The Right Is Now ‘Transvestigating’ Erika Kirk And Sydney Sweeney

For a certain paranoid slice of the internet, a cabal of “secretly” trans celebrities and public figures has been operating right under our noses. For years, they’ve claimed that Michelle Obama is a man, circulating photos of the former first lady that have been manipulated to make her features appear more masculine: Michael, not Michelle.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif endured a global smear campaign falsely accusing her of being trans after she won a gold medal in women’s boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (“Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, who regularly posts transphobic views online, led the charge on that one.)

The conspiracy theories — part transphobia, part misogyny, part TMZ-style celebrity gossip and a little QAnon in their intensity — pop up so often that they’ve earned a name: “Transvestigations.”

“Transvestigators” tend to be on the far right and draw on debunked phrenological tropes to make their case. They use skeletal and cranial overlays to identify what they claim are masculine physical characteristics in photos and videos of famous women they’re convinced were born male. Some point to body language and posture as telltale “signs,” too.

The trend has been circulating online for years, but lately, rather wildly, the right appears to be turning the tactic on its own. In recent months, both Erika Kirk, the wife of slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and Sydney Sweeney, an actress who’s been labeled “MAGA Barbie” online (President Donald Trump is a fan), have been subjects of transvestigations.

The Kirk rumors were thrust back into the spotlight last week, when right-wing influencer Candace Owens launched a video series about the former beauty queen titled “Bride of Charlie” (yes, as if it were a horror movie).

At one point in part one (it’s currently a seven part-er), Owens shared photos of an elementary school yearbook that allegedly include Erika Kirk, formerly Erika Frantzve, in grade school. In two of the photos, Kirk has short-cropped hair. While Owens didn’t go as far as suggesting that Kirk had been born male, her fans (and Erika Kirk detractors alike) were chomping at the bit to launch a transvestigation.

“Candace found Erika’s actual yearbook photos from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade at this school, and in one of them, Erika is dressed as a boy,” wrote conspiracy account Project Constitution on X. “Full boy’s outfit. Short hair. Posing like one of the guys.”

Another man pointed to what he referred to as Kirk’s “male hips,” “male clavicles,” and “male arms” as proof that she was born male. He’d personally never seen footage of Kirk pregnant, either, so he added that to the evidence pile.

In a stark pivot of online discourse, Sweeney went from being a MAGA darling after starring in an American Eagle ad, which many interpreted as a eugenics dog whistle, to being gender scrutinized by the same demographic. (Sweeney recently claimed that she’s “not a political person.”)

“Why is Sydney Sweeney’s neck so much wider than her head? I’m starting to get really worried that she’s actually a man,” one user posted in a tweet that has over 5.6 million views.

That both Sweeney and Kirk are now targets speaks to how mainstream and almost apolitical transphobia has become on the internet. In 2026, any woman with a public profile could become a target, regardless of her politics: For the dogged transvestigator, the former first lady is “Big Mike.” Erika Kirk is “Erik Kirk.”

“Nobody is safe from this kind of conspiratorial discourse, including those on the right who operate in so-called ‘gender critical’ spaces as thought leaders on how to be transphobic,” explained Lexi Webster, an associate professor who specializes in gender, queer and trans studies at the University of Southampton in England.

If even the right has been infiltrated by “gender inverts,” a term conspiracists use to describe trans people, Webster said that the idea is that “nobody is safe from the trans community. We are all in significant danger, and something should be done about it.”

Michael M. Santiago / Amy Sussman

What’s with the weird impulse to ‘transvestigate’ to begin with?

These “investigations” reflect an increasing and well-documented global hostility toward trans and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as women, said Jay Daniel Thompson, a senior lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Victoria, Australia, who researches conspiracy theories and digital hostility.

“Transvestigation is premised on stereotypes of trans women as freakish, deceptive and untrustworthy,” he told HuffPost.

“These conspiracies target women in the public eye, seeking to demean those women and diminish their credibility,” he added. “This suggests that transvestigations are not just transphobic; they’re also deeply misogynistic.”

As we mentioned, armchair transvestigators frequently draw on phrenology, a racist pseudoscience, which explains why they have historically attacked Black women like Michelle Obama and brown women such as Imane Khelif.

The mainstreaming of transvestigating reflects the broader rise of conspiratorial thinking over the past decade, too, Thompson said. In the age of social media, everyone sees themselves as a digital sleuth in their free time.

“Conspiratorialism is not new, but the fact that it’s become so ubiquitous these last 10 years reflects a combination of social upheaval and an increasingly interactive internet where information travels faster and wider than before,” he said.

Conspiracists tend to blame already marginalized groups for all kinds of social ills, which is evident in the transvestigation phenomenon, as trans people continue to face increased levels of violence and discrimination.

Brandon Bell via Getty Images

In some cases, people are just trolling and aren’t genuinely committed to their beliefs.

“Often, you can’t distinguish ‘authentic’ transvestigations from those that are intended to stoke a fire through trolling or muddying the waters,” Webster said.

The negative connotations the far right attaches to trans identities are precisely why we don’t see as much transvestigating on the left, or among people who are more neutral or supportive toward trans people, said Samantha Lux, a trans activist and content creator.

“If you don’t view being trans as a bad thing, then what need would you have to ‘expose’ someone’s identity?” she said.

The theories send a painful message to actual trans women, Lux said.

“Transvestigations further the narrative that being transgender is, in itself, deceptive,” she said. “It perpetuates the notion that underneath our transness, we’re really men in disguise ― and who uses disguises? People with ulterior motives. Being transgender is who we are, at the deepest level, our only motive is to live authentically.”

Why Erika Kirk and Sydney Sweeney may now be transvestigation targets.

As the queer website Pride.com noted a few months back, no one is “safe from the absurdity” of transvestigations these days.

The site pointed to the Facebook group “Transvestigation Disclosure NOW 2.0” as the source of many spurious claims about Charlie and Erika Kirk, as well as Sweeney, since at least 2024.

The group claimed that her “narrow hips” and clavicle bone structure were proof that Sweeney was born male. (Currently, they’re debating if Lara Trump, the wife of Donald Trump’s son Eric and Fox News host, is trans, based on a photo of her at a triathlon.)

The viral tweet questioning Sweeney’s gender happened not long after she gained 30 pounds and underwent intense physical training for “Christy,” a biographical sports drama about the 1990s boxer Christy Martin. Some Sweeney fanboys were put off by her transformation, which may have inspired some of the “she’s a man” insults.

Claims about Erika Kirk being an “invert” began almost as soon as her husband was killed last September, Them.us reported.

Conspiracists pointed to a video Erika Kirk filmed more than a decade ago, in which she described herself as a tomboy during childhood, as proof that she was born male. As Them.us noted, some even used the moment to posthumously “transvestigate” Charlie Kirk: “That’s why Charlie Kirk seemed so feminine and emasculated because she was a transgender handler. That’s why he was so pretty,” one person wrote.

While Owens hasn’t gone so far as to jump on the “Erik Kirk” bandwagon, she probably knew how it would rile up her fanbase when she shared the childhood photos of Kirk on her YouTube show.

After all, the right-wing influencer is no stranger to transvestigations. In July, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, hit Owens with a defamation lawsuit over her false claims that Brigitte Macron was born male.

Jason Davis / Ludovic Marin // Getty Images

“I find it telling that Candace Owens’ YouTube series ‘Becoming Brigitte’ – which repeats the rumor that France’s first lady Brigitte Macron is secretly trans – has thus far received 5.1 million views,” Thompson said. “I suspect that for some folk, personal prejudices trump ― no pun intended! ― political affiliations and feelings of solidarity. It’s for the pursuit of clicks and revenue.”

At its core, a transvestigation is used as a tool to strip credibility from women perceived as threatening to the status quo, which some on the right may argue Erika Kirk is doing now that she’s the CEO of Turning Point USA.

In life, Charlie Kirk often espoused that wives should stay at home, and men should provide. Given that, some followers may not be happy that his wife is taking on such a front-facing leadership role.

As Lux said, “The far right explicitly wants women to pursue submissive lifestyles. It doesn’t matter how ‘pro-far-right’ a woman is; if she is in a position of power or success, she is not fulfilling the role they’ve prescribed her.”