What happened to Glenn Greenwald? The former trans ally now sides with right wing transphobia

Reporting for this article was funded by a grant from the ExposeFacts program of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
In 2022, Pride month — June — gave way to an explosion of invective against LGBTQ rights, helped along by allies in right-wing media, particularly Fox News. But there's also rising anti-trans sentiment in the liberal-left sphere, and it's being driven by some elements of what might be called the "post-left," onetime champions of progressive outlooks who have now tilted to the right. Former Intercept writer (and Salon columnist) Glenn Greenwald is one of those leading the charge, turning his audience on to fringe elements of a growing hate movement.

It wasn't always like this. Greenwald was once a stalwart defender of trans rights — perhaps in connection with his advocacy for U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and his friendship with since-assassinated Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco. "If you want to get a taste for how widespread warped & creepy hostility against trans people is, mention Chelsea Manning & survey the bile," Greenwald tweeted on Sept. 10, 2016.

In 2017, Greenwald called Milo Yiannopoulos' notorious appearance on Bill Maher's show "the most trans-hating discussion I've seen on television." He referred to Maher's attacks on trans people in general as indicative of a complex of "thinking you're brave & subversive for mocking the most marginalized, while reliably sycophantic to actual power."

Greenwald recognized the extent of anti-trans bigotry and the dangers it posed in the U.K. at least as recently as June 2020. That month, he celebrated an article at the now-shuttered outlet the Outline wondering why British media had become so transphobic and said Harry Potter author and anti-trans advocate J.K. Rowling's "victimhood complex is suffocating & narcissistic."

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Many of us had his number for years!