Opinions
Anti-LGBTQ group ‘Science for Truth’ spreads hate globally
Russian website translates propaganda into more than 18 languages
By HEIDI BEIRICH | A rather mysterious Russian website run by a group called Science for Truth (Наука за правду) is a major vector worldwide for lies about the LGBTQ+ community. Their site, pro-lgbt.ru (meaning “about-LGBT” in Russian), was previously identified by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) as an organization that repeatedly appeared in top search results for conversion therapy, the discredited practice of attempting to change LGBTQ+ people’s sexual orientation or gender identity that has been described as akin to torture by a U.N. special rapporteur. It showed up prominently on Bing and Google in places like Kenya, Colombia and even the U.S. (see the full GPAHE report here.)
A unique aspect of the site is that it translates its anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda into over 18 major languages, including all major European languages, as well as Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese. The site also publishes articles in languages that have fewer speakers, including Serbian, Georgian and Hungarian, which are less likely to be content moderated. Even though the site is filled with dehumanizing material about LGBTQ+ people, it still shows up as a top search result for information on LGBTQ+ issues in many countries. This allows the group to spread their bigoted messages far and wide globally, making it an influential actor in the broader anti-LGBTQ+ movement. According to the Semrush app, the pro-lgbt.ru site garnered around 15,000 unique visitors in July 2023 alone.
So what is Science for Truth?
Started around 2017, Science for Truth’s mission is to “disseminate facts that are deliberately kept silent by the leaders of the LGBT movement, which leads to the involvement of unsuspecting citizens in a destructive lifestyle, fraught with the most serious consequences for their health and well-being.” As indicated in its name, the group presents itself as disseminating materials based on science created “in collaboration with scientists, psychiatrists and sexologists.” This statement, though, is highly misleading; what Science for Truth disseminates is dehumanizing pseudoscience apparently designed to undermine the movement for LGBTQ+ rights in Russia and abroad.
Much more than a simple group of “scientists,” Science for Truth spreads lies and dehumanizes LGBTQ+ people on its website, Telegram channel, and VK account by describing LGBTQ+ people as “pedophiles,” “homofascists” and potential terrorists. For instance, the site has a post postulating that “anti-sperm bodies” that are “formed in sodomites and homosexuals” could lead to “autoimmune infertility, miscarriages, cancer in children and DNA destruction” resulting in a “genocide” if spread amongst society. They also post in support of aversion electroshock therapy, which involves electrical shocks, at times to a man’s genitals, while they look at gay pornography or related material, as a solution to “cure” one’s innate homosexuality.
The group is known for targeting the LGBTQ+ movement and attempting to bully activists and scientists living in Russia. In 2018, the group took aim at a scientific paper released by two academics at the once liberal-leaning Moscow university, Higher School of Economics (HSE), accusing them of “collaborationism” for having written that gay people “should be assumed to be born that way,” and elaborating that their efforts to destroy “traditional values” were “a psychological means of destroying Russian statehood and a way of destroying the collective identity of the peoples of Russia.” They also regularly cheer on the placing of Russian LGBTQ+ activists on the notorious list of “foreign agents,” and the arrest of activists for “treason,” and encourage supporters to report their materials to the Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) for them to be blocked.
One of the principal figures connected to Science for Truth is the mysterious figure who goes by Ivan Stepanovich Kurennoy (Иван Степанович Куренной), and refers to himself as the coordinator of Science for Truth. He uses the avatar of a white-bearded traveler from the 19th century in all of his online publications. In his works, he refers to himself as an “independent researcher” or a “Depopulation Technology Researcher,” and he engages in widespread conspiracy-mongering. The basis for many of his views regarding the LGBTQ+ movement comes from his belief in a secret plot to depopulate the earth by lowering the birth rate through the spread of LGBTQ+ values. He claims that the publication of the now widely discredited book “The Population Bomb,” which wrongly predicted a mid-20th century demographic catastrophe caused by insufficient agricultural production and overpopulation, set off a series of events in the West that led political leaders to introduce the LGBTQ+ agenda in order to limit population growth.
Another belief relates to the COVID pandemic, where Kurennoy argued that a “chipping” process taking place during the vaccination drive was part of these same “depopulation” efforts. In another one of his odd rants, he wrote that Russian parliamentarians could do “what Hitler failed to do” and pass the 2019 draft law “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence,” which, though it never passed, sought to strengthen Russia’s comparatively weak laws against domestic violence.
Some of Kurrenoy’s past posts are tinged with antisemitism which may be an indication of where some of his stranger conspiracist beliefs originate from. Around 2016, before he turned to mainly demonizing LGBTQ+ people, Kurrenoy frequently posted about control of Ukraine by the Israeli lobby, secret plots by George Soros, and a “fifth column” in Russia that is descended from Jews. In one post, he explicitly points to “the globalists,” referring to them as a “parasites,” as the source of funding for LGBTQ+ people.
Of the articles that the members of Science for Truth have published in academic journals, many, if not most of them are clearly not up to scientific standards, but rather ideological. These include, among others, “The problem of anthropomorphic interpretation of animal behavior in the context of the discussion about the characteristics of human sexual behavior,” published in the “academic” journal “World of Science” (Мир Науки), in which the “independent researchers” of Science for Truth set out to disprove the argument that “homosexuality is a kind of norm for humans, since it is common in nature.” The journal has a history of publishing questionable materials from other authors as well with titles such as “Changes in the physical properties of baptismal water under the influence of electromagnetic radiation,” pointing to the overall lack of scientific rigor of the journal. Interestingly, in the piece criticizing the HSE professors’ paper, the Science for Truth authors claim that the authors had published in an English-language journal “apparently for better understanding in a country that has declared the fight for the rights of sexual minorities abroad a foreign policy priority,” making their agenda quite clear.
Another figure connected with the group is Viсtor Grigorievitsch Lysov (Виктор Григорьевич Лысов) whose participation with the group goes back at least to 2017. On his livejournal account, Lysov has written articles on such topics as “the sacralization of homosexuality,” and the “Pederastization of Russia,” where he argues that the “pederastic value system has long been firmly rooted” in Russian society. He makes regular appearances on the Science for Truth VKontakte (VK) page. Lysov’s main contribution to the Science for Truth project is his propagandistic texts “The rhetoric of the LGBT movement in the light of scientific facts” and “Dehumanization,” in which he takes on the “myths of gender ideology,” and claims that LGBTQ+ rights would lead to the “normalization of pedophilia.” On his ORCID site, used for tracking academic publications, Viktor Lysov is listed as being located in both Russia and Germany. The website links he shares are of the anti-LGBTQ+ American organizations Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatricians, both listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the German Institute for Youth and Society (Deutsches Institut für Jugend und Gesellschaft), an organization known for offering “conversion therapy” services. In a solo publication in the “World of Science,” “Homophobia’ is not latent homosexuality,” his affiliation is also listed as the German Institute for Youth and Society, in Reichelsheim, Germany, however, when a previous investigation reached out to the Institute, they denied having any affiliation with Lysov.
Garnik Surenovich Kocharyan (Кочаряна Гарника Суреновича) is one of the few “doctors” at Science for Truth with an actual medical career. As a part of his practice, Kocharyan provides treatments for “disorders of sexual preference” including “violations of sexual orientation” and “sexual perversions.” He is the honorary president of the Kyiv-based conversion therapy clinic Association of Sexologists and Sex Therapists of Ukraine (Асоціація сексологів та сексотерапевтів України, ASSTU), which claims to bring together “specialists from various fields of natural sciences and humanities” of sexology, and provide for “the application and development of therapeutic methods aimed at improving a person’s sexual life.” The organization has published announcements calling for the full “decommunization” of the country at the end of the war to deal with alleged left-wing plots to spread “gender ideology” in Ukraine. In some of the more polemical posts by the association, ASSTU have written:
“Total illiteracy in the field of sexology and mass propaganda of LGBT — leads to the fact that even psychologists and doctors begin to believe that homosexuality is exclusively innate. Believing in such a thing is a crime against Ukrainian children, teenagers and youth, a crime against all future generations … We will not allow Ukrainian science to be manipulated to meet the needs of organized groups of sexual deviants. We will not allow introducing LGBT ideology into the consciousness of our citizens.”
Aside from Kurrenoy, Kocharyan is one of the main propagandists associated with Science for Truth. He has published posts under the group’s name promoting “conversion therapy,” one referring to “forced homosexualization” as a “modern destructive trend in sex education,” and another concerning the alleged “fallacy of ideas about the innate nature of homosexuality.”
Beyond, this, Science for Truth also has a recognizable association with the ant-LGBTQ+ group CitizenGO. Several of their petitions have been published on the CitizenGo website, though they appear to have then been removed at a later date. It is interesting to note that while posts for other groups on the CitizenGo site have been given labels indicating that they were “created by a person or organization not affiliated with CitizenGO,” this was not the case with posts from Science for Truth, indicating an association with CitizenGO that may be closer than that of other organizations.
Several individuals are not full members of the Science for Truth team, but collaborate with them or promote each other’s work. The doctors at the “Phoenix Clinic” (Клиника «Феникс»), based in the center of Rostov-na-Donu, are a regular fixture in Science for Truth posts. One associate is Olga Alexandrovna Bukhanovskaya (Бухановская Ольга Александровна) who was recently featured on a broadcast of Solovyov Live. Another is psychiatrist Anton Vasilyevich Dyachenko (Антон Васильевич Дьяченко), who has written that it is “incorrect to deny the presence of a biological norm.” Among some of the cases treated by the psychologists of the “Phoenix Clinic” are people who “insist on changing their biological sex and feel like a representative of the other sex,” “strive to dress in clothes of the opposite sex, but cannot overcome this need,” “accuse relatives or neighbors of theft, which does not correspond to reality,” and those who “feel possessed by spirits, genies, who force them to carry out their orders and commands.” Psychology PhD candidate Alexander Neveev (Александр Невеев) is another Science for Truth associate with a pseudo-scientific career who has published interviews on the topic of homosexuality on the Science for Truth YouTube page. Alex Shatner’s (Алекс Шатнер) partnership with Science for Truth goes back to November 2017, when he was a co-author of a text on the “myth of homosexuality among animals.” He, too, is listed as a co-author in the “World of Science” article “The problem of anthropomorphic interpretation of animal behavior in the context of a discussion about the characteristics of human sexual behavior.”
In order to break free of their small radical right-wing echo chamber in Russia, a member of their group in early 2018 has also attempted to influence Russian knowledge of LGBTQ+ issues by editing an enormous number of articles on the Russian Wikipedia page under the username “Путеец” (traveler) with content from the group’s website. The edits made were so outrageous, with “sweeping conclusions based on an inaccurate understanding of biological problems,” that the moderators of the Russian site gave the user a topic-ban on “biomedical information in LGBT articles.” After the account was further prevented from making these kinds of edits, the group released an article on their site criticizing the “bias” of the website moderators.
Science for Truth regularly lobbies the Russian government and pushes for ever-increasing restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights in Russia. Recently, Ivan Kurrenoy has even reached out to the famous pro-Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan to ask her to support their group and its issues. In September 2018, they called on the minister of health to continue to regard homosexuality as a pathology. In January 2019, the group published an open letter to the Russian Duma on the topic of the “impending LGBT revolution in Russia” in which they spread more disinformation on the LGBTQ+ movement’s agenda to “convert” straight people, and LGBTQ+ values causing population decline in the West. As early as 2019, Ivan Kurrenoy has been petitioning government officials, such as Deputy Chairman of the Duma Pyotr Olegovich Tolstoy (Пётр Олегович Толстой), to call for the censoring of LGBTQ+ content online. In the publication “Zavtra” (Tomorrow), they published an open letter on October 16th, 2021, to the head of Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) Anna Yurievna Popova to investigate Vadim Valentinovich Pokrovsky, the head of the department of the research institute of epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, as a potential “foreign agent” for voicing the importance of sex education for Russian children. After this letter was ignored, Science for Truth published an appeal in which they questioned whether Rospotrebnadzor was a “foreign agent.” The letter read:
“In the face of Rospotrebnadzor, society would like to see an ally, and not compradors and collaborators, who are trying to introduce methods of molesting Russian children on the recommendations of the U.N. Committee (CEDAW), which requires Russia to destroy traditional values, including among religious figures, introduce ‘sex education,’ abolish prevention of abortion and legalization of prostitution, among other things with the help of foreign agents.”
In the letter, they claimed that the appeal was made “through Senator Margarita Nikolaevna Pavlova,” implying that the group has at least some institutional support among the Russian elite. In a more recent letter, the group lambasted the Minister of Health Mikhail Albertovich Murashko for not doing enough at the U.N. to promote “Russian science” (despite the fact that the group claims that Russian science is “so controlled by the West that it does not express a sovereign position”). They demanded, among other things, the promotion of “Russian science,” the restriction of trans-affirming care in clinics, and to check for “foreign agents” in the field of medicine. In May 2023, the group claimed that the ministry of education considered proposals of Science for Truth on “issues of mental norms and pathology in the field of psychosexual health and sexual perversions.” They have also written that the recent ban on gender-affirming care in Russia was originally a proposal that they submitted to the Russian government. In another post, the group claims to have been able to present their work at the 2022 Demographic Development of the Far East and Arctic conference (2022 демографическое развитие Дальнего Востока и Арктики) in which anti-LGBTQ+ senator Inga Iumasheva Albertovna, who once spoke out against “LGBT propaganda” being a “threat to national security,” was present. Science for Truth were also present at the IV Hippocratic Medical Forum the year prior, when Albertovna also gave a presentation.
Despite this apparent interaction with the Russian government, GPAHE could not find Science for Truth or any other affiliated names in the official database of Russian NGOs. This fact, as well as the curiously anonymous nature of many of their members, points to its likely role as a small, yet influential soft-power instrument of the international anti-LGBTQ+ movement, given their ability to spread their bigoted message both domestically and abroad. Either way, Science for Truth’s influence in Russia and abroad is only growing, and its bigoted message is reaching further, particularly online.
Heidi Beirich is co-founder of Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
Opinions
On Pope Francis, Opus Dei and ongoing religious intolerance
Argentine-born pontiff died on Monday
“Good Friday” set the stage for Saturday’s anti-Trump/MAGA “Hands Off” protests serving as a timely lead-in to binge-watching Alex Gibney’s two-part HBO political documentary, “The Dark Money Game” on Easter Sunday. In “Wealth of the Wicked,” nefarious Opus Dei —Svengali Leonard Leo strategically seduces politically disappointed Catholic Federalist Society billionaires into subsidizing a scheme to ‘pipeline’ malleable conservative judges to take over the Supreme Court and overturn reproductive rights.
A key victory for “Operation Higher Court” came in 2010 when SCOTUS ruled 5-4 in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, that corporations and unions have the same First Amendment free political speech rights as individuals — as long as their unlimited cash donations go to 501 c(4)’s or Super PAC slush funds and not directly to candidates. Twelve years later, in 2022, they got their payoff with the overturning of Roe v Wade by Leo-promoted Catholic justices.
But Leo’s political conniving is not the only exploitation of moral corruption. The documentary exposes conservative Christians too.
Gibney’s anti-hero is a former rabid anti-abortion lobbyist named Rev. Robert Schenck. He tells of turning to a fellow conservative in Cleveland, Ohio after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and asking: “Are we really going to do this? We’re going to choose this man who’s inimical to everything we believe?” The other evangelical replied: “I don’t care how bad he is. He’s going to get us the court we need.’”
Schenck explains the unholy alliance between Christian conservatives and Big Business. “Whenever you talked about government regulation, the argument was eventually — ‘these same characters who control my business are going to start trying to control your church. So, it’s in your best interests that we defang this monster’ — and that brought a lot of religious conservatives over.”
And there’s this: “We have a little aphorism built on a Bible verse: ‘The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous.’ So, yeah, let’s baptize the billionaires’ money. We can do that — and it eventually brought together this alliance.”
Schenck later reveals an intense epiphany that resulted in regret for how much harm he caused. Not so for Leo.
This is an excerpt from Gareth Gore’s comprehensive book Opus, for Rolling Stone Magazine:
“DURING THE DONALD TRUMP YEARS, conservatives — led by Leonard Leo — took control of the Supreme Court … At one Federalist Society event, his good friend Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas jokingly referred to Leo as the third most powerful man in the world, presumably behind the pope and the president of the United States.”
On Monday morning, Pope Francis died. I liked this pope, compared to the others. I covered Creating Change during the AIDS crisis when author Paul Monette delivered his brilliant, scathing denouncement of the Catholic Church, then unexpectedly ripped up a portrait of Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI was just crotchety cruel. But Pope Francis — named for St. Francis of Assisi — had that big smile and genuinely seemed to care about migrants, the vulnerable and the marginalized — like us. He even used the word ‘gay’ instead of ‘homosexual.’
Pope Francis’s reply to a question about a Vatican “gay lobby” on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome made global news. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will,” he said in 2013. “Who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society.”
What did this mean? Welcoming inclusion into a family that officially considers us ‘intrinsically disordered?’
And then there was Pope Francis’s interaction with Juan Carlos Cruz — a whistleblower in Chile’s clerical sex abuse scandal.
“He said, ‘Look Juan Carlos, the pope loves you this way. God made you like this and he loves you,'” Cruz told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile the Catholic Church Catechism affirmed, “this inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.”
Ergo, a behavioral choice.
Therein lies the problem.
LGBTQ people are seen largely as individuals with sinful same sex sexual ‘inclinations.’ So when the pontiff touted ‘the equal dignity of every human being,’ and rebuked Vice President JD Vance with the ‘Good Samaritan’ parable, whereby love “builds a fraternity open to all, without exception” — we are still the exception.
Francis was all also human — having to apologize at one point for using a gay slur. But what of the bigger things like, did he know about the Opus Dei takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court when he chastised Vance about deporting migrants? Did he know that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $880 million to 1,353 people last October, who allege they were victims of clergy sexual abuse? With a previous payment of $740 million, the total settlement payout will be more than $1.5 billion dollars. Is Leo chipping in to replenish that?
And it’s not over. Earlier this month, Downey Catholic priest Jaime Arriaga, 41, was charged with several counts of child sexual abuse which allegedly happened when he was serving as a transitional deacon at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.
Longtime U.K LGBTQ+ activist Peter Tatchell — who’s campaigned against Catholic homophobia for 58 years — says Pope Francis’ legacy is complicated.
“I extend my condolences to Catholics worldwide on the passing of Pope Francis. While we often disagreed on issues of LGBTQ rights, I acknowledge his more compassionate tone towards sexual minorities. His recent moves to allow blessings for same-sex couples, albeit with limitations, signaled a small but significant shift in Church doctrine,” Tatchell said in a statement.
“However, for millions of LGBT+ people globally, the Catholic Church remains a force for discrimination and suffering. Under his leadership, the Vatican continued to oppose same-sex marriage and trans rights. Catholic bishops lobbied against the decriminalization of homosexuality in many parts of the world. The Vatican still upholds the homophobic edicts of the Catechism, which denounces the sexual expression of same-sex love as a ‘grave depravity’ and ‘intrinsically disordered.’ Francis’s legacy is, therefore, a mixed one — offering some progress, but leaving deep-rooted inequalities largely intact.
“The struggle for LGBT+ equality against a homophobic church must continue. We urge the next Pope to go further — to end the church’s support for discrimination, both within the faith and in the wider society.”
Brad Tennis loves running. For years, the meditative rhythm of his feet on pavement brought him peace like nothing else could. And it turns out, he was quite good at running as he even qualified for the Boston Marathon. But while Brad was chasing his goals, unbeknownst to him, his heart was slowly deteriorating.
In November 2018, out of the blue, Brad was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy or ARVC, a rare heart condition that causes the heart muscle to break down over time. ARVC increases the risk of abnormal heartbeats and chance of sudden cardiac death. Brad was fitted with an internal defibrillator and told he could no longer run. Doctors warned him that endurance exercise would only accelerate the disease.
After processing the news of this condition, Brad felt like himself for a while. But in 2020, he started experiencing Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) shocks to halt life threatening arrhythmias. Despite numerous surgical and medical interventions, the shocks began to get more frequent. By 2023, the toll of the disease, the ICD shocks and the treatments led to progressing heart failure. By the end of 2023, he was feeling breathless on stairs, having trouble playing physically with his children and finding it difficult to keep up at work. His world was shrinking.
In February 2024, Brad started the process with Johns Hopkins Hospital to be listed for a heart transplant. A couple of weeks later, he had another shock, more testing and then a doctor put him on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), a life support machine that is used when a person’s heart is failing. Soon after, he got the news of a lifetime: “There’s a heart available and today is the day!”
The organ transplant marked the beginning of a new journey. Brad focused on recovery — building up his strength, learning his new body and adjusting to life with a new heart. Last summer, he was cleared to exercise again and is enjoying playing with his kids — something he deeply missed.
“I would never say I’m back to feeling normal. I’m always going to have to carefully manage my stress and my activities to protect my health and my new heart,” said Brad. “But the transplant was lifesaving and means that I will be there to build a life with my husband and my kids.”
Brad is still moving forward. He and his family are enjoying life again — and he’s even bought a new pair of sneakers with the hope that he’ll be able to return to running regularly.
“Organ donation and transplant have reopened doors that I had thought were closed forever,” Brad shares. “It’s given me the chance to be present and have a full, happy life with my husband, son and daughter.”
His husband, Drew, adds, “Every day, I’m reminded of Brad’s strength, resilience and bravery.”
Brad doesn’t take this lifesaving gift for granted and is grateful to his organ donor hero. “I think it’s an amazing thing — to give life and give hope. Even in tragedy, someone gave me a gift… a second chance. Everyone can register to be a donor and save lives like Brad’s at infinitelegacy.org.
Commentary
Fight against TERFs goes global
UK Supreme Court on April 17 ruled legal definition of ‘woman’ limited to ‘biological sex’
After last week’s U.K. Supreme Court ruling that reduced the legal definition of “woman” to “biological sex,” footage of a group of women celebrating the decision with champagne spread virally across the media. These women are known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs.
In response, thousands of transgender people and their allies — including parents, siblings, and pro-trans celebrities — flooded the streets of London, Sheffield, Manchester, Cardiff, and other cities across the U.K. on April 19, to protest the erosion of trans rights. The fight between TERFs and trans* people have become more visible to those outside of the British LGBTQ+ community.
But this isn’t just about the U.K. The problem has gone global. For me, as an openly trans person who has lived in four different countries, it feels deeply personal.
For years, British TERFs have been spreading misinformation about gender around the globe, collaborating with far-right politicians and inspiring anti-trans violence.
At a pro-trans protest I attended in Sheffield, one of the speakers, Sofia Alatorre, a trans woman from Mexico now living in the U.K., dedicated her speech to the ways British TERFs, with their powerful movement supported by celebrities, such as “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, are influencing people in South America.
“When I go to Mexico now, I don’t just hear people talking about transsexuals as degenerates anymore. Instead I hear about what bathroom we should use, or whether we belong in sports,” Sofia told the Washington Blade. “These are not lines that come from Mexico. They are finely crafted narratives designed to drive a wedge by weaponizing ‘common sense’ gut reactions to complicated subjects. Because without these, they’d have to face the uncomplicated reality: We are just people trying to live our lives happily. In the U.K., the entire media infrastructure is sympathetic with ‘gender critical’ TERF ideology to the point that sympathy blurs into outright support. With these lines finding footing in the Global South, it seems clear that the U.K. has become an exporter of transphobia.”
Unfortunately, TERFs even showed up at a trans event, attempting to argue with the speakers.
One of the trans* organizers of the Sheffield demonstration, who preferred to remain anonymous, expressed their love for the trans* community and trans* people. They emphasized that they are not expressing hatred toward TERFs — they simply want them to reconsider their position.
“If you’re a TERF and reading this, we don’t hate you,” they said. “We don’t hate you. There is nothing I hold in my heart but deep pity for you. You do not know the community of love that we have as transsexuals, and you only know your community of hatred. If you are tired of feeling nothing but hate, come and talk to us, we’re nice, I promise. This protest is a rallying cry that we can’t lose, that we are all here for each other, and that we can do whatever the f*ck we want when we work together. We may be out here today in rage, but what keeps us alive is love.”
But it doesn’t seem like TERFs are ready to show love toward trans people — or to see trans women as their sisters. At our local protest in Sheffield, they were so agitated, jumping toward speakers and trying to engage with them, that the police had to intervene and remove them to prevent a fight. It reminded me of TERFs’ behavior I encountered in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Russian-language online spaces.
Unfortunately, it’s not just South America that has been influenced by UK TERFs. The country I currently live in is known within European and U.S. queer communities as “TERF Island.”
Some trans Americans even avoid traveling to the U.K., afraid of the influence that Rowling holds over millions due to her wealth and cultural impact.
In Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries, so-called “radical feminism” is the most prominent feminist movement. Radical feminism, which emerged in the 1960s, is based on the belief that patriarchy is the root of all other forms of oppression.
In modern Eastern Europe, this has led to a situation where many feminists fail to acknowledge racism, ableism, and transphobia — excluding everyone except cisgender people, Slavic, atheist, and able-bodied people from their movement. Historically, radical feminists have not focused much on the trans* community, but with the rise of trans* activism in the 2000s, many became fixated on targeting trans people.
Many of my Russian-speaking trans friends have been badly bullied by local TERFs. Some even experienced suicidal thoughts and severe anxiety due to online harassment from them. And these TERFs weren’t developing their ideology locally — they were importing it. The anti-man rhetoric was inherited from American prominent radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin and Ti-Grace Atkinson, while the transphobic elements were “exported” to Eastern Europe, primarily from the U.K. and specifically Scotland.
Even before Rowling, there was Magdalen Berns, a Scottish TERF YouTuber who was extremely popular among Russian girls and women. It was Berns who helped bring Rowling into anti-trans activism.
I spoke with Sophie Molly, a Scottish trans activist and politician who ran as an Independent MP candidate in the 2024 U.K. general election for the Aberdeen South constituency.
TERFs ruthlessly harassed her during her campaign.
“Transphobia is institutionalized in the UK. It is systemic and it’s getting worse with each passing day” she told me. “Local TERF have a slew of legal professionals on their team too. Like Sarah Phillimore and Joanne Cherry. TERFs have been continually lobbying the government to oppress trans and gender non-conforming people. Dragging their rights and freedoms through the courts. All under the pretense of protecting the rights of women. In reality these conservative groups are backed and funded by billionaires. Billionaires that want to remove trans people from public life, due a personal prejudice they hold. The majority of TERFs are wealthy and privileged white women. Most of them are not LGBTQIA+. They have obscene amounts of money to spend on persecuting a tiny minority. Trans women are women — no matter what the U.K. Supreme Court dictates.”
But another problem of TERFs is that they are policing women as well. Even the Supreme Court decision targeted women.
“The [Supreme Court] decision is an attack on the rights of both trans people and women,” Sophie said. “It reduces women to their anatomy, which is extremely regressive and misogynistic in my opinion”
Women for decades have fought to ensure their lives wouldn’t be defined by the sexual organs they were born with. TERFs are now doing exactly that — attempting to reduce womanhood to biology, while also dictating how women should behave, all in the name of “sisterhood.”
Modern British TERFs have received support from figures like musician, far-right influencer, and convicted murderer Varg Vikernes, as well as ultra-conservative organizations such as the Russian Orthodox Church, an institution notorious not only for justifying the war in Ukraine with homophobic rhetoric but also for its long history of opposing women’s rights. This kind of “feminism” is a global threat, not only to trans* people but also to girls and women everywhere.
Editor’s note: The author uses trans* in order to be inclusive of nonbinary and gender queer people.
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‘Pronoun Trouble’ reminds us that punctuation matters
