The UN is facing new criticism over revelations that a second transgender health panel member has a controversial record – including X-rated Grindr hookup posts and extreme views on trans children.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has been dogged by criticism since it last month unveiled the members of its 20-expert panel charged with drawing up 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 following revelations about their past support for ‘standard’ use of puberty blockers in children.
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 consider too dirty for intergovernmental work.
Cianán Russell was born female, began transitioning in early adulthood, and bears the scars of breast removal surgery
Russell shares explicit exchanges from LGBT+ hookup app Grindr. In one, they say they’ve “fucked a lot of cis guys.”
In another Grindr exchange, Russell’s lover asks if they have female genitals, then asks if they “try to fuck with them.”
Russell, a Brussels-based employee of ILGA-Europe, a major LGBTQ+ organization, regularly posts about their bizarre and explicit interactions with suitors on the dating and hookup app Grindr.
The muscular, tattooed activist also tweets angrily about transgender “genocide,” reposting some of the community’s most fervent influencers, including Katy Montgomerie, Erin Reed and Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr.
Critics also highlight Russell’s work with the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA), and the group’s activities. historical ties 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 prepare advice for its 194 members, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Spokesman Tarik Jašarević declined to comment.
Russell, now in her 30s, was born female but began transitioning early in adulthood. They attended Purdue University and the University of Iowa before working for a series of human rights organizations.
On their Instagram profile, Russell calls herself a ‘fa**ot 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.
In addition to the Grindr texts, Russell posts many portraits of himself, cats and their travels
Russell sometimes seems irritated by the questions Grindr users ask about their genitals
At other times, the spicy messages lead to arguments between Russell and their admirers
One of Russell’s admirers cheekily offers a ‘mouth job between your thighs’
Sometimes the hookup conversations degenerate into ugly name-calling
In it, Grindr users send X-rated messages to Russell, asking if they have male or female genitals, or revealing how they want to get between the sheets with a female-to-male transition.
“You want to try my c**k” asks one of the admirers.
‘No. I’ve fucked enough cis guys,” Russell replies, using a term for non-transgender people.
In another, an admirer asks Russell: ‘Do you have any p***y?’
Russell simply replies, “Something like that.”
The admirer then asks, “Can I try to fuck it?” effectively ending the chat.
In some messages, the suitors are frustrated by Russell’s reluctance to talk dirty, pointing out that Grindr users are “here for sex.”
Some interactions end awkwardly. One admirer calls Russell “the ugliest tranny I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Russell uses their X/Twitter account for politics.
There they regularly address the controversial topic of gender-affirming care for children, as it is known, and what some activists call a ‘genocide’ against transgender people.
In one, Russell says that efforts to prevent minors from getting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are “not about protecting children from making mistakes.”
Russell describes himself on social media as a non-binary ‘fa**ot trans separatist’
Russell posts on X/Twitter their sharp views on children and the trans genocide
“They must ensure that many trans people do not survive long enough to transition,” Russell wrote in 2022.
“Anti-transgender people don’t want to protect us; they want to eliminate us.”
In another post, they target all “Cis people,” saying they are “all complicit in this genocide against trans women.” You all.’
Aside from Russell’s social media accounts, critics point to their work at ILGA, which is now a mainstream LGBT+ umbrella group, but has a checkered history thanks to its historical ties with pedophiles.
In the 1990s, ILGA came under fire from Republican lawmakers in the US and was expelled from the UN for its alleged ties to NAMBLA, which promoted pedophilia.
The UN panel on which Russell now sits has been dogged by controversy from the start.
Nearly two-thirds of the 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 over a third of them are trained doctors
The controversial panel will meet in Geneva next month
Florence Ashley, a law professor in Canada, left the panel amid revelations that they said puberty blockers ‘should be treated as the default option’ for trans children
Only about a third of them are trained physicians.
The panel includes several members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a nonprofit organization that sets guidelines for trans care that critics say steers too many people toward risky drugs and surgeries.
The members will meet for the first time in Geneva in February to develop their policies.
The WHO says the panel will set global guidelines for how doctors and other professionals can improve “quality and respectful healthcare services (for) trans and gender diverse people.”
But critics say it is “biased” because it only involves proponents of hormones and surgery, and no one who says such procedures are extreme, dangerous and not always in the best interests of patients.
Nearly 12,000 professionals, organizations and citizens have signed an agreement petition A call for panelists to reflect diverse views on trans healthcare.
Reem Alsalem, a Jordanian human rights lawyer at the UN, has condemned the WHO for including more activists than medical experts.
She said: ‘Stakeholders whose views differ from those of transgender activist organizations do not appear to have been invited.’
One of the original WHO panel members, Canadian activist Florence Ashley, was withdrawn from the panel in recent weeks.
It turned out that they had published several articles calling for trans children to be given puberty blockers without mental health evaluation.
They co-authored a study that argued that puberty blockers and hormone therapies should be the ‘default option’ for children with gender dysphoria.
Opinions are divided worldwide over whether gender-affirming drugs and surgeries should be provided to transgender people, especially children, and whether people should be allowed to choose their own gender on official papers.
Trans activists say society needs to be more inclusive of trans and non-binary people, critics say sex is an immutable biological fact and trans people often need mental health care, not drugs.