Gage Skidmore / Flickr / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY-SA 2.0Cropped to Colin Wright from the original two-person photograph and converted to PNG with a plain margin.
Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and founding editor of Reality's Last Stand. He is an academic adviser to the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine and writes about science, biological sex and gender identity.
Role at the time: Coauthor of the HHS report and Manhattan Institute fellow, as identified by The Guardian
Mixed or conditional
Response to this claim
HHS reported that, in its analytic sample, stronger agreement with its Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale was associated with higher left-wing-authoritarianism scores and greater stated justification for specified political-violence scenarios.
“We probably could have tightened the language a little bit more.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)‘Nakedly political’: US attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new health department reportPublished September 7, 2026; updated September 8, 2026; comments from Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Daniel Aaron, Craig Konnoth and Colin Wright
Why we used this label
The reported statement contains a specific qualification about the language alongside a continued defense of the study’s intended focus. It is therefore classified as mixed or conditional rather than as a withdrawal of the report’s conclusion.
Role at the time: Evolutionary biologist and Manhattan Institute fellow; report co-author
Defended or excused
Response to this claim
HHS reported that, in its analytic sample, stronger agreement with its Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale was associated with higher left-wing-authoritarianism scores and greater stated justification for specified political-violence scenarios.
“Acceptance gender ideology appears to augment authoritarian attitudes in support for political violence.”
As a report co-author, Wright publicly advances the report's interpretive framing rather than merely linking to or reporting on it. The report's stated causal limitations remain material context.
An HHS survey report linked selected gender-affirmation beliefs with higher authoritarianism scores and stated political-violence justification. Its authors say it does not establish causation or measure violence; critics dispute its measures and broader framing.
