Stephanie Hayden

UK — Leeds, England. Stephanie Rebecca Hayden, a man who identifies as a woman and lawyer, has a pattern of targeting those who do not share his faith in gender identity ideology, critics say.

According to his detractors, Mr Hayden regularly threatens gender identity disbelievers with civil or criminal lawsuits, or tries to have them ousted from their careers.

In September 2018, Mr Hayden denounced Sussex University as a “temple of transgender hate,” and attempted to get academics who express disbelief in gender identity ideology fired from the academic institution.

He angrily decried Sussex Professor Kathleen Stock’s refusal to believe that “transgender women are women” as “extremely arrogant,” and her description of them as “males with penises” to be “inherently transphobic” and “hateful and disrespectful.”

Professor Stock describing #transgender women as “males with penises” is inherently transphobic in nature! You are an academic, you know words have impact. Yet you CHOOSE to use words YOU KNOW will offend an entire class, and are considered hateful and disrespectful! #transphobia https://t.co/zInwDD2VK2 — Stephanie Hayden (@flyinglawyer73) September 8, 2018

Well right now you are suggesting you do by attempting to deny that #transgender women are women. That is, if I may say so, extremely arrogant! — Stephanie Hayden (@flyinglawyer73) September 8, 2018

Mr Hayden voiced support for Natacha Kennedy, a male transgender university researcher at Goldsmith University, who circulated on Facebook a list of academics from several UK universities who do not believe that men can become women. Mr Kennedy allegedly requested that members of a Facebook group shame the professors and blacklist their courses until these professors acquiesce to gender identity ideology.

That same month, Mr Hayden joined Adrian Harrop and other transgender activists in a successful campaign to take down a billboard in Liverpool that showcased the Google definition of the word “woman” as “adult human female.” That billboard was a “symbol that makes transgender people feel unsafe,” Dr Harrop claimed.

Adrian Harrop (l.) and Stephanie Hayden successfully campaigned for the removal of this billboard in Liverpool, UK, which showcased the Google definition of the word “woman.” The billboard read: “woman, wʊmən, noun, adult human female.” The two men claimed the billboard was “transphobic.” (Courtesy: Twitter, l., BBC, r.)

Also in late September 2018, Mr Hayden filed a police report against a self-described “transsexual” lawyer for “non-stop” harassment and malicious communications via Twitter. The male-born lawyer, who tweets under the handle Boudica10, questioned Mr Hayden’s professional credentials as a lawyer, stating in a series of tweets:

My issue with @flyinglawyer73 is solely that she claims to be a lawyer and uses that to shut women down. It’s narcissistic and it’s abuse.

Spoken today to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority today in respect of @flyinglawyer73’s holding herself out as an authorised and regulated person (an offence under s.20 of the Solicitors Act 1974) and tomorrow I am speaking to the police about her racist tweet and other matters.

Impersonating a solicitor is an offence…that’s why some unqualified lawyers claim to be mambers of Cilex. No risk of prosecution.

I’m hoping that everyone who has been threatened by this individual comes together with evidence so that we can show the world and especially the legal profession and justice system, how duplicitous they are.

I rang Cilex. I am not going to repeat publicly what I was able to find out, because I’d no doubt be threatened with libel but Cilex is your answer.

Mr Hayden, who is not listed on any professional legal body, declines to reveal details of his educational credentials or professional qualifications – “due to the harassment I have received,” he insists.

Boudica10 is “hostile to transgender women, who have not had genital reconstruction surgery, being considered as women,” Mr Hayden wrote in his complaint. Mr Hayden also said Boudica10 is hostile to the idea of “trans women” whose penises are intact accessing women-only facilities or services.

Boudica10 confirmed the latter accusation in an interview with RollOnFriday. “As a survivor of male sexual violence I am against male genitals in women’s spaces,” Boudica10 said.

Graham Linehan (Courtesy: BBC News)

Still in September, creator of TV’s Father Ted and Bafta award-winning comedy writer Graham Linehan engaged in critical analysis and debate on the topic of gender identity on Twitter. Mr Hayden then allegedly posted details, including business addresses, of Mr Linehan’s wife’s company. Mr Linehan said in a Times interview that Mr Hayden had doxxed his wife in an attempt to silence him:

Hayden was trying to shut me up by attacking my wife. The only thing the extremists will accept in this conversation is complete capitulation, but I won’t stop talking about this. There’s this unquestioning reverence for anyone who says they are transgender, but this unquestioning loyalty is really dangerous. Once people start silencing views, they start thinking they can get away with anything. This time, Stephanie has overreached.

Mr Linehan, believing Mr Hayden to be a “dangerous troll,” tweeted to his own 672,000 followers aliases Mr Hayden has used and examples of Mr Hayden’s online activity that is “harming women and transwomen.”

In October 2018, Mr Hayden responded by filing a complaint with law enforcement against Mr Linehan for “transphobic harassment”:

Mr Linehan deliberately used my former male identity and referred to me as ‘he’ despite having personal knowledge that I am the holder of a female gender recognition certificate. This is an act of transphobic harassment.

Mr Hayden’s case made history as the first “deadnaming” case in a UK court. To “deadname” is to reveal the name a transgender person used prior to “transition.”

The transition to Stephanie Hayden

“A [Gender Recognition Certificate] holder has a right to confidentiality in respect of their previous gender identity. If a person acts in an official capacity and discloses such information it is actually a criminal offence under s.22 Gender Recognition Act 2004,” Mr Hayden explained in an interview with Legal Cheek.

Mr Hayden dropped the civil proceedings against Mr Linehan in April 2019. West Yorkshire Police issued Mr Linehan a verbal warning not to contact Mr Hayden, who is proceeding against Mr Linehan in a civil suit for harassment, defamation and misuse of private information.

Katie Scottow, the breastfeeding mother of young children, was tossed in jail for 7 hours and denied menstrual products after calling a biologically male person a man. The individual, Stephanie Hayden, identifies as a trangender woman. (Courtesy: The Mail)

In the interim, Mr Hayden was busy filing lawsuits against others, including 38-year-old Kate Scottow, a Masters degree candidate in forensic psychology and nursing mom, whom Mr Hayden had thrown in jail in December 2018 for “misgendering” him on Twitter, as Women Are Human reported. Ms Scottow is expected to face magistrates on September 18.

In April 2019, Mr Hayden claimed that an individual posting under the username ALittleHelp18 on the popular website Mumsnet had made “allegations of criminality” against him. Mr Hayden won a High Court order compelling the website Mumsnet to reveal the user’s personal details, including full legal name, date of birth, address and email.

A month later, Mr Hayden announced on Twitter that “a 61-year-old” whom he described as a “bigot from the Hastings area (with whom I’ve never knowingly interacted) has published a dossier (doxxing) on high profile #transgender people including me.” In a July 29 statement, issued 10 days later, he revealed that he had “issued proceedings in the High Court naming Helena Wojtczak as the Defendant. Damages are being claimed for multiple and significant breaches of the GDPR and the Data Protection Acts. […] Other causes of action include harassment, misuse of private information, defamation, and breach of copyright.”

Helena Wojtczak

Ms Wojtczak, who describes herself as “a disabled pensioner, a lifelong feminist and an author of several women’s history books,” denies writing the blog she linked to. “Hayden has trapped me in a nightmare,” she said, which has compelled her to attain the services of a lawyer she says she cannot afford. Helena Wojtczak’s Crowdfunder campaign seeks to raise at least £4,000 for her legal defense. £2,471 had been raised by press time.

Mr Hayden, who was born Anthony Halliday in 1973, was granted a Gender Recognition Certificate in early 2018. The GRC requires that the UK government and residents behave as if they agree with gender identity ideology, including using compelled speech that indicates Mr Hayden has become a woman.

Mr Hayden has a criminal record under previous names, including a guilty plea to a lesser charge following accusations that he beat a man in the head with a golf club until the man bled.

A video of Mr Hayden, believed to have been recorded in 2016, appears to show him intimidating another man.