Gary Francione’s sad decline

In the early 2010s, I was spending a lot of time in corners of the internet dominated by Trotskyists. I agreed with much of what they had to say, but was somewhat puzzled by the focus some had in dissecting the ideological evolution of the author Christopher Hitchens, who began his political career in the International Socialists and ended it championing President George W. Bush’s Iraq War.

It didn’t seem very important or complicated. Hitchens succumbed to right-wing pressures which people become increasingly vulnerable to over the years. Case closed. However, as I’ve watched vegan author Gary Francione’s flirtation with the Make America Great Again movement, I’ve come to sympathize with this desire to understand and inoculate myself from such regression.

I’ve talked before about the influence Francione had on me. Despite my disagreements with him on various issues, like what effective campaigning looks like, his work helped temper the utilitarianism I picked up from philosopher Peter Singer with a more rights-based approach to the animal question. So it’s been dispiriting to see Francione get swept up in right-wing hysteria about transgender people.

Every once and a while, I check in on his Twitter feed to see if the fever has passed, but, alas, not yet. Posing as a radical feminist, he continues to boost the most loathsome fascist accounts on the internet, like LibsOfTikTok, which has been credibly accused of engaging in stochastic terrorism. Making life miserable for transgender people seems to give Francione a sense of purpose.

At this point, it’s not even his transphobia which bothers me. It’s that transphobia seems to have become all he thinks about, swallowing up all prior ideological commitments. He tweets out prescheduled infographics about veganism, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. Francione would much rather spend his days providing intellectual cover to a right-wing demonization campaign.

The idea his obsession is motivated by feminist concern strikes me as ludicrous. The United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Francione appears to believe the greatest threat to women is a handful of transgender people asking to be treated with basic decency. I wish someone in the animal movement with more bonafides in the area would make this point.

Once upon a time, Francione fancied himself a pacifist. Yet, during one of the biggest upsurges in anti-war activism since the Iraq conflict, he had very little to say about the matter. When he did mention Israel’s assault on Gaza, it was generally to highlight the small number of anti-Semitic bigots who sought to hijack the peace protests, which were frequently led by Jewish campaigners.

Reading Francione’s endless social media posts about the death of free speech and open debate, you would think he was complaining about President Donald Trump, who is rapidly destroying what’s left of American democracy. But you would be wrong! He’s actually complaining about liberal student overreach, which, frankly, is an insane thing to be focused on in 2025.

So I keep coming back to the question of what happened to the vegan author. What were the ideological or psychological limitations which led him here? Was he clinging too hard to his old views or not clinging hard enough? I’ll probably never know. I doubt Francione himself knows. Trying to figure it out is a fool’s errand. I can only pray I’ll have more self-awareness and self-restraint as I age.

If I find myself consistently siding with reactionaries, I hope I can recognize this and focus my efforts on issues where I remain progressive. If even that’s not possible, I pray I’ll realize my moment has passed and take up gardening or something. I don’t mean to suggest this is easy. Far better activists than me, like Francione, have succumbed to the right’s gravitational pull.