James Kirchick, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1983, is an American journalist, author, and foreign policy commentator from a Jewish family. He was raised in the Boston area, graduated from the prestigious Roxbury Latin School, and earned a BA in history and political science from Yale University, where he wrote for the Yale Daily News. Openly gay, Kirchick has been a leading voice on American gay politics and international gay rights, receiving the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association's Journalist of the Year Award in 2007. He began his career at The New Republic, covering domestic politics, lobbying, intelligence, and foreign policy, where he notably exposed the racist and homophobic newsletters published under Ron Paul's name during his presidential campaigns. He later became writer-at-large for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, reporting from over 40 countries on events such as the Libyan Civil War, Belarusian election fraud, and unrest in Kyrgyzstan. His writing has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Tablet Magazine, and Air Mail, where he serves as writer at large and contributing opinion writer, respectively. Kirchick is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington (2022) and The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age (2017). He has held fellowships at the Foreign Policy Initiative, Brookings Institution, Robert Bosch Foundation, and served as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Described as a conservative or neoconservative, he is known for his criticism of Russia—including accusations that The National Interest exhibited pro-Kremlin sympathies amid scrutiny of Trump-Russia ties—and critiques of isolationist foreign policies; he supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 as the 'real conservative' choice. Kirchick has sparked controversies, including his 2013 protest on Russia's RT network against anti-gay laws—where he wore rainbow suspenders, refused to discuss Chelsea Manning, and accused RT of propaganda, leading to his feed being cut—and his arguments that the gay rights struggle is over, separating transgender issues and drawing criticism from activists. In 2025, he disparaged transgender Pro-Palestine protesters as 'crazy' and 'disturbing' at a symposium. No legal issues or arrests are documented.