This Week in Barrel Scraping: The Smut Habits of Helen Joyce
A prominent British anti-trans activist got caught reading explicit Harry Potter fanfic on a public train. No, we’re not making this up.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Folks, I’ve got a spicy one this week. If you’re out in public, if you’re at a family gathering, if you’re yucking it up with your friends… be warned, there is downright titillating content coming your way.
First, some backstory on today’s subject, none other than Sex Matters’ Director of Advocacy herself, Helen Joyce.
Joyce is an Irish journalist who spent most of her journalistic career working for The Economist, as many terrible ghouls are wont to do. In the summer of 2018, Joyce took a very public interest in trans people. Joyce’s obsession with we loathsome transgenders ballooned so aggressively that disgusted onlookers, such as GLAAD, had to draw attention to it. Joyce says we’re pedophiles, and she’s referred to gender-affirming care as child abuse, unethical medicine, and mass experimentation. Joyce hates trans athletes and thinks trans women shouldn’t be allowed in women’s shelters.
That’s what Daily Dot alleges, anyway. They have a whole slew of hyperlinks that lead back to old tweets that, I assume, support those allegations. Unfortunately, Helen realized at some point that she’d accidentally said far too many abhorrent things she actually believes and completely nuked the account. Fret not! She has a whole new account, and I’ll be sharing it with you in a few short paragraphs.
One must imagine such an ardent finger pointer pristine. If Helen Joyce is doddering around accusing every trans person on Earth of being a revilesome pedophilic monster, then surely her nose must be very, very clean…
… which is why it’s such a tragedy that Helen Joyce was caught enjoying what appears to be Harry Potter erotic fanfiction during her commute on Tuesday.
Oh, yes.
An anonymous Twitter user, who has since locked their account—likely for fear of mass harassment—shared pictures of Joyce reading, potentially, some shockingly sultry smut about school children while she was kicking it with her fellow transphobic dweebs on a train ride. Now, bear in mind that the picture this user took of Joyce’s phone is very low quality, so it’s difficult to make out exactly what she’s looking at.
All the same, they believe they found the exact fic Joyce was reading on fanfiction.net.
Unfortunately—for us, as rubberneckers, anyway—the fic has since been made private or deleted, and was not archived by the Wayback Machine. That said, it seems pretty clear to my eye that the phrase “but he kept pumping” appears identically on Joyce’s screen and the screenshots of the fanfic, ‘Mudblood,’ that the anonymous Twitter user provided. I can’t say it’s conclusively damning, but it sure feels close.
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that the user tagged Joyce’s current, non-nuked Twitter account multiple times throughout their thread. I’m sure you’re wondering if Joyce responded to these very serious accusations.
You are very much in luck!
A mere four hours later, Joyce had prepared an extremely thin excuse for her highly dubious smut reading: It’s just research, baby! She patronizingly refers to the “young women” who are adopting trans identities (of course she means trans men, who I am quite certain are not young women).
It’s true, though, Joyce has previously written about fanfiction’s role in infecting innocent young people with the trans plague… but not in well over a year. Seems just a bit convenient that she would be researching a topic she had long since said her piece on. Is it possible, nay probable, that Helen caught the fanfic bug when she was looking into the topic previously? Who’s to say!
Sex Matters also issued a response, hilariously self-identifying as a “human rights organization” despite frequently campaigning against the human rights of trans people, also insist that Helen was simply doing some research. I have to say, it felt like a weak rebuttal the first time, and it feels even weaker the second time.
Besides that, who on Earth is getting transed by fanfic in 2024? After Tumblr’s infamous 2018 ban on pornography, I think it’s safe to say that trans kids have found alternate routes into accepting themselves. And even if they are being transed by fanfic, it definitely isn’t happening because of the fic Joyce was reading, which—from what I can see in those screenshots—is exceedingly cisgender and heterosexual and about Harry Potter.
At any rate. Here’s the truly fascinating question: Was Helen breaking the law?
Twitter user Rejserin thinks it’s possible! Rejserin does not appear to be a lawyer, but they do quote and link to some highly relevant passages from the 2009 Coroners and Justice Act and the 1981 Indecent Displays (Control) Act. Assuming Joyce’s smut du jour was identified correctly, it’s undeniable that she was reading inappropriate material about children in a public space. If there were a point of contention, it would be whether or not erotica constitutes prohibited materials the way that graphic images do.
Anyway, I’m not even a citizen of the United Kingdom, much less a lawyer. Or barrister. Whatever they’re called across the pond. So I can’t speak authoritatively to whether or not Helen Joyce has broken the law.
What I can speak to, very confidently, is that a woman who has shored up her career by accusing trans people of being pedophiles who want to indoctrinate children into a freaky sex cult should be careful about what sorts of pornographic materials she enjoys in a public space.
You never know who’s watching, Helen!
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.