Magdalen Berns (6 May 1983 – 13 September 2019) was a Scottish radical feminist, software developer, and YouTuber whose anti-trans video series made her a key figure in the early UK gender-critical movement.[1] She co-founded For Women Scotland in 2018 and her online content — spanning over 60 videos — was instrumental in mobilising lesbian and radical feminist opposition to trans rights.
Berns’ early death from brain cancer at age 36 cemented her as a martyr figure in the gender-critical movement. She is frequently invoked by figures including J.K. Rowling and Maya Forstater as a symbol of bravery in the face of overwhelming opposition.
Berns was born in London to Eileen Maurice “Deborah” Lavin (a founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist–Leninist) and Argentine-born Gustavo Berns. Her parents separated after her birth and she was raised in New Cross, later moving to a council flat in Hampstead.[1:1]
She attended Hampstead School and worked as a sound engineer before studying at the University of Edinburgh, initially in engineering and then physics, graduating in 2016. She received a Doris Gray Scholarship from the Women’s Engineering Society for underprivileged women studying engineering in Scotland.[1:2]
Berns launched her YouTube channel in 2016, producing over 60 videos critiquing gender identity ideology from a radical feminist perspective. Her videos covered topics including:
Her channel grew to over 43,000 subscribers and 5 million views before her death. She was also active on Twitter and participated in public debates, becoming one of the most visible anti-trans activists in the UK in the late 2010s.[1:3]
Berns was a co-founder of For Women Scotland in 2018, the campaign group that later brought the successful Supreme Court case (2025) redefining “sex” in the Equality Act to mean biological sex.[2] The organisation describes her as a “founding member” and maintains a tribute page.
Berns was also an accomplished amateur boxer, founding a women-only boxing club at the University of Edinburgh. She won the Haringey Boxing Cup in 2010 and the British Universities Boxing Championships in 2011.[1:4]
Rowling followed Berns on Twitter in 2019, which was widely reported as the first clear signal of Rowling’s anti-trans views.[3] The Snopes fact-check article “Did J.K. Rowling ‘confirm her stance against transgender women’?” documented how this single follow was treated as confirmation by the trans community.[4]
In her 2020 “TERF Wars” essay, Rowling explained she followed Berns in order to contact her directly, and subsequently donated to Berns’ cancer treatment fundraiser. Rowling wrote: “Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing.”[5]
Berns died on 13 September 2019 at a Marie Curie Hospice in Edinburgh. Rowling paid tribute publicly.
Berns was diagnosed with glioblastoma (brain cancer) and died on 13 September 2019 at age 36. Her death was widely mourned in gender-critical circles; her YouTube channel, by her instruction, remains online.
Her legacy includes:
Snopes: Did J.K. Rowling “confirm her stance against transgender women”? ↩︎
J.K. Rowling, “J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues” (June 2020), archived at jkrowling.com ↩︎