Moore is the daughter of an American father and a working-class British mother, who split up during her childhood. She grew up in Ipswich and attended Northgate Grammar School for Girls. After various jobs in Britain and overseas, including waitressing, shop work and door to door sales, Moore embarked on a psychology degree at Middlesex Polytechnic, but soon switched to cultural studies. She began a PhD and journalism career simultaneously after graduation, but ceased work on her doctorate after 18 months.
Journalism career
During her career Moore has written for Marxism Today, The Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, The Independent, The Guardian, and the New Statesman. In The Guardian in 1995, Moore falsely stated that Germaine Greer had undergone a hysterectomy at 25. Greer responded by accusing Moore of possessing "hair bird's-nested all over the place, fuck-me shoes and three fat inches of cleavage." In January 2013, a "throwaway" comment in an essay by Moore, which had been reprinted by the New Statesman, was criticised on Twitter as transphobic, to which she responded. Her response led to a larger row involving wider sections of the transfeminist and radical feminist blogosphere, and after her friend Julie Burchill came to her defence in an opinion piece in The Observer, which was widely criticised as hate speech and withdrawn by the paper the following day, the row expanded to much of the British press. In June 2019, Moore wrote in an article entitled 'Why is it so hard for Labour to find a woman to be leader?', that Jeremy Corbyn was "not concerned enough to actually have many " and that "Labour has a shortage of women, not on its benches but in its inner circle." Commentators pointed out that 15 members, i.e. around half, of the Shadow Cabinet were women, and suggested that Moore had ignored these largely working class, northern, left-wing and black women and that her motive in writing the article was to promote as potential replacements for Corbyn two MPs that she did note, Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips. In March 2020, following the publication of an opinion piece written by Moore, titled "Women must have the right to organise. We will not be silenced." in The Guardian, the paper received a letter of complaint, with over 200 signatories, which rejected the implication that "advocating for trans rights poses a threat to cisgender women". The letter was signed by politicians such as Siân Berry, Christine Jardine, Nadia Whittome and Zarah Sultana, writers and journalists including Ash Sarkar and Reni Eddo-Lodge and a range of campaigners for human rights, women's rights and racial justice. The newspaper published the letter alongside others received in response to the article, both supportive and critical.
Politics
Moore stood as an independent candidate for the constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington in the 2010 UK general election due to her disillusionment with the main political parties. She finished sixth with 0.6% of the vote, losing to Diane Abbott and forfeiting her deposit.
Personal life
Moore has lived in the Hackney area since the early 1990s, and is a single mother. She has three daughters from various relationships.
