Helen Joyce
Helen Joyce is an Irish journalist, mathematician, and radical feminist activist. She is especially active in the opposition to gender transition, stating in her book: “We have to try to limit the harm and that means reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition.”
Joyce is also Director of Advocacy at radical feminist organisation Sex Matters.
Biography
Joyce was born in 1968 in Dublin, Ireland, the oldest of nine children. The family moved to Bray, County Wicklow.
Joyce was raised Irish Catholic but now identifies as atheist. Joyce is married and lives in Cambridge with their two children.
Education
Joyce moved to England at age 16 to study musical theatre but dropped out to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Trinity College Dublin in 1991. Joyce earned a doctorate in mathematics from University College London in 1995 followed by postdoctoral work.
Work and career
Starting in 2000 Joyce began doing public outreach and writing to bring math to a lay audience. In 2005 Joyce became education correspondent for The Economist, working there until 2022.
Radical feminism
In July 2018, Joyce curated a series of articles on transgender identity in The Economist. In December of that year Joyce wrote “The New Patriarchy: How Trans Radicalism Hurts Women, Children—and Trans People Themselves” for Quillette.[1]
Joyce’s 2021 book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality was favorably reviewed by fellow activists Kathleen Stock and Jesse Singal. Books editor Pamela Paul’s decision to publish Singal’s review of Joyce’s book led to a major internal conflict at the New York Times.