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Abigail Shrier is an American author who is a key figure in the “gender critical” movement of anti-transgender activists, focusing on:

Shrier is author of the 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters and has testified against the Equality Act before Congress in 2021.

Background

Abigail Brett Krauser Shrier was born June 21, 1978 and grew up in College Park, Maryland. Shrier’s parents are Sherrie L. Krauser, a judge of the Circuit Court of Maryland, and Peter B. Krauser, a judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and former chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party.

Shrier attended Sheridan School and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2000, Shrier earned a bachelor’s degree from Oxford in 2002. Shrier then earned a law degree from Yale University in 2005. After clerking for Judith W. Rogers and Chief Justice Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel, Shrier was admitted to the New York Bar in 2006 and the California Bar in 2007. Shrier was an associate attorney at Irell & Manella from 2006 to 2008 before becoming a full-time writer in 2009. Shrier’s California license became inactive in 2009.

Shrier is a registered Republican and married wealth manager Zachary Loren Shrier in 2007.

References

Shrier A (March 15, 2021) Equality Act testimony

  • (PDF) https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Shrier%20EQUALITY%20ACT%20TESTIMONY%20-%20%203-15-21.pdf
  • (video) https://youtu.be/iK7eOudkkZg?t=4486

Irell & Manell (~2008). Abigail Shrier. http://www.irell.com/professionals-240.html [archive]

Ferguson CJ (January 19, 2021) A Review of “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier. Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/checkpoints/202101/review-irreversible-damage-abigail-shrier

Staff report (June 10, 2007). Achievement and Reasonable Pride. PrawfsBlawg https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2007/06/achievement_and.html

Resources by Shrier

Abigail Shrier (abigailshrier.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

IMDb (imdb.com)

Resources supportive of Shrier

PragerU

Jordan Peterson

Joe Rogan

Hillsdale College

The Rubin Report

Ben Shapiro

Matt Walsh

Benjamin Boyce

Resources critical of Shrier

GLAAD Accountability Project (glaad.org)

Science-Based Medicine

Irreversible Damage to the Trans Community: A Critical Review of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage (Part One)

Cass Eris (youtube.com/casseris)

Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

Michael G. Riley is an American writer and anti-transgender activist. Under Riley’s editorship, academic trade publication The Chronicle of Higher Education favorably covered contributor Alice Dreger’s anti-trans activism on several occasions. This ethically questionable arrangement is part of the publication’s pattern of bias favoring academics in the academic exploitation of sex and gender minorities.

Background

Michael George “Mike” Riley was born on February 10, 1959. Riley earned a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University in 1981 and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 1985.

Riley’s first journalism job was at The Dispatch in Lexington, North Carolina. Riley was editor of The Roanoke Times, editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly, and editorial director of Bloomberg Government as well as senior correspondent and bureau chief for TIME magazine.

Riley lives in Arlington, Virginia with spouse Arline and their two children.

Riley was named president and editor in chief of The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2013.

References

Staff report (April 17, 2013). Chronicle Names Bloomberg Editor as Its New Chief Executive. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/chronicle-names-bloomberg-editor-as-its-new-chief-executive/

Resources

Chronicle of Higher Education (chronicle.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Tom Bartlett is an American writer whose puff piece on Chronicle of Higher Education contributor Alice Dreger appeared in that same publication. This questionable ethical arrangement was apparently greenlit by editor Michael G. Riley.

In addition to helping sexologist J. Michael Bailey cover up the fabricated “Danny Ryan” case report that got Bailey tenure, Dreger is one of history’s foremost pathologizers of sex and gender minorities. Dreger is a key figure in promoting widely outlawed anti-transgender reparative “therapy” techniques developed by fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker. Dreger was named an inaugural member of the right-wing intellectual dark web for these anti-transgender views. Dreger later used connections at The Chronicle to renounce that association.

As is typical with biased reporters, Bartlett rarely reaches out to trans experts and academics for comment, choosing instead to frame any writing on trans issues within what biologist Julia Serano calls the Dregerian narrative.

Bartlett has also covered the “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” controversy for the Chronicle.

Background

Thomas Edwin Bartlett was born on July 20, 1974 and grew up in New Mexico. Bartlett earned a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in 1997 and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Bartlett lives in Austin with spouse Kellie Jo Maxwell Bartlett (born 1973), an artist who creates the Little Niddles and Happily comics and publishes a newsletter titled Pleasant Fluff.

Bartlett’s coverage of academic misconduct started with an article on sex allegations against Indiana State University professor Jerome August “Jerry” Cerny. Bartlett sought comment from J. Michael Bailey, who said, “There’s clearly a politically vocal group who think that sex should not be studied.”

Bartlett then covered Alice Dreger on several occasions, first with Dreger’s spin of ethics allegations against anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon. Bartlett then profiled Dreger as part of promotional press for Dreger’s 2015 book. Because Dreger’s self-promotion represents a sort of wish fulfillment for a certain type of academic or journalist, Dreger became a Chronicle contributor as well as a subject of their reporting. Dreger fell out of favor after requesting a retraction of a 2018 Chronicle article mocking the entire field of academic archivists. In the same way Dreger betrayed Bari Weiss and the intellectual dark web at the first sign of trouble, Dreger threw Chronicle editor Jenny Ruark under the bus when academics objected to Dreger’s attacks on archivists.

Reluctant Crusader: Why Alice Dreger’s writing on sex and science makes liberals so angry (2015)

[excerpt from Tom Bartlett’s article]

So how did Dreger, a person who ditched a tenured professorship to devote herself to full-time advocacy on behalf of those marginalized by the medical establishment, mutate into a torrent-unleashing hatemonger?

The short answer is J. Michael Bailey. Her support of his 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, embraced a disputed theory of transsexualism that divides male-to-female transsexuals more or less into two categories: those who identify as female and wish to attract men (women “trapped” in male bodies) and those who are sexually aroused by being perceived as female and wish to attract women as well as men. The latter, the theory goes, inhabit a category called autogynephilia, a term that is offensive to some transsexuals who see it as creating a division between “real” transsexuals and those who are merely turned on by the idea. “When they felt that Bailey was fundamentally threatening their selves and their social identities as women — well, it’s because he was,” Dreger writes. “That’s what talking openly about autogynephilia necessarily does.”

Dreger’s defense of Bailey — and of transgender women who see themselves as autogynephiles — put her in the cross hairs of those who believe that the theory Bailey helped popularize is bigoted junk science. For the record, Dreger did ding Bailey for insensitivity, including for using a photo on the cover of his book that depicts a man’s muscled legs in a pair of pumps. But she defended him initially on grounds of academic freedom, and has since become persuaded that he’s right on the science of autogynephilia. That was sufficient for some to deem her a transphobic right-winger.

The Bailey business was complicated by an accusation that he had slept with a research subject — though whether she was a research subject at the time and whether they actually slept together remain hazy. Dreger made an effort to pin down what happened, going so far as to examine emails sent on the night of their alleged congress and to contemplate whether it matters. The publication you’re reading now covered the hubbub back then, and it’s necessary to note that Dreger thought that the coverage missed the mark. Actually she hated those articles and thought they demonized Bailey, though I have to say, reading them now, I don’t see that. (Full disclosure: I’m friends with the reporter and think she’s extremely fair.)

Ancient quarreling aside, the over­arching theme of the Bailey episode for Dreger was whether or not a scholar should be allowed to present evidence for a theory that some find profoundly threatening and deeply offensive. The critiques of Bailey often revolved around whether his book was “invalidating to transwomen” — which seemed like a separate question from whether the argument itself had any merit, a question that continues to be debated.

References

Bartlett, Tom (March 19, 2019). Journal Issues Revised Version of Controversial Paper That Questioned Why Some Teens Identify as Transgender. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/journal-issues-revised-version-of-controversial-paper-that-questioned-why-some-teens-identify-as-transgender/

Bartlett, Tom (August 26, 2015). Star Scholar Resigns From Northwestern, Saying It Doesn’t Respect Academic Freedom. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/star-scholar-resigns-from-northwestern-saying-it-doesnt-respect-academic-freedom/

Bartlett, Tom (March 10, 2015) Reluctant Crusader. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/reluctant-crusader/

Bartlett, Tom (August 10, 2017). The Offender. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-offender/

Bartlett, Tom (February 12, 2013). An Anthropologist, Once Accused of Genocide, Tells His Story at Last. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/an-anthropologist-once-accused-of-genocide-tells-his-story-at-last

Glenn, David and Bartlett, Thomas (December 3, 2009). Rebuttal of Decade-Old Accusations Roils Anthropology Meeting Anew. Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/rebuttal-of-decade-old-accusations-against-researchers-roils-anthropology-meeting-anew/

Bartlett, Thomas (October 24, 2003). Did a University Let a Sex Researcher Go Too Far? Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/did-a-university-let-a-sex-researcher-go-too-far/

Resources

Tom Bartlett (tbartlett.me)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Medium (medium.com)

Flickr (flickr.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Chronicle of Higher Education (chronicle.com)

Wired (wired.com)

The Atlantic (theatlantic.com)

Texas Monthly (texasmonthly.com)

Washington Post (washingtonpost.com)

Washingtonian (washingtonian.com)

Religion Dispatches (religiondispatches.org)

Politico (politico.com)

The Guardian (theguardian.com)

Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

Mark Roger Lepper (born December 5, 1944) is an American psychologist. He was the Psychology Department Chair at Stanford University who allowed J. Michael Bailey to engage in the vulgar misuse of gender diverse children on Stanford’s campus.

Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden had contacted Lepper when she learned of Bailey’s upcoming lecture. From her 2003 report on the event:

I learned in March that the psychology department at Stanford had invited Bailey to give a regularly scheduled departmental seminar. I alerted the chair of psychology to the considerable risk attending such a speaker, because Bailey’s findings were of dubious quality, and likely to hurt and offend people. He said that the seminar series could accommodate a marginal speaker every now and then, and invited me to attend. My caution went unnoticed however, and Bailey was introduced as “controversial,” someone whose work has “important implications for law, medicine and social policy” and as a “successful teacher whose courses feature transsexuals stripping after class.”

What ensued was the most humiliating lecture I’ve ever personally attended.

Source: Letter to the National Academy of Sciences (2003)

Resources

Stanford University Bulletin (stanford.edu)

  • Psychology 2003-04 (PDF)

David I. Miller is an American psychologist who published pathologizing research on sex and gender minorities while working with J. Michael Bailey at Northwestern University.

Background

Miller earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 2010, then did graduate work at University of California – Berkeley before earning a Ph.D. in Psychology from Northwestern University in 2018.

Miller has published on sex and gender minorities with Kevin J. Hsu and Allen Rosenthal. He is one of the the few “autogynephilia” activists under age 50.

References

Hsu, K. J., Rosenthal, A. M., Miller, D. I., & Bailey, J. M. (2017). Sexual arousal patterns of autogynephilic male cross-dressers. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 247-253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0826-z

Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Miller DI, Bailey JM (2016). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women. Psychological Medicine, 46, 819–827. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002317

Resources

GitHub (github.io)

Robinn Joachim Mentz Cruz MA, LMHC (born August 10, 1972) is an American therapist and workout instructor. Cruz is credited as Robinn J. Cruz by Anne Lawrence in the acknowledgements of the 2013 book Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies. That book presents transgender people as motivated to transition by a sex-fueled mental illness called “autogynephilia.”

Background

Mentz graduated from Argosy University in Seattle in 2007 and was likely a classmate of Lawrence’s. That school has since closed.

Mentz has worked at RJM Psychological Services, PLLC in Tacoma Washington since 2007.

References

  • NPI#: 1487993598
  • WA License: LH60277706

Resources

Psychology Today (psychologytoday.com)

MaƂgorzata Anna Ɓamacz (1949–2017) was a Polish psychologist who also published in English as Margaret Lamacz. Her work focused on behavioral genetics and disease models of sex and gender minorities. She is the co-author of the 1989 book Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of 7 Cases in Pediatric Sexology with John Money.

Background

While earning her Master’s degree and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, Lamacz worked with Money doing clinical psychology and pediatric sexology. There, she worked with transgender clients, as well as children and adolescents referred for developmental or behavioral issues related to sex and sexuality.

Lamacz went on to work on evidence of genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia. This work was done with fellow Catholic Paul McHugh, who shut down the gender clinic at Johns Hopkins.

According to a Polish newspaper, Ɓamacz died after a long illness, and her ashes were interred at the Church of St. Giles in Kraków.

Vandalized Lovemaps (1989)

Her work with Money on paraphilia led to the concept of “vandalized lovemaps.” She is co-author of his 1989 book Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of 7 Cases in Pediatric Sexology. Their book profiles seven young people based on Money’s neurodevelopmental theory of paraphilia development, based on observations in non-human animals. Money and Lamacz then make observations about each outcome once the seven are adults. Because they advocated intervention in the lives of sexually different children, some colleagues criticized their approach. She and Money proposed the term “gynemimetophilia” as part of a paraphilic model of attraction to transwomen.

Selected works

Money J, Lamacz M (1984). Gynemimesis and gynemimetophilia: individual and cross-cultural manifestations of a gender-coping strategy hitherto unnamed. Comparative Psychiatry. 1984 Jul-Aug;25(4):392-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440X(84)90074-9

Money J, Lamacz M (1987). Genital examination and exposure experienced as nosocomial sexual abuse in childhood. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1987 Dec;175(12):713-21. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-198712000-00002

Money J, Lamacz M (1989). Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of 7 Cases in Pediatric Sexology. Prometheus Books, ISBN 9780879755133

Pulver AE, Nestadt G, Goldberg R, Shprintzen RJ, Lamacz M, Wolyniec PS, Morrow B, Karayiorgou M, Antonarakis SE, Housman D, et al. (1994). Psychotic illness in patients diagnosed with velo-cardio-facial syndrome and their relatives. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 1994, Volume 182, Issue 8, pp. 476-477. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00005053-199408000-00010

Blouin JL, Dombroski BA, Nath SK, Lasseter VK, Wolyniec PS, Nestadt G, Thornquist M, Ullrich G, McGrath J, Kasch L, Lamacz M, Thomas MG, Gehrig C, Radhakrishna U, Snyder SE, Balk KG, Neufeld K, Swartz KL, DeMarchi N, Papadimitriou GN, Dikeos DG, Stefanis CN, Chakravarti A, Childs B, Housman DE, Kazazian HH, Antonarakis SE, Pulver AE (1998). Schizophrenia susceptibility loci on chromosomes 13q32 and 8p21. Nature Genetics 20, 70 – 73 (1998) https://doi.org/10.1038/1734

Karayiorgou M, Kasch L, Lasseter VK, Hwang J, Elango R, Bernardini DJ, Kimberland M, Babb R, Francomano CA, Wolyniec PS, et al. (2005). Report from the Maryland Epidemiology Schizophrenia Linkage Study: no evidence for linkage between schizophrenia and a number of candidate and other genomic regions using a complex dominant model. American Journal of Medical Genetics Volume 54 Issue 4, Pages 345 – 353. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.1320540413

Pulver AE, Karayiorgou M, Wolyniec PS, Lasseter VK, Kasch L, Nestadt G, Antonarakis S, Housman D, Kazazian HH, Meyers D, et al. (2005). Sequential strategy to identify a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia: report of potential linkage on chromosome 22q12-q13.1: Part 1. American Journal of Medical Genetics Volume 54 Issue 1, Pages 36-43. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.1320540108

References

Hurtig AL, Levine SB, Weinrich JD. Vandalized Lovemaps [Review]. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 20, Number 3 / June, 1991 319-329. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541850

Johnson, John (July 25, 1988). Transsexualism: A Journey Across Lines of Gender. Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-25-mn-4640-story.html

Staff report (January 25, 1990). How do I love thee? Washington Times

Brody, Jane (January 23, 1990). Scientists Trace Aberrant Sexuality. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/scientists-trace-aberrant-sexuality.html

Goldner V (2003). Ironic Gender/Authentic Sex. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 4:113-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240650409349219

Francoeur RT, Taverner WJ (2004). Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality . McGraw-Hill College, ISBN 9780072371314 ASIN: B000OURRP2

Millon T, Blaney PH, Davis RD (1999). Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology (Oxford Series in Clinical Psychology) Oxford University Press, USA, ASIN B000OKSETU

Associated Press (September 3, 1998). New clues to schizophrenia. Rocky Mountain News

MaƂgorzata Ɓamacz : Nekrologi https://www.nekrologi.net/nekrologi/malgorzata-lamacz/51559362

“Dr. MaƂgorzata Ɓamacz, a psychologist, died on November 2, 2017 after a serious illness.” Her ashes were interred at the Catholic church in Raciborsko, a village southeast of KrakĂłw.

Resources

WorldCat Identities (worldcat.org)

Virtual International Authority File (viaf.org)

US Library of Congress Name Authority File (id.loc.gov)

Dziennik Polski (https://dziennikpolski24.pl)

  • MaƂgorzata Ɓamacz [archive]
  • “dr MaƂgorzata Ɓamacz, psycholog, zmarƂa dnia 2 listopada 2017 r. po ciÄ™ĆŒkiej chorobie.”

Kathryn Sandra Kaur Hall (born 1958) is a Canadian psychologist who with coauthor Yitzchak M. Binik has promoted pathologizing ideas about sex and gender minorities. Their 2014 book Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy presents the response to the 2003 anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen as that of “some militant gender activists.” It also allows psychologists Kenneth Zucker and Nicola Brown to make the case for non-affirmative models of care for minors. Zucker was fired the year after the book’s publication.

Background

Hall earned her Bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in 1980 and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University in 1986. Her husband is sports psychologist James L. “Jim” Mastrich, Jr. (born 1952).

Passage from Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy

The Future of Sex Therapy

The relationship between sexual dysfunction and the other sexual disorders might be best characterized as a DSM-arranged marriage. Paraphilia and gender dysphoria clinicians and researchers have usually not been sex therapists. Yet in the view of previous DSMs and most of the North American mental health community, all sexual and gender issues are alike. The net result is that the sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders have all been thrown into a single DSM chapter. This is not true in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) classification.

Whether sexuality is an important defining characteristic for gender dysphoria is matter of some controversy. Brown and Zucker (Chapter 11) point out that autogynephilia—that is, sexual arousal to the idea of oneself being a woman—may be a crucial mechanism in male-to-female gender dysphoria and that this “erotic location error” is considered by some as a sexual orientation. This theory has aroused bitter controversy, as evidenced by the recent brouhaha between J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and some militant gender activists (see special issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2008). Brown and Zucker also review the intervention literature and summarize the substantive changes in the DSM-5 diagnosis.

References

Binik YM, Hall SKS (2014). The Future of Sex Therapy. In Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, Fifth Edition. Guilford Publications. Edited by Yitzchak M. Binik and Kathryn SK Hall. ISBN 978-1462513673

Resources

Dr. Kathryn Hall (drkathrynhall.com)

Prabook (prabook.com)

Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

Irving Binik is an American-Canadian psychologist who promoted pathologizing ideas about sex and gender minorities.

Background

Yitzchak M. “Irv” Binik was born February 6, 1949. He grew up in Rochester, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Jewish Theological Seminary in 1970. He then attended University of Pennsylvania earning a master’s degree in 1972 and a doctorate in 1975, 

He taught at McGill University from 1975 until his retirement.

He studied factors that affect sexual response in women in women and men, including menopause and circumcision He believed sexual pain should be reclassified from a sex disorder to a pain disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In 2008, Binik was selected for the DSM-V Sexual & Gender Identity Disorders Work Group chaired by Kenneth Zucker.

2014 anti-transgender book

Binik and Kathryn S.K. Hall edited the 2014 book Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy. They present the response to the 2003 anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen as that of “some militant gender activists.” It also allows psychologists Kenneth Zucker and Nicola Brown to make the case for non-affirmative models of care for minors. Zucker was fired the year after the book’s publication.

The Future of Sex Therapy

The relationship between sexual dysfunction and the other sexual disorders might be best characterized as a DSM-arranged marriage. Paraphilia and gender dysphoria clinicians and researchers have usually not been sex therapists. Yet in the view of previous DSMs and most of the North American mental health community, all sexual and gender issues are alike. The net result is that the sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders have all been thrown into a single DSM chapter. This is not true in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) classification.

Whether sexuality is an important defining characteristic for gender dysphoria is matter of some controversy. Brown and Zucker (Chapter 11) point out that autogynephilia—that is, sexual arousal to the idea of oneself being a woman—may be a crucial mechanism in male-to-female gender dysphoria and that this “erotic location error” is considered by some as a sexual orientation. This theory has aroused bitter controversy, as evidenced by the recent brouhaha between J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and some militant gender activists (see special issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2008). Brown and Zucker also review the intervention literature and summarize the substantive changes in the DSM-5 diagnosis.

References

Binik YM, Hall KSK, Eds. (2014). Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, Fifth Edition. Guilford Publications. ISBN 9781462513673

Resources

McGill University Psychology (psych.mcgill.ca)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Archival resources

Binik Lab (binik-lab.com) [archive]

Sex and Couples Therapy (sexandcoupletherapy.com) [archive]

American Psychiatric Association (psychiatry.org)

  • http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMV/WorkGroups/SexualGID/IrvingMBinikPhD.aspx [archive]

Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.

Kevin J. Hsu is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.

Hsu published pathologizing research on “shemales” while working with dissertation advisor J. Michael Bailey at Northwestern University. Hsu is a “gender critical” millennial associated with sexology’s conservative fringe.

Background

Hsu was born in ~1990, grew up in Texas, and attended Northwestern, earning a bachelor’s degree in 2012 and a doctorate in 2019. Hsu did a psychology internship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

His research has focused broadly on understanding sexual orientation using a variety of methods. His clinical work has focused primarily on the assessment and treatment of adults with various psychiatric problems, including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

Hsu’s dissertation was titled “Erotic Target Identity Inversions in Male Furries, Adult Baby/Diaper Lovers, and Eunuchs.” Hsu acknowledges advisor J. Michael Bailey; committee members Ray Blanchard, Renee Engeln, and Vijay Mittal; as well as Anne Lawrence, Galen Bodenhausen, Richard Zinbarg, Susan Mineka, Wendi Gardner, Marzena Nowicka, Paul Vasey, John Sylla, Gerulf Rieger, Debra Soh, James Morandini, Heather Hoffmann, and David Moskowitz.

.

Anti-trans activism

Hsu diagnoses the common attraction to trans women as a made-up disease called “gynandromorphophilia” (GAMP), which Hsu and colleagues describe as “sexual interest in gynandromorphs (GAMs; colloquially, shemales).” Hsu and conservative colleagues are the only people who publish medicalized and pornographic neologisms rather than using scientific and value-neutral terms used by ethical sexologists.

Hsu also diagnoses furries as “autozoophiles,” ageplay enthusiasts as “autopedophiles,” and many trans women as “autogynephiles.” Hsu has published on sex and gender minorities with David I. Miller and Allen Rosenthal. Hsu is one of the few “autogynephilia” activists under age 50.

Related people

Ethical controversies

FurFest ban and unauthorized intrusion

Hsu was barred from recruiting participants at Midwest FurFest in December 2013 by the organizers, but attended anyway and tried to talk to several furries about their sexuality.

Violative online survey

A complaint to Northwestern’s Institutional Review Board resulted in Hsu taking down an online survey. Matt Healy attempted to reason with Hsu before contacting Northwestern about a survey that the furry community and ethical furry researchers like Kathleen Gerbasi found concerning. Below is an excerpt from Healy’s complaint:

Kevin’s survey uses several trans slurs

Kevin’s survey uses very poor language. Furry has a large proportion of transgender people and genderqueer people – around one in four based on the data I have seen – people who are vulnerable and sensitive to poorly-chosen language.

Kevin’s survey most egregiously uses the offensive term “shemale”, and also uses terms like “transsexual” in ways that would be considered passe or problematic by people active in the area of queer politics. There are many of such people within furry.

When pressed, Kevin countered that “shemale” is acceptable because it is “used in professional literature.” He cited me two examples: one from [Ray Blanchard and Peter Collins in] 1993, the other from 2011. I reviewed the 2011 (Escoffier) paper, in which “shemale” is only used as a descriptor for a mainstream pornography category. Kevin’s use of this paper as a rationalization strikes me as either disingenuous or willfully misleading. His willingness to defend offensive terminology on specious grounds is consistent based on my conversations with him.

I advised him to use the GLAAD media guidelines as reference for appropriate use of language. Kevin replied: “The GLAAD guidelines are merely guidelines, and they are catered to the media, which we are not. They don’t dictate the discourse in academia, research, or really anything.”

Healy (2015)

Unethical “sissy” survey

Hsu often presents cherry-picked data in an attempt to prove pet ideologies like “autogynephilia.” In 2021, Hsu began promoting a sex survey on non-representative gender diverse forums primarily associated with the sissy community and with “autogynephilia” activists:

Broadly speaking, we are hoping to better understand how gender, sexuality, mental health, personality, attitudes, and relationships intersect with one another in cross-dresser, transfeminine, and other communities (e.g., sissy), and how they might change over time. 

When questioned about the obvious bias in the sampling methodology, Hsu said:

Thank you for raising these concerns. We agree that recruiting from only those subreddits that you mentioned would not capture the wide range of experiences within cross-dressing and transfeminine communities. We do plan to recruit not only from more cross-dresser communities online, but also transfeminine communities as well. We hope to recruit as much of a representative sample of cross-dresser and transfeminine people as possible; if we fall short of that for whatever reason, we can assure that we will be transparent about the limitations of the sample and generalizing of the results.

When questioned another time, Hsu claimed:

We fully intend to post advertisements on and recruit from many other subreddits, forums, and communities to ensure a wide range of participants are included in the study. We have just not had the chance to do that yet

That has not happened as of 2023. The subreddits Hsu contacted are:

  • askAGP
  • MEFetishism
  • TGandSissyRecovery
  • sissyology
  • sissyhypno
  • ForcedFeminization
  • Feminization
  • sissyplace
  • Sissy
  • Sissies
  • forcedfem
  • genderotica
  • gendertransformation
  • girlschool
  • SissyHeaven
  • SissificationProject
  • sissydressing
  • asiansissification

The project’s consent for research states at item 9: “Funds from the Conru Foundation will be used to support this research.”

Andrew Conru is the founder of AdultFriendFinder. Conru’s limited social media presence includes primarily interacting with people associated with the intellectual dark web and with signers of the Harper’s letter, including Dave Rubin, Eric Weinstein, James Lindsay, Tim Pool, and Katie Herzog (quoting Benjamin Boyce).

References

Healy M (May 4, 2015). Concerns over conduct of Northwestern sexology researcher. Flayrah. http://www.flayrah.com/6069/concerns-over-conduct-northwestern-sexology-researcher

Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Miller DI, Bailey JM (2015). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women. Psychological Medicine. 2016 Mar;46(4):819-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002317 Epub 2015 Oct 26.

Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Bailey JM (2015). The psychometric structure of items assessing autogynephilia. Archives of Sexual Behavior 44, 1301-1312 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0397-9

Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Miller DI, Bailey JM (2015). Sexual Arousal Patterns of Autogynephilic Male Cross-Dressers. Archives of Sexual Behavior https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0826-z

Rosenthal AM, Hsu KJ, Bailey JM (2017). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? An internet survey of men with sexual interest in transgender women. Archives of Sexual Behavior [17 Nov 2016, 46(1):255-264] 10.1007/s10508-016-0872-6

UIC College of Medicine (2019). Grand Rounds. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Theory and Clinical Applications. https://www.psych.uic.edu/event/psychdept-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy-theory-and-clinical-applications

Bailey JM (2019). How to Ruin Sex Research. Archives of Sexual Behavior May 2019, Volume 48, Issue 4, pp 1007–1011 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1420-y

Hsu KJ, Bailey JM (2019). The “Furry” Phenomenon: Characterizing Sexual Orientation, Sexual Motivation, and Erotic Target Identity Inversions in Male Furries. Archives of Sexual Behavior 48, 1349–1369 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1303-7

Bailey JM, Hsu KJ (2022). How Autogynephilic Are Natal Females? Archives of Sexual Behavior Oct;51(7):3311-3318 10.1007/s10508-022-02359-8

Bailey JM, Hsu KJ, Jang HH (2023). Elaborating and Testing Erotic Target Identity Inversion Theory in Three Paraphilic Samples. Archives of Sexual Behavior https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02647-x

Resources

reddit (reddit.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

Penn State Abington (abington.psu.edu)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

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