Julie Bindel Julie Bindel

Reddit, Aimee Challenor and a disturbing insight into the trans debate

Green party co-leader Jonathan Bartley with Aimee Challenor (Getty images)

Aimee Knight, previously known as Aimee Challenor, has been sacked by Reddit. But while Challenor has now gone, her reappearance in the headlines — and the way in which Reddit mishandled this story — is a revealing and disturbing insight into the transgender debate.

It all began with an article I wrote for these pages on Green party gender madness in which I briefly mentioned Challenor’s suspension from the party in 2018. It was a scandal that Challenor did not wish to see dragged up. When a moderator of the popular UK politics community on Reddit shared that article, mentioning Challenor by name, the post was removed and the moderator banned. Had Challenor persuaded the powers that be at Reddit to prevent users from discussing her past? 

Whether Challenor did or not, the fallout quickly became hard for Reddit to ignore: users bombarded the site with links to articles detailing Challenor’s somewhat chequered past. Hundreds of forums — including the 27 million-member r/Music group — set their statuses to private in protest.

Soon, Reddit was forced to break its silence: 

As of today, the employee in question is no longer employed by Reddit. We built a relationship with her first as a mod and then through her contractor work on RPAN. We did not adequately vet her background before formally hiring her.

The fallout quickly became hard for Reddit to ignore

The dismissal of Challenor has served to shine a light on yet another embarrassing example of how the issue of ‘trans rights’ can be used as a smokescreen against McCarthyite silencing of any dissent from the ‘trans women are women’ diktat.

So who is Challenor? In 2015, David Challenor, Aimee’s father was reported to the police for the rape and torture of a ten-year-old. In 2018, he was tried, convicted and jailed for 22 years for what the judge called his ‘depraved’ catalogue of crimes.

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