kids to learn their perspective a little bit given your expert testimony on all these cases. Like do you sit down with them? Do you try and learn—
JC: No.
SM: From them to learn about their—no?
JC: Nope.
SM: Why not?
JC: Because that is exactly the source of bias.
SM: To learn from the people who… I would disagree with that. Don’t you want to learn from the people you’re speaking on?
JC: I learn from the research about the people. An 8-year-old telling me that they were born in the wrong body? They didn’t come up with that themselves. They were told that narrative as a way to help understand themselves. What I am hearing is the accumulation of what the 8-year-old has been told.
SM: So your strategy is literally actually the opposite. Don’t talk. It’s important not to talk to trans kids about it?
JC: Along those lines. Again, it’s because the exception is really easy to exaggerate on the other side. Either side can, at least in theory, be correct. But people are taking, as the definition of expert, the one who has spoken to the most 8-year-olds, but da-da-da. They can color the picture, they can be compelling narratives, they can provide ideas for things to do research on. But the answer is going to come from the neutral, can go either way, does not have an emotional investment in what’s going on. It’s, “What would Mr. Spock say?”
SM: There’s a whole narrative from one subset of the media, mainly the right media, they’ll say, “Transgenderism, it doesn’t exist,” that kind of thing. So do you believe that transgender people exist?
JC: Again, it’s a bit of a loaded question. In the way that they’re saying it as a phenomenon doesn’t exist, that’s a bit of an overstatement. But the very concrete way the opposite extreme is discussing it isn’t exactly true either. You can’t prove things don’t exist. You can only fail to find evidence that it does exist.
SM: Do you believe that it should exist? Would our world be better off if we just didn’t have trans people?
JC: I don’t know if there is a way to answer that question.
SM: Alliance Defending Freedom’s background is alarming, not just for trans stuff but for gay issues, right? The guy who founded it coined a book called The Homosexual Agenda. They passed laws against gay marriage, against gays in the military. They’ve gone to Africa, to Eastern Europe, to promote laws against the entire umbrella of the LGBTQ community. Why affiliate yourself with a group like that, especially as an openly gay man?
JC: That’s an excellent question. First, the way they came to me was exactly the right way. Hand extended, “Dr. Cantor, we disagree probably on every single other issue but this one, but we can work together on this one.” That’s what a liberal is supposed to say. If they’re willing to overlook and work with the gay Jew, who’s the bad guy if I’m saying, “No, I’m sorry, your religious views, I won’t tolerate.” The shoe was on the other foot. I am willing to work with people I disagree with on the other issues. We will be on the opposite side on that issue. We will be on the same side on this issue. So if anybody ever, for any issue asks, “Why is Cantor on whatever side,” there’s gonna be a stack of science behind it.
SM: You mentioned earlier that we shouldn’t be listening to people who are getting paid to have their livelihood like pediatricians make these decisions, right?
JC: That’s standard medical ethics, it’s in every conflict of interest policy, including the associations who have disregarded their own conflict of interest.
SM: Right. But you’re getting paid almost $150,000 to argue against it. So isn’t that the same thing?
JC: No, as I said, that’s what I was saying, has been the same for 20 years. Now it’s associated with money for me to say—
SM: Right, but your argument is that we shouldn’t be listening to those people, but you’re still getting paid to make the argument.
JC:I’ve been expressing these issues for no money in my original paper before any of these laws, never mind lawsuits, existed. It was just the money and the cases came because of the opinion I had already expressed rather than the other way around. And then, I developed an opinion that was convenient because it was marketable. I gave it away for free. Really at this point, my plan for the money was that there would be a couple of cases for a little while so I could take a couple months off afterwards to do the writing that I don’t get to do as much as I used to. That was the plan. Then when there was this flood of cases, I don’t have time to do that and that’s when I mostly shut down my private practice.
SM: Marketable is an interesting word. What do you think makes your opinion so marketable?
JC: A combination of things. One is just my knowledge of science. Their Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me. A lot of lawyers’ questions are loaded questions or come down to people’s fundamental understanding or misunderstanding of science. And because I have a mastery of it, their subtle illogic that other people would not notice or let slide don’t affect me. I’m able to correct it. And part of it, I’m just a natural communicator. I’m good with audiences. I don’t mind being on stage. My adrenaline, let’s say, is under control.
SM: I bet you could bring it in a courtroom.
JC: I look like an expert.
SM: Right, what do you mean you look like an expert?
JC: They tell me that. I just have the right amount of age, gray hair, bit of an accent. I look like an expert. Ohio, oh, they just announced we won the Ohio case. There was a television camera for the news back here and then the courtrooms up here. The next day on social media, all I kept hearing was what a good hair day I was having.
SM: Do you like the feeling of, it feels like a star a little bit, maybe?
JC: I was president of the RPI Players when I was an undergrad. I’ve always enjoyed theater. If I could sing, I’d be on Broadway. So no, I do enjoy a stage. I do enjoy the media. If I could wave a wand, my real career goal was to be the Carl Sagan of sex.
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SM: Oh, wow. Okay. And when you go to the courtroom, do you crank it up a little bit? Like, what do you do to kind of bring it in the courtroom?
JC: It’s a subtle part to be cast in, in that overdoing it, the overacting doesn’t help. I have be in character as Dr. Cantor.
SM: Hmm, okay.
JC: So clear, succinct, direct, confident, but not overdoing it either. Not effusive. The hardest part for me is suppressing jokes. I become the Lord of the pith.
SM: Ooh, what does that mean?
JC: Oh, pithy, short, succinct, and I am indeed much more oriented towards being pithy. To get the idea across in a concrete way that gives people the “aha!” Even if they don’t agree with me, they understand what I am thinking and saying. For example, one of the ones that came together in my head relatively recently when you were asking before about what boils down to conflict of interest. I started out by explaining the relevant policies, what’s in it, what’s not in it, why they are the way they are, all of which was absolutely true. And after reading a couple of pages, people went, “Oh, okay.” But when it hit me to say, “You can’t find out if astrology is real by just asking astrologers,” that’s when people went, “Oh, duh! Of course!”
SM: There was obviously a theater kid in you when you were younger. Is this kind of, it feels camp a little bit, going into American courtrooms and kind of like testifying. Is there a part of that that it’s a bit of fulfilling a dream in that respect?
JC: In an unexpected way. It wasn’t a dream in a way that I ever went, “I wish I could.” If anything, it was the opposite. I don’t know about fun, but I enjoyed the challenge and it was a very, very different kind of a thing to do. But being the, loud mouthed New Yorker theater queen that I am, oh, that’s another one of the jokes I used. Whenever they set up a deposition for me, I always kind of have to say, “I’m the most deposed queen in the world.” The first time I was going in court, we were just laughing. Oh, I’ve forgotten her name. My Cousin Vinny. Right, when she comes in, big New York accent.
SM: Yes.
JC: So we replayed that in my head a lot. And the more recent one, do you watch Schmigadoon?
SM: No.
JC: She was in Ally McBeal. She played the lawyer and she comes down in a trapeze and she’s now doing the bells and whistles is the performance she’s giving in the courtroom.
SM: And you felt like her a little bit, like Ally?
JC: “Felt like her.” It was just teasing about a performer on stage, enjoying an audience. And here I’m doing it in a courtroom. So I’m not afraid of it. I’m not intimidated by it. Where most scientists are not like that.
SM: How many trans-related cases in the U.S. have you testified for as expert witness? There was the one with ADF and then how many from their respective states?
JC: I could send you the whole list, it’s about 30-ish.
SM: When you speak for ADF, how much do they pay you? If I can ask.
JC: Oh, it’s not paid to me. It’s like a conference presentation to bring together lawyers, you know, on similar sides.
SM: What’s the biggest one you’ve ever spoken at? Like, how many people go to these things?
JC: The largest ADF one was their Summit, they call it. I guess that was 500-ish?
SM: They’re obviously a legal behemoth, right? So they know what’s up when it comes to the law. What kind of legal tips and tricks do they give you before you go in and Ally McBeal testify?
JC: The particular person that they had me working with is the Yoda to my Ben Kenobi. He has been absolutely wonderful to work with. His training, his knowledge of the strategizing and of the performance aspects in court have been—his advice has been dead on from the beginning.
SM: What are the best points of advice?
JC: It’s really more about his description of the points of view of the several different audiences. The judge, the jury, the other officers, the experts on the other side, and the mindset I need to be in in testimony, in the different kinds of testimony at the different phases of the case. For example, before anything goes to trial, each expert gets deposed. The point is, and it’s a full day, eight hour day, where the lawyers for the other side get to ask you whatever they want for eight hours. And the way that my trainer was explaining that to me was to help me appreciate that I’m not going to counter-argue. There’s no point to it. There’s nobody to convince. There’s no audience here. The judge isn’t going to see or read every word of it. The judge is only going to the parts the other side wants them to see. So a deposition is the portion at which I can lose ground, but not gain any. So once I was aware that, oh, okay, so this is deflecting. This is not counter-attacking. This isn’t making my argument. This is my defending my argument or, what it largely came out to be, untwisting their trick questions. So even if they weren’t testing me, they come out of it with, “Nothing’s gonna work on this guy.” And then the other one for a lot of the cases, the mindset he described to me was the judge is never going to be an expert on this.
It’s not the judge’s job to be an expert on this, and usually it just boils down to experts on the one side, experts on the other side, and everybody else knows they don’t know. So really the job is [to] tie myself up with dynamite and throw myself on the other expert and neutralize us both.
SM: What does that mean?
JC: It’s really probably not going to happen, that the judge listens to me and decides, “Oh, that’s the scientifically superior argument.” That’s not what happens. In a lot of ways, my favorite part of it is rebutting the arguments of the other side. Here’s what they said, here’s what the citation they’re referring to actually says, oh gosh, it’s the opposite. From the judge’s point of view, it’s just expert versus expert. It’s a mutually assured destruction. They destroy each other. And then from the judge’s point of view, let’s just get back to the legal issue.
SM: Right, because the judge isn’t necessarily going to be able to infer what’s methodologically sound evidence-based research versus what’s not.
JC: Typically not on their own.
SM: What would you say to the many many trans kids and their families across the United States who say, “You’re hurting us, you are hurting us, this is essential care, we need this.”
JC: No 8-year-old ever said that. Eight-year-olds repeat what they’re told, and what they are getting told are from activists. It’s not credible to say that all of this existed, this was so extreme and obvious, and nobody ever noticed it, including the experts doing the research on it who could have gone either way. But everybody all of a sudden noticed it at exactly the same time when smartphones got invented and hit 15 percent. That’s just a coincidence that the demographic who is doing this the most are exactly the same demographic most given to other social contagion issues. Usually young adolescent females, the same group most likely to report suicidality. Not actual suicide, but suicidality. Most likely to report eating disorders. Most likely to dislike their bodies. All sheer coincidence!
SM: But what about so there’s 8-year-olds can’t say that? Sure, I understand that argument. But there’s 14-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 25-year-olds, 40-year-olds. There are people of every single age.
JC: Find me one who didn’t get it from the website.
SM: Who didn’t get being transgender from a website?
JC: Ah ah ah.The “my rights, you’re hurting us,” the “suicide.” Verbatim they are all saying the same thing. None of these are their words. These are words that they’re repeating because of everybody else in their social group.
SM: I want to be clear, because I want to make sure we characterize everything accurately. Do you believe that all transgender people are trans due to social contagion?
JC: No.
SM:. So you believe a lot of people are born trans and feel that way from birth?
JC:
SM: But you said one in 10,000—
JC: We also have a cluster who, until they’re in their 40s or 50s, are just turned on by the idea of being female. They’re attracted to women. They’re not gay. They’re always men. So we have one in tens of thousands and one in tens of thousands. And then we have this 5% of the entire population which came out of nowhere when smartphones were invented. They are dominating the conversation. They, except for one in ten thousand, they are not trans. They just hate their own bodies and here’s a narrative that’s close enough that says, “It’s not me, it’s everybody else on the planet and somebody else, no effort to me, I just have to lie there, the doctor will come and fix me. It’s not that I have issues to work on because I hate my body.” Taking the easy way out.
August 30, 1963 A “hotline” telephone link was installed between the Kremlin in Moscow and the White House in Washington, D.C. The intention was to allow direct communication in the event of a crisis between the U.S. president and the leader of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). It had been agreed to following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
August 30, 1964 The Democratic Party National Convention refused to seat any delegates from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The Credentials Committee chose to seat the all-white delegation from Mississippi’s regular Democratic Party despite overwhelming evidence of the state party’s efforts to disenfranchise Mississippi’s Negro citizens. A proposed compromise of two non-voting guest delegates from MFDP was rejected by its leaders. The dispute, the political intrigue, and the long-term effects
August 30, 1967 The Senate confirmed the appointment of Thurgood Marshall as the first Supreme Court Justice of African-American descent. Marshall had been counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and had been the lead attorney in the Brown v. Board of Education case. He was appointed to the Court by President Lyndon Johnson after having served as Solicitor General of the U.S. for two years, and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for four. Thurgood Marshall Who was Thurgood Marshall? NAACP
August 30, 1971 Ten empty school busses were dynamited in Pontiac, Michigan, eight days before a school integration plan was to begin. Following Federal Judge Damon Keith’s finding that Pontiac’s school board had “intentionally” perpetuated segregation, a plan was developed by the board that included bussing of 8700 children. The bombers were later identified as leaders and members of the Ku Klux Klan, arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned.
August 30, 1980 Striking Polish workers, their numbers approaching 150,000, won a sweeping victory in a battle with the Polish Communist government for the right to independent trade unions and the right to strike. Their lead negotiator was Lech Walesa, head of the union, Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity). Lech Walesa announces the deal to cheering crowds of shipyard workers.
August 30, 1999 Residents of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a U.N.-sponsored election. More about the East Timor election
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