Gender Health Query
This content was last updated Nov. 13, 2023, 6:33 p.m. UTC
Gender Health Query (GenderHQ) is an anti-trans activism group with a primarily digital footprint. As an organization, the group presents itself as a collection of LGBTQ+ individuals with concerns about gender-affirming care provided to transgender youth. The organization's sources and material includes medical misinformation and resembles that of other anti-trans groups.
Founding
GenderHQ was started in early 2019 by Justine Deterling, then known as Justine Kreher, a bisexual woman. In an interview with 4th Wave Now, Deterling cited fears of “correct[ing] effeminate pre-gay boys and masculine pre-lesbian girls in homophobic countries like Iran, China, and Russia, once the child medical transition movement is fully normalized in the West,” as part of her reasoning for founding GenderHQ. The interview cites common anti-trans talking points in regards to gender-affirming care for minors, including overstated concerns about consent and rates of regret among those who seek gender-affirming care.
History of Anti-LGBTQ+ Activism
The organization’s stance on the topic of suicide risk in transgender minors blames factors including a social contagion theory of suicide while downplaying the risk of suicide attempts by minors who are not affirmed or offered avenues to explore their gender identity. GenderHQ repeatedly cites 4th Wave Now and Paul Dirks, a Christian anti-trans activist and conversion therapy advocate, and among its sources. (Suicidal ideation is common in transgender individuals, and transgender youth are at a considerably higher risk than transgender adults.)
GenderHQ promotes many unscientific, outdated, or un-evidenced views in an attempt to explain their resistance to the trans rights movement, including autogynephilia and the theory that a social contagion has caused young people to identify as trans.
In July of 2020, GenderHQ proposed a mailing campaign to various news publications in support of noted anti-trans author J.K. Rowling. The campaign included a prewritten letter, in which they claim Rowling has only expressed concerns that “extremist ideology was negatively impacting vulnerable groups.”
The organization has recommended various anti-trans documentaries and works, including Affirmation Generation and So, you think you may be trans by Tim Davies. Deterling was also interviewed for the 2021 YouTube documentary Dysphoric: Fleeing Womanhood Like a House on Fire.