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

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.