The UN faces fresh criticism over revelations that a second member of its transgender health panel has a controversial track record — including X-rated Grindr hookup posts and extreme views on trans children.
The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has been dogged by criticism since it last month unveiled the members of its 20-expert panel tasked with setting global health guidelines for trans and non-binary people.
Critics say the group — which is made up of trans campaigners and advocates — is biased. One trans activist member has already left the panel amid revelations about their past support for a ‘default’ use of puberty blockers on kids.
Now DailyMail.com can reveal that another panelist — Cianán Russell, a bearded, female-born, non-binary human rights lawyer — has a colorful social media profile that many would see as too smutty for intergovernmental work.
Cianán Russell was born female, started to transition in early adulthood, and bears the scars of breast-removal surgery
Russell shares explicit exchanges from the LGBT+ hookup app Grindr. In one, they say they’ve ‘f***d plenty of cis guys.’
In another Grindr exchange, Russell’s suitor asks whether they have female genitals, and then asks to ‘try to f**k it.’
Russell, a Brussels-based staffer with ILGA-Europe, a major LGBTQ+ organization, frequently posts about their bizarre and explicit interactions with suitors on the dating and hookup app Grindr.
The buff, tattooed activist also tweets angrily about the trans ‘genocide’, and reposts some of the community’s most ardent influencers, including Katy Montgomerie, Erin Reed and Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr.
Critics also highlight Russell’s work at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA), and the group’s historic links to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophile group.
DailyMail.com approached the Geneva-based WHO and asked whether Russell was a suitable person to draft advice for its 194 members, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Spokesman Tarik Jašarević declined to comment.
Russell, now in their thirties, was born female but began to transition in early adulthood. They studied at Purdue University and the University of Iowa before working for a series of human rights groups.
In their Instagram profile, Russell calls themselves a ‘f****t trans-separatist’ and posts portraits of themselves, cats, their travels, and a bizarre series of text exchanges with suitors on the LGBT+ hookup app Grindr.
As well as the Grindr texts, Russell posts lots of portraits of themselves, cats, and their travels
Russell at times appears irritated by the questions about their genitals that Grindr users ask
At other times, the racy messages lead to rows between Russell and their admirers
One of Russell’s admirers brazenly offers a ‘mouth job between your thighs’
Sometimes, the hookup conversations descend into ugly name-calling
In them, Grindr users send X-rated messages to Russell, asking whether they have male or female genitals, or revealing how they want to get between the sheets with a female-to-male transitioner.
‘U wanna try my c**k’ asks one of the admirers.
‘Nah. I’ve f***ed plenty of cis guys,’ Russell responds, using a term for non-trans people.
In another, an admirer asks Russell: ‘U have p***y?’
Russell replies simply: ‘Something like that.’
The admirer then asks: ‘Can I try to f**k it?’ which effectively ends the chat.
In some posts, the suitors get frustrated with Russell’s unwillingness to talk dirty, and point out that Grindr users are ‘here for sex.’
Some interactions end uncomfortably. One user calls Russell ‘the ugliest tranny I’ve ever seen in my life.’
Russell uses their X/Twitter account for politics.
There, they regularly tackle the controversial topic of gender-affirming care, as it is known, for children, and what some activists call a ‘genocide’ against trans people.
In one, Russell says efforts to restrict minors from getting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is ‘not about protecting children from making mistakes.’
Russell on social media describes themselves as a non-binary ‘fa**ot trans-separatist’
Russell on X/Twitter posts their strident views about children and the trans ‘genocide’
‘They are about ensuring that many trans people don’t survive long enough to transition,’ Russell’ posted in 2022.
‘Anti-trans folks don’t want to protect us; they want to eliminate us.’
In another post, they take aim at all ‘Cis folks,’ saying they’re ‘all complicit in this genocide against trans women. Every single one of you.’
Aside from Russell’s social media accounts, critics point to their work at ILGA, which is nowadays a mainstream LGBT+ umbrella group but has a checkered history, thanks to its historic ties to pedophiles.
In the 1990s, ILGA came under fire from Republican lawmakers in the US and was suspended from the UN over its perceived links to NAMBLA, which promoted pedophilia.
Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said Russell’s social media feeds showcased an ‘unmistakable lack of professionalism’ and ‘flaunting of basic norms of civility, trustworthiness, and decorum.’
‘That unprofessionalism undermines the credibility of public institutions (in this case, WHO) that rely on activists for ideas and policies. It compromises the trust of the public in those institutions,’ Sapir posted.
The UN panel on which Russell now sits has been dogged by controversy from the outset.
Nearly two-thirds of panelists are human rights lawyers, activists, and policy advisors.
Nearly two-thirds of the panelists are human rights lawyers, activists, and policy advisors, while just slightly over a third of them are trained medical doctors
The controversial panel is set to meet in Geneva next month
Florence Ashley, a law professor in Canada, exited the panel amid revelations that they said puberty blockers ‘ought to be treated as the default option’ for trans kids
Only about a third of them are trained doctors.
The panel includes several members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a nonprofit that sets guidelines for trans care that critics say steers too many people toward risky drugs and operations.
Members are set to meet in Geneva for the first time in February to hash out their policies.
WHO says the panel will set global guidelines for how doctors and other professionals can raise the ‘quality and respectful health services [for] trans and gender-diverse people.’
But critics say it is ‘biased’ for including only advocates of hormones and surgeries, and nobody who says such procedures are extreme, dangerous and not always in the best interest of patients.
Nearly 12,000 professionals, organizations, and members of the public have signed a petition calling for panelists to reflects the range of views on trans healthcare.
Reem Alsalem, a Jordanian human rights advocate at the UN, has slammed the WHO for including more activists than medical experts.
She said: ‘Stakeholders whose views differ from those held by transgender activist organizations do not appear to have been invited.’
One of the original WHO panelists, the Canadian activist Florence Ashley, was withdrawn from the panel in recent weeks.
It had emerged that they had published several papers calling for trans children to be given puberty blockers without mental health evaluations.
They co-wrote a study that said puberty blockers and hormone therapies should be the ‘default option’ for children with gender dysphoria.
Whether to provide gender-affirming drugs and surgeries to trans people, especially children, and letting people choose their own sex on official papers, have divided opinions globally.
Trans campaigners say society should be more inclusive of trans and non-binary people, critics say sex is an immutable biological fact and that trans people often need mental health support, not drugs.
