Magdalen Berns


Magdalen Berns was a British YouTuber, boxer and software developer. Berns, a lesbian radical feminist, came to prominence in the late-2010s as a result of a series of YouTube vlogs focusing on lesbian politics, free speech, and gender identity. Berns's views attracted controversy, leading to her being described as "transphobic" and a "TERF". Berns also co-founded the group For Women Scotland, which opposes proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Education, career, and sporting endeavours

The daughter of Gustavo Berns and the socialist historian Deborah Lavin, Berns originated from Camden, London where she attended Hampstead School. As a teenager, she participated in campaigns against Huntingdon Life Sciences and anti-war marches, attended Socialist Labour Party discussions on Marxism, distributed election leaflets for the SLP, and joined a socialist choir. After leaving school, she worked as a sound engineer until attending the University of Edinburgh in her thirties. She initially studied engineering, receiving a Doris Gray Scholarship—an award for underprivileged women studying engineering in Scotland—from the Women's Engineering Society. In her second year she switched to physics, graduating in 2016. She was a self-taught computer programmer, and between 2013 and 2015 participated in the Google Summer of Code project, working on implementing the FFTW3 library for Ruby. As part of the Summer of Code, she interned in the Outreach Program for Women of the GNOME Foundation, where she worked on the Java ATK Wrapper, a module to translate Swing events for the Accessibility Toolkit, and on implementing a caret and focus tracking device in GNOME Shell.
Berns was active in Scottish amateur boxing. In 2009, she competed in the Scottish University Boxing Championships in the bantamweight division, losing in the final to Sinead Sheehan. In 2010, she became the first Scottish boxer to win at the Haringey Box Cup,. In 2011, she became the first Scottish boxer to win at the Golden Girl Championship ; won the British Universities and Colleges Sport Boxing Championship in the novice women's 54kg class; and competed in the 2011 Scottish Amateur Boxing Championships in the 51kg category, losing in the senior finals to Stephanie Kernachan. Berns created a women-only boxing club while at the University of Edinburgh and was a member of Scotland's first female boxing squad. She was posthumously described by Boxing Scotland as "a pioneer for both women's boxing and university boxing in Scotland".

Radical feminism

In 2015, Berns expressed opposition to the Edinburgh University Students' Association "LGBT Liberation" group issuing a statement of support for the decision to exclude drag acts from participating in that year's Pride Glasgow event. In 2016, Berns was banned from the University of Edinburgh's Feminist Society for opposing the decriminalisation of sex work.
In April 2016, Berns began her series of "irreverent" YouTube vlogs where she published her views on gender identity. Her first and subsequent vlogs criticised claims that the unwillingness of cisgender lesbians to have sex with trans women who have penises is due to transphobia, bigotry or prejudice rather than sexual orientation. She was also known for arguing against gender self-identification. Speaking on the subject of gender and sexuality, Berns stated: "You don't get 'assigned' reproductive organs...males are defined by their biological sex organs. Likewise, homosexuals are people who are attracted to the same biological sex." She described trans women as "blackface actors" and "men who get sexual kicks from being treated like women", said that "trans women are men", that "there is no such thing as a lesbian with a penis", and that she'd "rather be rude than a fucking liar". She was critical of the LGBT charity Stonewall. Berns was posthumously described as "a great believer in the importance of biological sex didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises." By the autumn of 2019, Berns had produced 64 vlogs and amassed approximately 30,000 followers.
In May 2016, Berns was among the signatories of an open letter to the Morning Star newspaper, that lauded it for "giving a platform for a sex-class based analysis of women's position, in the face of the convergence of neoliberal individualism and alienation from class consciousness". In July 2016, Berns spoke at Thinking Differently: Feminists Questioning Gender Politics, a conference in London focusing on "the implications of transgenderism for women's rights". The conference was described by one attendee as "the first full-day public conference that we know of on the topic of how gender identity politics harm women and girls". Berns addressed her experiences with no platforming as a university student.
In 2018, Berns co-founded the Scottish campaign group Forwomen.Scot, which grew to become the largest organisation of its kind in Scotland. The group, which opposes reform of the Gender Recognition Act, has been called anti-trans, which the group themselves deny.
In June 2019, British author J.K. Rowling followed Berns on Twitter, bringing her more visibility and prompting criticism towards Rowling. In June 2020, Rowling revealed that she had spoken with Berns, describing her as "an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian", and had begun receiving "low-level harassment" as a result of her association with Berns.

Criticism and acclaim

Berns' opinions attracted both criticism and acclaim. She was described as "one of the most hateful and aggressive anti-trans radical feminists on Twitter" by blogger Phaylen Fairchild; as a "TERF" by Vice writer Lewis Gordon; and as a "transphobe" in the Trans Advocate Twitter account, as well as "whorephobic" by members of the Edinburgh University Students' Association. Writing in student newspaper The Wesleyan Argus, Connor Aberle stated that Berns's "most popular uploads simply mock videos of transgender people", describing her as part of "a group of far-left YouTubers who hate transgender people". Writing in Femestella, Alysia Stevenson described Berns as "a prominent anti-trans Youtuber", acccusing her of "hateful rhetoric". Writing in the New York Post, Melkorka Licea described Berns as "outspoken". Transgender rights activist and philosophy professor Rachel McKinnon drew criticism, and a protest letter with over 500 signatories, after defending celebrations by Berns's opponents of her impending death. McKinnon said such celebrations are "ethically justified when the person dying has engaged in extreme harassment of a marginalised group".
Writing in the Morning Star, Susan Chynoweth and Deborah Lavin praised Berns's "determined defence of women's sex-based rights and the rights of lesbians to assert their sexuality in the face of relentless demands to redefine sex as gender", and named her "one of the best-known feminist speakers of her generation". National Review staff writer Madeleine Kearns called her videos a "great source of inspiration and clarity for those trying to resist gender extremism". Writing in The Velvet Chronicle, Julia Diana Robertson eulogised Berns as a "rare force of nature", suggesting that "While many may never know the impact she made, the ripple effect will be felt for many years to come". Journalist Meghan Murphy stated that Berns had contributed to "igniting public conversation around sex, gender, and sexuality". Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan voiced vocal support for Berns on Twitter and other platforms. Berns's death was noted by two members of the Scottish Parliament: Joan McAlpine MSP described her as a "clever and uncompromising" young woman, while Ruth Maguire MSP described her as a "courageous young feminist, who inspired others". In October 2019, Berns was posthumously shortlisted for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize, which the organisation awards to women it deems to have "raised awareness of violence against women and children"; in November 2019, she received a special award from the organisation.

Cancer and death

In April 2017, Berns informed her YouTube subscribers that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour that was affecting her left frontal lobe, which she later clarified to actually be centered in her left parietal lobe. In July, she announced that she had an astrocytoma that could not be completely removed surgically. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma in October 2018. In palliative care she was visited by Graham Linehan, radical feminist Julie Bindel and sex trafficking survivor Rachel Moran.
Berns died from glioblastoma on 13 September 2019, aged 36, in Edinburgh.