Chrissy Stroop received FFRF’s 2025 “Freethought Heroine” award. Raised evangelical in the Indianapolis area and Colorado Springs, Chrissy Stroop was sent to culture-warring Christian schools that demonized queerness, abortion and anything viewed as “liberal.” She earned a Ph.D in modern Russian history from Stanford University, which she put to use as both a classroom instructor and a senior research associate with the University of Innsbruck’s Postsecular Conflicts project that investigated international right-wing networks. A former weekly columnist for openDemocracy and a frequent contributor to Religion Dispatches, Stroop is now a full-time writer and speaker with bylines in Foreign Policy, Playboy, The Boston Globe, Political Research Associates, and other outlets. Her newsletter, The Bugbear Dispatch, explores American politics and society through the lens of an ongoing moral panic of which Stroop, as an out transgender woman, is a primary target. She is also a cofounder and co-owner of the intersectional feminist outlet The Flytrap and (with Lauren O’Neal) coeditor of the essay collection “Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church.”
