London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Jul 21, 2025

Concern Grows Around Billionaire Peter Thiel's Period-Tracking App

Concern Grows Around Billionaire Peter Thiel's Period-Tracking App

Peter Thiel, billionaire entrepreneur and top campaign donor has decided to back a "femtech" app called 28, created by the divisive Evie Magazine.
The app, created by a controversial women's publication called Evie Magazine, claims to be a "cycle-based" nutrition and wellness program that helps women "reclaim control of [their] bodies, in the most natural way possible."

Neither the billionaire's venture firm Thiel Capital nor Thiel himself are strangers to health and life science investments, but funding a fertility startup is a bit of a turn, especially at a moment during which a lot of Americans have just lost, rather than reclaimed, a significant degree of bodily autonomy.

And a closer look at the app, and those who made it, illuminates a powerful political intersection between tech, health, the wellness industry, and modern conservatism in which conspiracy theories and dubious pseudoscience are feeding a growing counter-counter-culture.

For starters, the science is sketchy. The core premise of the app appears to get women off modern birth control methods, like the hormonal pill or an intrauterine device. Its website is almost comically vague on what the alternative might be, but a focus on "cycles" suggests that it's essentially the rhythm method, which basically entails attempting to avoid sex during ovulation. That's fine in principle, but the rhythm method is statistically quite ineffective, with about a quarter of couples using it accidentally becoming pregnant over the average year.

The publication behind the app raises even more questions. Evie appears to be somewhat of a Cosmopolitan-meets-MindBodyGreen-meets-Tomi Lahren situation: makeup, workout, and holistic wellness tips and tricks are sandwiched between transphobic essays and anti-vaxx arguments. Its anti-birth control cycle-tracking app — which, yes, requires that women input potentially incriminating menstruation data — seems like a natural extension of that apparent mission: the rejection of a very specific version of "feminism" in order to embrace an old-meets-new version of traditional femininity.

"With love, we embrace our nature and our bodies, and care for them the way they deserve," reads 28's website. "With courage, we asked questions that were unpopular, challenged the status quo, and didn't wait for society's permission."

"Women were tired of the pill and the negative impact it's had on their brains and bodies. They were getting off it in droves and looking for natural alternatives," the magazine and app's co-founder Brittany Hugoboom recently told TechCrunch, adding that "we want to democratize the science of hormone and menstrual health. And provide women everywhere with tangible tools to physically and emotionally flourish."

It's true that many women have experienced adverse reactions to the pill. It's also true that women, especially women of color, have long been left out of medical studies, and tend to face mistreatment by the medical establishment.

But even with those realities in mind, 28's anti-birth control rhetoric discounts the fact that there are many, many different kinds contraceptives these days, with no one-size-fits-all to reproductive care. It's also true that the demonization of hormonal birth control specifically has become a sort of rallying cry in certain circles of the women's wellness community, where skepticism and conspiracy theories, cult-followed "conspiritualist" influencers like Kelly Brogan, and "doing your own research" reign supreme. Somehow, in these growing communities, embracing the pill is to reject an inherent womanhood, and rejecting the pill, in turn, is the only path to "healthy hormones, self-discovery, and a beautiful, feminine physique," as 28 claims.

This anti-contraceptive ethos fits into a Evie's broader anti-abortion, pro-life messaging. One 2021 Evie story, titled "Argentina, A Hot Spot For Human Trafficking, Just Legalized Abortion," argued — falsely — that "trafficking, abuse, and abortion are inextricably, intrinsically linked," while many of its other stories make similarly dubious anti-abortion claims. More than one suggest that the abortion pill is bad for women, while another claims that abortion is an "anti-woman issue that has nothing to do with bodily autonomy or reproductive freedom." And as Vice points out, Hugoboom's personal Twitter account is riddled with anti-feminist, pro-life rhetoric. (The magazine, in the face of all this, claims to be apolitical.)

That all being said, what could Thiel possibly want with an app like this? Other popular cycle-tracking apps already exist. Why would he want in on 28?

Of course, he could want the data, which has been a concern regarding some of Thiel's past investments, especially those related to his CIA-backed data analytics firm Palantir (Hugoboom has claimed that 28's data is protected, although Vice points out that details as to how are scarce and flawed). Vice also turns to the famous contrarian's well-documented penchant for funding and participating in bizarre health treatments, many of which center on an apparent interest with youth and living forever — an obsession shared by many in the tech industry, where the strangest of wellness treatments and "biohacks" run amuck.

But Thiel isn't only in the tech industry, nor is he just interested in funding startups. He's also in the business of campaign financing, and most of the campaigns that the billionaire has recently funded (Arizona candidate Blake Masters, Ohio candidate J.D. Vance, and former president Donald Trump, to name a few) share the Evie principles: anti-woke, anti-abortion, anti-feminism, anti-trans, and so on. Funding Evie isn't just a business bet. It's a political one, too. And in post-Roe America, Evie Magazine and 28, unfortunately, both seem like safe bets to make.

"I tried to follow the science, but it simply was not there," reads a graphic, recently retweeted by Hugoboom. "I then followed the money, and that's where I found the science."

Oddly poignant, no?
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
×