Why trans game developer Brianna Wu is such a controversial figure

Trans game developer and former political hopeful Brianna Wu has become a controversial figure in recent months, and had claimed to be one of social media website Bluesky’s most-blocked users.

The video game developer and journalist hit the headlines during the 2014 “GamerGate” scandal, a misogynistic online harassment campaign that targeted women in the video-game industry. Wu, who founded the independent game studio Giant Spacekat, revealed the doxing and death threats she’d faced.

Four years later, she unsuccessfully ran for congress in Massachusetts. She campaigned again briefly in 2020 before dropping out when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

In recent months, however, she has become embroiled in controversy over her views on the transgender community – Wu herself is trans – and the conflict in Gaza, leading to campaigns to have her blocked on social media.

But who exactly is Brianna Wu, and why has she become so controversial?

Wu’s political bids 

In 2018, Wu lost out in the Democratic primaries as she tried to unseat the incumbent Stephen F Lynch.

Ahead of the election, she said ahead she wanted to become a congresswoman to improve issues such as healthcare, women’s reproductive rights, the cost of childcare and gun safety laws.

“I think female anger is a huge part of why we’re at this moment,” she told Vox. “Women are interconnected and talking to each other like never before. White women are talking with women of colour, cis women are talking with transgender women, disabled women are talking to able-bodied women.

“But the other side of that coin is harassers are also organised like never before, people [who] hate women are organised like never before, and these forces that don’t want to hear from us are organised like never before. It makes the stakes higher on both sides.”

Wu stood again in 2020, endorsing the Green New Deal for renewable energy, but dropped out of the primaries in April, citing the impact that lockdowns had on in-person campaigning.

What has Brianna Wu said about trans issues?

Over the past few months, Wu has supported trans rights but also made make anti-trans statements – pretty much in the same breath. She has used transphobic language and slurs, describing herself as a “tr***y” in a tweet.

She has previously dismissed the acronym “LGBTQIA+” as “identity politics”, saying “queer means nothing” and “asexuals are not queer”.

While Wuhas voiced support for gender-affirming healthcare and proclaimed that she was “not going to stop fighting” for trans youngsters affected by anti-LGBTQ+ laws, she had opposed the idea of “self-ID” and said some trans people should not be allowed access to female spaces.

“Self-ID in the women’s bathroom or locker room? Hell, no. Natal males who are part of the non-binary social project in there? Also, hell no,” she wrote on Twitter/X.

But to muddy the waters further, she has spoken out against JK Rowling.

And after a trans toilet ban was mandated in the lower house of congress earlier this week, Wu said: “Trans women on a medical pathway, diagnosed by a professional, on powerful drugs that inhibit erections? We are a threat to no one.”

However, she then railed against some other trans people using women’s toilets, and misgendered them.

Wu has been criticised by a number of high-profile people within the trans community, including civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo, who accused her of wanting to “police the entire community”.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s estranged daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson claimed that Wu was trying to “rationalise bigotry” after the game developer said the “biggest obstacle to trans healthcare” wasn’t Republicans, but “lunatic trans activists”, adding that the trans community had become an “extremist movement”.

Writing on Threads, Wilson said: “Trans grifters like Brianna are a dime a dozen and they’re all equally interchangeable and just… kinda sad. I’ve never seen a group of people brag about hating themselves so brazenly.”

Wu is now the executive director of the Rebellion PAC, which claims to fight for the working class, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.

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