The American Civil Liberties Union’s fourth highest-paid staffer, whose 2023 salary exceeded a half-million dollars and who wields considerable influence as a close advisor to the executive director, has drawn unflattering attention to the storied legal group. 

Elements of this scrutiny have dovetailed with mounting criticism the ACLU has weathered, even from the left, that it has abandoned its foundational mission of defending free speech in favor of more narrowly tailored progressive activism.

AJ Hikes was hired in 2019 as the ACLU’s first chief equity and inclusion officer. This positioned a Black woman as a rising star at the nonprofit, even as the ACLU ultimately faced accusations that its political advocacy director, a Black man, presided over a toxic work environment and high turnover among women of color. Hikes has since begun identifying as nonbinary.

The ACLU deputy recently made a series of false or misleading claims about pediatric gender medicine in a free-ranging interview with the “Bad Queers” podcast. The claims included the incorrect assertion that the hormones and puberty-blocking drugs are only given to minors in their mid-to-late teens. Hikes also, in a disputed claim, incorrectlyasserted that doctors will prescribe boys testosterone to achieve purely cosmetic changes to their voice and body.

Hikes’ statements could potentially undermine the nonprofit in court as it wages high-stakes battles against state bans of gender-transition treatments for minors and the Trump administration’s executive orders pertaining to transgender identity, legal experts told The Sun. The ACLU recently joined the Biden Justice Department in arguing before the Supreme Court against Tennessee’s ban on gender-transition treatments for minors. The landmark decision is expected in June.

The gender-transition subject is evidently personal for Hikes. An early ACLU bio described the deputy as an “unapologetic queer black woman.” Yet by March 2024, Hikes asserted in an Instagram post, “I’m black AF. I’m queer. I’m nonbinary,” and that they now used gender-neutral pronouns. This evolution, which coincided with a surge in transgender identification among teens and young adults across the Western world, has included a double mastectomy and has transpired as Hikes has acceded to the upper echelon of the ACLU.  

Additionally, in August, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge cited Hikes as having played a central role in what the judge deemed was the illegal firing of an Asian-American policy counsel. The judge found that the ACLU’s key rationalization for terminating the staffer in 2022—that her strongly-worded complaints about her Black managers trafficked in “racist stereotypes”—was “not borne out by the facts.” The case has proven embarrassing for the ACLU, drawing critical coverage, in particular, from the more traditionally supportive New York Times.

Not long after the staffer’s firing, Hikes received a promotion and a 50 percent raise, bringing their salary to nearly $550,000. Hikes, who reported on the podcast that they supplement their income with paid speeches and consulting, promptly purchased a luxury condominium in New York City for just under $1.5 million.

Last year, shortly after the first of the Times’ two articles on the firing of the Asian-American staffer — which included an unflattering account of Hikes’ central role in the contretemps —  Hikes publicly announced they had changed their name  to AJ.  

As the Times’ coverage made evident, the NLRB case, which the ACLU is appealing, has placed it on the opposite side of a protected-speech dispute than the organization, with its storied legacy of defending First Amendment and labor rights, has traditionally positioned itself. 

The fraught details of internal conflicts within the ACLU, laid bare during the trial and in the judge’s lengthy decision, stand as an avatar for long-standing societal power struggles between racial-minority groups, such as the litigation to undo affirmative action in higher education that has pitted Asians against Blacks. 

Such internal disputes come as the nonprofit plays a pre-eminent role in the legal battle over the future of the controversial and besieged field of pediatric gender medicine in particular and transgender civil rights overall. Such context, legal experts told the Sun, made it all the more remarkable when, during the recent podcast interview, Hikes made assertions about gender-transition treatments for minors that stood in awkward contrast, or outright contradicted, statements that a top ACLU litigator made in December before the Supreme Court.

Most strikingly, Hikes contradicted ACLU litigator Chase Strangio by maintaining the oft-repeated claim, which is unsupported by scientific evidence, that gender-transition drugs save children’s lives.

“Hikes is an example of the dogma within organizations like the ACLU,” said Eric Sell, an associate counsel at the Center for American Liberty. “This is most unfortunate, given the history of the ACLU and their advocacy for free expression and the open exchange of ideas.”

Lauren Weiner, an ACLU spokesperson, responded to a request for comment from the Sun with a statement. 

“AJ Hikes is a valued member of the ACLU team who has worked tirelessly to enhance our workplace — a workplace that centers workers’ rights, including the right to free speech and the right to criticize the organization, as a part of our core values and mission,” the statement read. “Our work on transgender justice has made us all too familiar with the attacks, misinformation, and smear campaigns against trans people, especially those who are Black — which is exactly what these assertions about AJ represent.”

Hikes also gave a nod in the podcast interview toward the leading position that the ACLU holds within the larger left-wing strategy to resist Donald Trump’s second administration, and alluded to the influential role that Hikes in particular will play in directing this effort. 

“I think we will be wildly creative with the ways that we resist,” Hikes said on the podcast. “We are going to be creating new models of resistance that are going to come out of the threats to our communities. And I, for one — as a lifelong organizer — am here for it.”

This assertion came before the president issued a fusillade of executive orders seeking to purge the federal government of diversity initiatives and to cease any institutional acknowledgement of transgender identity. The president has also sought through an executive order to leverage the power of the purse to restrict gender-transition treatments and surgeries among those under age 19.

Initial reports suggest the president has made substantial progress in attacking the controversial field of pediatric gender medicine; multiple major health care providers have recently indicated they are ending or “pausing” their gender treatments or surgeries for young patients. This prompted a legal collision course after the  New York attorney general, Letitia James, one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent adversaries, on February 3 warned the hospital colossus NYU Langone and other New York-based hospitals that denying such medical treatment might violate state antidiscrimination laws. 

Trans activists and their allies, in turn, staged a mass protest outside NYU facilities in Manhattan that evening. “Sex and the City” actress and former New York progressive gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon spoke, disclosing that both her and her sibling’s children are transgender, as are her child’s best friend and her best friend’s child. 

On Wednesday, 14 other Democratic state attorneys general joined Ms. James in asserting they would protect access to these treatments. And on Friday, the attorneys general of Minnesota, Oregon and Washington filed suit in the Western District of Washington against the Trump administration to block enforcement of the executive order

The ACLU, for its part, has filed five lawsuits against the Trump administration, Hikes said in a virtual town hall the organization held on Tuesday. These include a suit filed that day in Maryland against President Trump’s executive order regarding pediatric gender medicine.

“All of these are horrific,” Hikes said of the executive orders during the town hall. And in reference to the order pertaining to pediatric gender medicine, Hikes continued: “But for those of us who are raising and caring for trans and non-binary young people, that last one is especially gutting and terrifying.” 

While asserting that the ACLU was David to President Trump’s Goliath, Hikes struck a confident note, saying: “Honey, remember, that Donald Trump’s got to get past us first.” 

On Wednesday afternoon, President. Trump, flocked by dozens of girls and young women, signed yet another trans-related executive order, this one seeking to bar trans females — i.e.: biological males identifying as female — from girls and women’s youth and amateur sports. This followed the outgoing Biden administration withdrawing its own proposed rule to the contrary in December, a legal ploy that sought to make the Trump administration’s rulemaking on this front more difficult. 

AJ Hikes’ “F*ck ‘Em” podcast interview

In Hikes’ ACLU bio, the 41-year-old is currently described as “a social justice advocate, community organizer, TED Talk Speaker, and unapologetically queer and Black.” With the title of deputy executive director for strategy and culture, Hikes holds a wide-ranging and influential portfolio, serving “as chief counselor and principal partner to the executive director overseeing the critical functions of organization strategic planning and programmatic priority setting.” 

Despite being a “counselor” at a major legal organization, Hikes is not an attorney.

On Dec. 23, in an episode of the Bad Queers podcast, entitled “F*ck ‘Em (w/ AJ Hikes),” Hikes literally and figuratively let their hair down, providing a casual and wide-ranging interview about their work and life, including their treasured braids. Hikes spoke not only about the ACLU’s battle to support trans civil rights, but about their own discovery of a nonbinary identity and their decision to have a double mastectomy after long feeling disconnected from their breasts. 

The financial burden of the surgery, Hikes said, gave them some pause. 

Such a surgery, which is often covered by insurance, typically costs about $15,000.

Hikes spoke in detail about the federal case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, that on December 4 received oral arguments at the Supreme Court concerning Tennessee’s ban of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender-related distress in minors. During the interview, Hikes made multiple inaccurate or misleading claims about the field of pediatric gender medicine and its intersection with the law.

“Hikes seems utterly ignorant of the Tennessee law at issue in U.S. v. Skrmetti and the legal foundations on which the parties’ arguments hinge,” said Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “What it appears Hikes is looking for, however, is a damage-control PR campaign that sways public opinion” toward overturning state bans on gender-transition treatment, Ms. Perry added.

Seeking remarks from liberal legal experts about Hikes, the Sun contacted all 18 law professors who signed an amicus brief calling for the Supreme Court to find the Tennessee law unconstitutional. None were willing to comment.

The ACLU filed the initial lawsuit against the Tennessee ban in 2023 and ultimately marshalled the case through the 6^th District Court of Appeals, which upheld the law. The nonprofit’s litigators appealed to the Supreme Court to review the case, filing both equal-protection and due-process complaints. The court, though, accepted only a separate complaint about the case that was filed by the Biden Justice Department, which focused solely on the equal-protection concern. The court did, however, permit President Biden’s solicitor general, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, to split her time during oral arguments over the case with the ACLU.

This afforded Mr. Strangio, who is co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, the opportunity to make history in December as the first openly transgender attorney to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Between them, Mr. Strangio and Ms. Prelogar argued that the Tennessee law amounted to sex-based discrimination under the Equal Protection clause because it denied hormone prescriptions to transgender minors that their non-transgender peers could otherwise access.

In defense of the Tennessee law, the state’s solicitor general, Matthew Rice, argued that the ban discriminated based not on sex, but on medical purpose and age, and thus should not be subjected to the heightened legal scrutiny warranted by sex-based discrimination.

In a notable exchange with Mr. Rice, Justice Jackson presented him with a scenario in which a natal boy goes to a doctor to request testosterone to deepen his voice. Mr. Rice replied, “You cannot use testosterone for purely cosmetic reasons. It’s a Schedule III drug. You are not allowed.” Justice Jackson, acknowledging that this was a hypothetical scenario, pressed the point that it was another statute, not the law under review by the court, that made the distinction Mr. Rice had raised. 

According to Mr. Sell of the Center for American Liberty, this was an apparent effort by the justice to signal her opinion that, on its face, the Tennessee ban discriminated based on sex. Mr. Sell said that any such nuance, legal or medical, was absent when Hikes sought to explain during the recent podcast interview why the ACLU believed it was sex-based discrimination for the Tennessee law to forbid biological girls from accessing testosterone in service of adopting male secondary sex characteristics.

Hikes asserted that, by contrast, a biological boy who is not transgender can access testosterone if he “wants his voice to be deeper or wants to grow facial hair and wants to have these typical male characteristics come on faster.”

As Mr. Rice indicated, though, doctors cannot legally prescribe boys testosterone for such cosmetic reasons. A boy would need to have a diagnosis of a medical condition, such as delayed puberty or some other endocrine disorder, to obtain such a prescription.

Mr. Strangio is bound by ethical guidelines demanding that attorneys remain truthful in their public statements about their litigation work, legal experts told the Sun. Hikes, as a non-attorney, has no obligation to observe this particular professional code of conduct. This, Ms. Perry said, left Hikes “free to contradict Strangio openly, without consequence.”

According to Charles S. LiMandri, a partner at LiMandri & Johnna at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., Hikes’ statements on the podcast might, however, come back to haunt the ACLU’s litigation. 

“The ACLU’s public statements by their spokespersons can be used as authorized or implied admissions in legal proceedings,” he said. Mr. LiMandri’s firm is litigating multiple medical-malpractice lawsuits against health care and mental health providers on behalf of detransitioners—people who medically transitioned as minors or young adults and later regretted it and sought to reverse the gender transition.

“Strangio was at least somewhat constrained by the evidence in the record before the Court,” Mr. LiMandri said of the recent Supreme Court oral arguments. Mr. LiMandri characterized Hikes as, by contrast, observing “no such restraints” and said that many of the deputy’s statements during the podcast “are not supported by the evidence.” He provided nearly two dozen citations in an email to back that assessment. 

Hikes, for example, claimed that the Tennessee ban on gender-transition medications concerns “fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-year-old young people. We’re not talking about eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds.”

According to widely observed trans-care guidelines published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, children are eligible to receive puberty blockers as soon as they hit the first stage of puberty, known as Tanner Stage 2. This typically occurs between age 8 years and 13 years for natal girls and age 9 years and 14 years for natal boys. An analysis of 2018 to 2022 insurance-claims data published January 6 in JAMA Pediatrics indicated that, among minors with transgender-related diagnoses, puberty blockers were prescribed to children as young as 8 and cross-sex hormones to those as young as 12.

Under outside pressure from a high-profile Biden administration health official, Dr. Rachel Levine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), WPATH, in fact, removed all age restrictions on gender-transition medications in its 2022 revision to its guidelines. Dr. Levine, who was the highest ranking openly transgender person ever to serve in government, told WPATH that any explicit age restrictions could draw unwanted political scrutiny, paving the way for bans on gender-transition treatments for minors. This is according to internal documents subpoenaed by the Alabama attorney general in defense of a federal lawsuit, initially waged by the ACLU, against that state’s ban of these treatments for minors. These documents were unsealed in June and written up in a scathing amicus brief Alabama submitted to the Supreme Court for the Tennessee case.

When it came to the matter of suicide, Mr. Sell noted, “That’s where you see the starkest contrast between what the attorney for the ACLU said and comments by other employees like Hikes.” 

Referencing the use of puberty blockers to treat gender-related distress, Hikes said during the podcast that these drugs “have saved young people’s lives.” 

“Young people are literally dying because they can’t access this care,” Hikes said, making an apparent across-the-board reference to gender-transition treatment for minors.

This common claim, that gender-transition drugs prevent suicide deaths in minors, was contradicted in a stunning admission by Mr. Strangio before the Supreme Court two months ago. Under questioning by Justice Alito, who stated, “There is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce suicide,” Mr. Strangio replied that “there is no evidence in some — in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare.”

Only one study has ever directly assessed whether gender-transition treatment is associated with an independent, statistically significant difference in the suicide death rate among young people. Conducted in Finland and published in February, the study found no such difference in the death rate. It further found that such deaths, while elevated among gender-distressed youths, were nevertheless rare.

Roger Brooks, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, said in an email that if the Supreme Court were to learn that “the ACLU is still loudly proclaiming to the American people things that Strangio admitted in the courtroom are untrue, that could and should raise questions in the Justices’ minds about the broader reliability of other supposed factual or ‘scientific’ assertions made in the briefs of the ACLU” about the Skrmetti case.

Mr. Sell said: “I’m hopeful influential organizations like the ACLU will do some self-reflection and consider whether it’s beneficial for its employees to be fear mongering and spreading misinformation regarding the benefits and risks of these medical procedures.” 

A Series of Shaky Claims

During the podcast interview, Hikes also made a series of claims about pediatric gender medicine upon which the available scientific literature at the very least casts doubt.

This included Hikes’ assertion that “all of these medications are reversible,” which is another common claim about puberty blockers. (It was unclear whether Hikes was also referring to cross-sex hormones, which unquestionably cause irreversible changes to the body—testosterone in particular.) A recent review paper by a neuropsychologist at University College London called into question the certainty of such an assessment of puberty blockers, concluding: “Critical questions remain unanswered regarding the nature, extent and permanence of any arrested development of cognitive function associated with puberty blockers.” 

Hikes was adamant that puberty blockers are highly effective at helping transgender children cope with mental health problems. The ACLU deputy made this claim despite multiple cohort studies finding the drugs have had no impact on psychological function. A systematic literature review published in April found: “No conclusions can be drawn” regarding blockers’ impact on “mental and psychological health” among gender-distressed minors. 

Hikes gave voice to a common claim that puberty blockers provide youths time to reflect on their gender identity and to decide whether to continue onto cross-sex hormones. This claim is belied by the fact that multiple analyses have found that almost all gender-distressed children who start blockers later take hormones. It is almost unheard of in psychology that an assessment tool would have such a near-perfect accuracy in matching a patient with a treatment option.  

In an effort to assert that non-transgender people are the primary recipients of what’s known as gender-affirming care — the term used by gender-medicine physicians to refer to gender-transition treatment — Hikes sought to categorize multiple common cosmetic medical interventions, such as breast implants, under that same rubric. 

Vernadette Broyles, president and general counsel at the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, said this comparison conflicted with Hikes’ assertion that cross-sex hormones are “medically necessary” treatments.

“That is true: Non-transgender people are the primary recipients of cosmetic surgery in terms of sheer numbers,” said Ms. Broyles. As for gender-transition surgeries, she continued: “They’re elective. They’re experimental cosmetic surgery. They’re therefore not medically necessary.”

Hikes also categorized Brazilian butt lifts and erectile dysfunction drugs as gender-affirming care, despite the fact that medical experts advise that neither should be provided to minors.

“The ACLU will say or do anything regardless of whether it’s true, or regardless of whether it’s consistent with concurrent or past statements, to defend broad access to these procedures,” said Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies — and opposes — pediatric gender medicine.

As for the ACLU, its spokesperson, Ms. Weiner, replied to such criticisms by saying: “Given the challenges the nation will confront with a second Trump administration, we can’t afford to spend further bandwidth engaging with unfounded and malicious attacks on our leaders or rehashing inaccurate characterizations of the ACLU, its staff and its work.” 

Hikes’ Rapid, Lucrative Ascent at the ACLU

The explosive early days of President Trump’s second term have been defined by an aggressive effort to eliminate DEI, or “diversity, equity and inclusion,” practices from all corners of the federal government. This has included a sprawling executive order seeking to counter what it characterized as “gender ideology extremism” and another that sought to cripple the field of pediatric gender medicine. 

A component of a “flood-the-zone” tactic, President Trump’s executive orders have thrown onto the back foot Washington Democrats and the liberal nonprofit advocacy groups that have long fostered a symbiotic relationship with that political party and that since President Trump’s reelection have taken heat for purportedly alienating the public.

Going forward, the ACLU will be instrumental to the left regaining its grasp on power.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Hikes served as executive director of Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs. Hikes made a mark—and a name for themself—there by adding black and brown stripes to the rainbow Pride flag to highlight the plight of LGBTQ people of color.

Three years after Hikes was hired to direct the ACLU’s DEI endeavors, the organization promoted them to their current position. This promotion came in the wake of the sudden, ignominious departure of Ronald Newman, who is Black and had been the director of the ACLU’s national political advocacy department. Mr. Newman, who presided over high turnover in his department, including among Black, Hispanic and Asian women, left the organization in February of 2022. He was trailed by accusations that he fostered a toxic workplace culture and engaged in misogynistic and bullying behavior. 

As for Hikes, they were moving up — literally. Within weeks of beginning their new position as deputy executive director for strategy and culture, Hikes secured a $980,000 mortgage and purchased a $1.48 million, 865-square-foot 1-bedroom condo in downtown Brooklyn, according to public property records. The apartment boasts a washer/dryer and walk-in closet and is perched near the top floor of a luxury high-rise with a spectacular city view. 

This milestone purchase came as Hikes, who has a master’s degree in social work, received a 50 percent pay raise, from a salary of $363,055 in 2022 to $543,532 in 2023, according to the ACLU’s tax filings. The more recent figure, which made Hikes the fourth highest-paid ACLU employee, above the organization’s legal director, was more than double the $268,500 Hikes received in 2020. Over that same three-year span, ACLU director Anthony Romero’s own salary rose 38 percent, from $959,200 to $1.32 million. He earned $565,000 in 2019.

During the recent podcast interview, Hikes said that they “have a bunch of jobs” in addition to their position at the ACLU. “I also throw big queer parties in Philadelphia,” they said, and they “do the speaking circuit and consulting and things like that.” 

A listing for Hikes with AAE Speakers indicates the ACLU deputy charges $10,000 to $20,000 per speech. Recent engagements include speeches for Johns Hopkins University and Muhlenberg College.

Following an Unflattering Times Article, a “Rebirth”

The New York Times first covered the NLRB trial against the ACLU for labor-law violations in an article published March 22 of last year. The case concerned Kate Oh, who had been a senior policy council at the nonprofit and a member of a staff union. 

The internal shockwaves wrought by Mr. Newman’s termination helped fuel tensions between Hikes and Ms. Oh that ultimately gave rise to Ms. Oh’s firing in May 2022. 

Hikes received their promotion and pay boost later that year.

The trial has added fodder to accusations levied in recent years that, within at least a portion of the ACLU’s divisions, the organization has been marred by a tense and unpleasant workplace culture, one that allegedly can be inhospitable to women in particular. These accusations of gender-based hostilities strike a discordant historical note within an institution where, a half-century ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg incubated her campaign to undo discrimination on the basis of sex across the legal landscape and broaden opportunities to women in the workplace.

“Hikes’s hiring and promotion is precisely why the ACLU is now no longer the staunch defender of free speech it once was, but a progressive agitprop,” said Ms. Perry of the Heritage Foundation, arguing that Hikes had prioritized identity politics over the law.

The Times article recounted that ACLU management had asserted that Ms. Oh had engaged in anti-Black racism when she said she was “afraid” of talking to one Black manager and called another a “liar.” 

Also, in the immediate wake of Mr. Newman’s departure, Ms. Oh made a sardonic, and metaphorical, remark that certain managers subjected staffers to “beatings.” 

Hikes, then the DEI chief, told Ms. Oh that her use of “violent language” was “dangerous and damaging.” Ms. Oh replied that Hikes was “chastising” and “reprimanding” her. In response, Hikes said that these words represented a continuation of “a stream of anti-Black rhetoric you’ve been using throughout the organization.” 

In his August decision, administrative law judge Michael A. Rosas determined that Hikes had a hand in the ACLU’s illegal termination of Ms. Oh for engaging in a “protected concerted activity”: complaints about workplace managers. Mr. Rosas deemed that the ACLU’s claims that Ms. Oh targeted people of color in the workplace were unsubstantiated and noted that she had also complained about her white superiors. 

The judge’s decision characterized Ms. Oh as a particularly vocal and at times confrontational employee. The document also recounted that Ms. Oh had asserted she was subjected to misogynistic and anti-Asian bias by ACLU managers. And it described how she had made evident to her bosses that she was hypersensitive about aggression from male superiors given that she had grown up under the dominion of a father whom she ultimately asserted in sworn testimony was violently abusive.  

In an October 23 brief, a counsel for the NLRB asserted that Ms. Oh was “everything” the ACLU “claims to be,” deeming her “outspoken, critical of power and those who hold it, an advocate for transparency, unafraid to speak her mind in the presence of those who hold her career in their hands, unwilling to turn a blind eye to abuse and discrimination.” 

In her statement to the Sun defending Hikes, the ACLU spokesperson, Ms. Weiner, said: “The ACLU has a long history of supporting our employees and working to create a space where everyone can succeed.” She added: “While we zealously safeguard our employees’ rights, the ACLU does not accept discriminatory and demeaning actions, language and treatment of others, which was at the heart of the recent case before the NLRB.”

The Times referred to Hikes in its springtime article not as AJ but with their previous first name, Amber, and with she/her pronouns and the “Ms.” honorific. Hikes’ initial 2019 bio presented them as Amber and as a woman. By the time Hikes took to social media to announce their promotion in Nov. 2022, they had begun publicly identifying as nonbinary. (After the Sun sought comment from the ACLU for this article, Hikes switched their Instagram account to private.)

On March 31, nine days after the Times article ran, Hikes declared in an exuberant Instagram post in celebration of Trans Day of Visibility and Easter that they were officially changing their name to AJ and going only by they/them pronouns. Hikes noted that they had for years gone by their first and middle initial among close friends. “But today,” they wrote, “I’m ready to trust my whole fam to love me and see me even more fully than before.”

Hikes continued: “Here’s to rebirth in all of its beautiful and evolving forms.”

Addressing their recent name change on the December podcast, Hikes said they had been reluctant to drop Amber as their public-facing name because of the implication this would have for web searches about them and their work history.

“Like, my entire career is under a different name,” Hikes said. “Where does that stuff go?”

Hikes continued: “Finally, I was like, You know what? Like, you’re not getting any younger, and that name does not represent who you are. So it’s just time to shed it.”

An earlier version of this article was first published in Mr. Ryan’s Substack.