Skip to content

people

Benjamin Boyce is an American YouTuber who promotes alt-right and intellectual dark web viewpoints, with a special focus on gender critical anti-transgender movements. Boyce is a key promoter of the ex-transgender movement.

Note: For the British musical artist born in 1968, see benjamin-boyce.com

Background

Benjamin Arthur Boyce was born on July 7, 1976 in Ukiah, California to Dan and Teresa Boyce. Boyce grew up in a religious household. Boyce’s family moved frequently around California, living in Milpitas, San Jose, Loomis, and Rocklin. Boyce’s parents met in Bible college and reportedly came under the influence of a charismatic minister named Gordon, who had been paralyzed after being shot. The families under Gordon’s control were split up. Teresa was given to another family, and Dan inherited two “spiritual children” from the minors who were part of other families. At 14 Boyce reportedly became “intensely sexual.”

Boyce’s family eventually left the group, and they were shunned. Dan went to a seminary school in Chicago while Benjamin remained behind in Rockland to complete high school, staying with a family that was part of their church.

Boyce attended Covenant Bible College in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, a vocational Bible college which has since closed. Boyce then moved to Chicago in 1995. Boyce’s parents then took over a church in Fresno, California, and Boyce remained in Chicago until age 24. Boyce moved many times looking for a church, eventually moving to Portland. Boyce has been involved in Subud, “a direct spiritual experience of the soul being reawakened by the power of God.”

Boyce got a job at a preschool and would write at night. Boyce is also an aspiring children’s entertainer who has recorded and performed under the names Benjamin, Benzo, Benjamin Arthur, and Benjamin Ampersand.

In 2010 Boyce released the album Scariously, which includes songs like “(I Have Had An) Accident,” about a young child accidentally defecating and then removing soiled clothes.

In 2011, Boyce released the album Wildling under the name Benjamin Arthur. In 2012, Boyce released the EP Combustible Sundress, and in 2013 released the EP confessions of a headless man under the name Eo Ipso. In 2013, Boyce self-published the book Iconogasms under the banner of Critically Othersuch Press.

Boyce attended Evergreen State College from 2013 to 2017 and witnessed a major conflict involving the school’s progressive faction that led to the resignations of professors Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, members of the so-called intellectual dark web. Boyce began commenting about conservative politics following those experiences.

Boyce was an elementary school bus driver for the Griffin School District in Washington State from 2017 to 2020. During that time Boyce founded Othersuch Constructs LLC, which lasted from 2017 to 2018.

Anti-trans activism

In 2018, Boyce started a YouTube channel and podcast called Calmversations, alternately titled The Boyce of Reason. Despite the show’s relaxed tone, Boyce’s guests are often strident critics of progressive aspects of the trans rights movement.

Media appearances

Selected podcast appearances

  • The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters (2021)
  • TRIGGERnometry (2021)
  • Chatting with Candice (2020)

Interview (2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHWhFYAdgJE

Gender: A Wider Lens with Sasha Ayad and Stella O’Malley (November 11, 2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTNvv1acNI

Interview (2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqEAePEAlTs

Resources

YouTube (youtube.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Bandcamp (bandcamp.com)

Medium (medium.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

WordPress (wordpress.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Soundcloud (soundcloud.com)

reddit (reddit.com)

Utreon (utreon.com)

Etsy (etsy.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Gettr (gettr.com)

Thinkspot (thinkspot.com)

Benjamin A. Boyce (benjaminaboyce.com) [archive]

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

Pamela Paul is an American writer and anti-transgender activist who laundered anti-trans extremism into the New York Times until 2025.

While editor of The New York Times Book Review, Paul hired anti-trans activist Jesse Singal to write a glowing review of anti-trans activist Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, helping spark a newsroom crisis about anti-trans coverage that culminated in 2023. The day after the crisis reached its peak, Paul published a piece defending anti-trans activist J.K. Rowling.

Paul has published many opinion columns for the Times repeating anti-trans talking points and defending other anti-trans activists.

Background

Pamela Lindsey Paul was born on March 2, 1971. Paul graduated from Brown University, then was an editor at American Demographics. Paul’s first marriage to conservative Times columnist Bret Stephens ended in 1998. Paul married hedge fund manager Michael Stern in 2004.

Paul has authored several books.

New York Times

Paul was named children’s book editor of The New York Times Book Review in 2011 and editor in 2013. Paul became an opinion columnist at the Times in 2022.

https://twitter.com/mariskreizman/status/1543575801232228353?s=20&t=ZZnU8Od8nq9Yjp-iJJeFIg

Patrick Ness says the original line said “The culture wars have come for your transgender children.” The Times made Ness change it to something “less political.” A Times spokesperson later said Paul was not involved.

https://twitter.com/erikhane/status/1543568239917252608

The novel The Men by Sandra Newman is one of many sci-fi works in which all men or all women suddenly disappear. The concept can easily steer toward anti-trans sentiments, and some objected to Newman’s book. Paul defended Newman with a lot of anti-trans dogwhistles:

But apparently Newman got too creative — or too real — for some. That a fictional world would assert the salience of biological sex, however fanciful the context, was enough to upset a vocal number of transgender activists online. They would argue that “men” is a cultural category to which anyone can choose to belong, as opposed to “maleness,” which is defined by genetics and biology.

In this case, we can set aside contentious questions around gender identity and transgender politics. Even if you don’t believe the sex binary is as fundamental to human beings as it is to all other mammals, a fiction writer ought to be free to imagine her own universe, whether as utopian ideal, dystopian horror or some complicated vision in between.

In another piece, Paul claims these anti-trans views are a middle ground or a centrist political position. Rather than seeing reproductive rights and bodily autonomy as a shared goal of trans people and pro-choice activists, Paul sees trans people as engaging in “erasure” of women by proposing inclusive and value-neutral language around reproduction. Paul describes “female biological function,” meaning reproductive function and reduces women to their reproductive function and organs in order to exclude trans women.

Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own.

Daniel Froomkin notes that Paul builds on the anti-trans work of other Times writers, including Emily Bazelon, Michael Powell, and Anemona Hartocollis.

Both-sidesing would have been a step up for this column, which devoted only 52 words out of 1,300 to the right’s decades-long campaign to strip women of their rights. The rest was about how “the fringe left” is “jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda.”

The central thesis of Paul’s argument was an exaggerated summary of a scaremongering news article from last month by Michael Powell, one of the two star reporters the Times has assigned to the woke-panic/cancel-culture beat –the other being Anemona Hartocollis, who just a few days ago gave us this already infamous piece of soft-focus cancel porn.

Powell, Paul wrote, had concluded that “the word ‘women’ has become verboten.”

This conspiracy has become known as “Pamela Paul’s great replacement theory,” which Melissa Gira Grant described as “lightly laundered anti-trans propaganda, presented as a sensible centrist argument.”

2024 column on the ex-trans movement

Paul continued promoting anti-trans talking points in 2024 with a piece on the ex-trans movement. Activists cited included:

  • Grayson / Grace Powell (ex-trans activist)
  • “Kathleen” (unsupportive parent)
  • “KC Miller” / Kasey Emerick (ex-trans activist)

Conservative therapists cited include:

Other anti-trans writers cited include:

  • Zanny Minton Beddoes

In defending Paul, Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the disproportionate number of anti-trans articles the section publishes by citing three articles that are purportedly not anti-trans:

Given the state legislative fights over trans Americans and their civil liberties and access to medical and psychological care, we have published many columns and guest essays from health professionals and activists on issues affecting trans people, as well as a focus group last year hearing from trans Americans about their lives. 

Kingsbury (2024)

Since the ex-trans movement is a single-digit minority, the next 90+ articles should be on gender diverse youth who have benefited from the care that is the current US medical consensus.

References

Chu, Andrea Long (April 3, 2025). Goodbye, Pamela Paul: The contrarian columnist showed us the intolerable side of liberalism. New York https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/pamela-paul-goodbye-to-the-new-york-times-opinion-columnist.html

Urquhart, Evan (February 2, 2024). Pamela Paul Shows NYT Opinion’s Lack of Accountability to the Truth. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/pamela-paul-shows-opinion-is-opinion-is-opinion

Reed, Erin (February 2, 2024). Debunked: Misleading NYT Anti-Trans Article By Pamela Paul Relies On Pseudoscience. Erin in the Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/debunked-misleading-nyt-anti-trans

Reed, Erin; Urquhart, Evan (February 8, 2024). Readers Deserve Better Than Misinformation About Trans Care; A Response To Pamela Paul. Erin in the Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/readers-deserve-better-than-misinformation

“Epistemophagy” (February 15, 2024). Pamela Paul: Several Problems. X https://twitter.com/epistemophagy/status/1758059449405870380

Strangio, Chase (February 22, 2023) The New York Times’ dehumanizing trans double down — and its consequences. MSNBC https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/new-york-trans-coverage-jk-rowling-controversy-consequences-rcna71615

Bolies, Corbin; Cartwright, Lachlan (February 16, 2023). New York Times blasts staffers who condemned paper’s trans coverage. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-blast-staffers-who-condemned-papers-trans-coverage

Bibi, Elizabeth (February 16, 2023). Human Rights Campaign Calls Out New York Times for Publishing Transphobic Column One Day After an Open Letter Condemning its Anti-Transgender Coverage. HRC https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-calls-out-new-york-times-for-publishing-transphobic-column-one-day-after-an-open-letter-condemning-its-anti-transgender-coverage

Champion, Edward (). Pamela Paul, The Gray Lady’s in-house transphobe. Reluctant Habits http://www.edrants.com/pamela-paul-the-gray-ladys-in-house-transphobe/

Cauterucci, Chirstina (February 16, 2023). Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul! Slate https://slate.com/business/2023/02/jk-rowling-pamela-paul-new-york-times-trans-coverage.html

Urquhart, Evan (February 16, 2023). Pamela Paul Doesn’t Know What Transphobia Is. Assigned https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/pamela-paul-doesnt-know-transphobia

Fischer, Molly (January 24, 2023). The rules according to Pamela Paul. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rules-according-to-pamela-paul

Fedorov, Andrew; Krichevsky, Sophie (August 18, 2022). What Is Pamela Paul Thinking? The Fine Print https://thefineprintnyc.com/article/pamela-paul-biography-career/

Pineda, Dorany (July 7, 2022). Pamela Paul criticized for anti-trans opinion about the word ‘woman.’ Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-07-07/pamela-paul-criticized-for-anti-trans-opinion-about-the-word-woman

Grant, Melissa Gira (July 6, 2022). Pamela Paul’s Great Replacement Theory. The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/166991/pamela-paul-new-york-times-trans-great-replacement-theory

Froomkin, Dan (July 5, 2022). Who hates inclusivity? The question answers itself. Press Watch https://presswatchers.org/2022/07/who-hates-inclusivity-the-question-answers-itself/

Specter, Emma (July 5, 2022). Inclusive Language Around Abortion Costs Us Nothing and Makes the Movement Stronger. Vogue https://www.vogue.com/article/inclusive-language-abortion-rights

Factora, James (July 5, 2022). The Times Published Some Transphobic BS Over the Weekend. them https://www.them.us/story/new-york-times-op-ed-women-gender-inclusive-language-misogyny-trans-rights

Finnegan, Leah (May 23, 2022). Pamela Paul is the new worst columnist at the New York Times. Gawker https://www.gawker.com/media/pamela-paul-is-the-new-worst-columnist-at-the-new-york-times [archive]

https://twitter.com/KyleLukoff/status/1543957466320441344?s=20&t=aAhpDNOP-GssoCuz5x4vOA

https://twitter.com/timmaughan/status/1543942381933838337?s=20&t=bY_863plnaRXzb1i4_IOIg

Staff report (August 15, 2004). WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Pamela Paul, Michael Stern. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/style/weddings-celebrations-pamela-paul-michael-stern.html

Selected anti-trans writing by Paul

Paul, Pamela (July 3, 2022). The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/opinion/the-far-right-and-far-left-agree-on-one-thing-women-dont-count.html

Paul, Pamela (June 12, 2022). She Wrote a Dystopian Novel. What Happened Next Was Pretty Dystopian. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/opinion/sandra-newman-men.html

Paul, Pamela (July 24, 2022). There’s More Than One Way to Ban a Book. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/opinion/book-banning-censorship.html

Paul, Pamela (February 16, 2023). In Defense of J.K. Rowling. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transphobia.html

Paul, Pamela (February 2, 2024). As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html

Resources

Pamela Paul (pamelapaul.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

  • PamelaPaulNYT (closed by Paul and later suspended after it was out of Paul’s control)

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

Carol Tavris is an American social psychologist and anti-transgender activist.

Tavris considers the safer and mpre accepting climate for gender diverse youth to be a “social contagion” that needs a correction.

Tavris’ attacks on the trans rights movement center on several gender critical tactics:

Tavris claims sexual orientation change efforts like “conversion therapy” are terrible, but gender identity change efforts are completely different.

Background

Carol Anne Tavris was born September 17, 1944 and grew up in Los Angeles. Tavris’s parent Dorothy was a lawyer, and parent Sam died when Tavris was 11.

Tavris earned a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and sociology from Brandeis University. Tavris then earned a PhD in sociology from the University of Michigan.

Tavris was married to actor Ronan David O’Casey (1922-2012).

Tavris has written several widely-used psychology textbooks.

Anti-transgender activism

Tavris and other anti-transgender extremists like Cathy Young and Christina Hoff Sommers have been logrolling for each other for years.

2022 Skeptic piece

In 2022, Tavris published a piece in Skeptic repeating transphobic talking points packaged as “skepticism.”

Today, once again, the public is hearing only one side of an emotionally compelling issue: the transgender story. Once again, distinctions are ignored, this time between people for whom identification with the other sex began in early childhood and those whose rapid onset gender dysphoria started during adolescence. 

[…]

 Saying you suffer from “gender dysphoria” is cool and common, just as saying you were sexually abused in your youth once was. 

Tarvis is especially scornful of an On the Media episode, claiming it did not give time to the ex-transgender movement:

In its most glaring omission, “On the Media” said not a word about the “desisters,” a term often used for those who make a social transition (changing their names and pronouns) but do not persist in having surgery and hormones or changing their gender identity, and often change back; or about the many (possibly thousands of) “detransitioners” who now regret that they had medical procedures. Many of them are bitter and angry that they have had irreversible voice and hair growth changes, underwent surgical procedures that cannot be corrected, and have become infertile. 

[…]

Many gender professionals have marginalized, bullied, and tormented their colleagues who disagree. Politically organized “transactivists” protest that any research on, say, factors contributing to the rise of cases of gender transition, the potentially negative consequences of transitioning, or the importance of counseling and treatment before transitioning are indications of the unacceptable idea that gender transition is a pathological problem or disorder. 

[…]

But we may, at last, be entering a new phase. As usual, we can thank the first wave of writers who have refused to be cowed or bullied — Abigail Shrier in Irreversible Damage, Kathleen Stock in Material Girls, Helen Joyce in Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. 

[…]

In November, 2021, Laura Edwards-Leeper and Erica Anderson, two psychologists whose practice has been devoted to offering transgender patients ethical, evidence-based treatment, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post. Their trans-supporting credentials are flawless. 

Tavris also cites “The Gender Affirmative Treatment Model for Youth with Gender Dysphoria: A Medical Advance or Dangerous Medicine?” by Alison Clayton.

“My thanks to Leonore Tiefer, PhD, for her resources, advice, and expertise.”

Selected publications

  • Estrogen Matters: Why taking hormones in menopause can improve women’s well-being and lengthen their lives–without raising the risk of breast cancer (with Avrum Bluming). Little, Brown Spark 2018 ISBN 978-0-316-48120-5
  • Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (with Elliot Aronson) Mariner Books, 2020, ISBN 978-0-358-32961-9
  • Psychology (with Carole Wade, Samuel Sommers, and Lisa Shin) 2020, Pearson, ISBN 978-0-13-521262-2)
  • Invitation to Psychology (with Carole Wade) (6th edition, 2014, Pearson, ISBN 978-0-205-03519-9)
  • Psychobabble and Biobunk: Using Psychology to Think Critically About Issues in the News (Pearson, 2011, ISBN 978-0-205-01591-7)
  • The Scientist and the Humanist: A festschrift in honor of Elliot Aronson (with Marti Hope Gonzales and Joshua Aronson) (New York: Psychology Press, 2010 ISBN 978-1848728677)
  • Psychology in Perspective (with Carole Wade, Samuel Sommers, and Lisa Shin) (Three editions, latest 2001, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-028326-6)
  • The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex (Simon & Schuster, 1992) (ISBN 0-671-66274-0)
  • Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (1983, Revised edition 1989, Touchstone, ISBN 0-671-67523-0)
  • EveryWoman’s Emotional Well-Being: Heart & Mind, Body & Soul (Doubleday, 1986, ISBN 978-0385185615)
  • The Longest War: Sex Differences in Perspective (with Carole Wade) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977, revised 1984, ISBN 978-0155511866)
  • The Redbook Report on Female Sexuality: 100,000 married women disclose the good news about sex (Delacorte, 1977, ISBN 978-0385288675)

References

Tavris, Carol (2022) Trans Reality: “I Didn’t Know There Was Another Side” Skeptic 27.1 (March 2022) https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/transgender-reality-i-didnt-know-there-was-another-side/

Resources

Dr. Carol Tavris (tavris.socialpsychology.org)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

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

SaidIt is a social media platform created as an alternative to reddit. After many “gender critical” users and groups were banned on reddit for anti-transgender hate speech, some of those banned users moved to SaidIt.

SaidIt claims it has less censorship than reddit and claims to be “one of the safe havens for truth seekers, alt-historians, and conspirophiles in an increasingly globally thoughtpoliced state.” It is a toxic online community and a service of choice for online anti-transgender content.

SaidIt’s 2022 Google results show two anti-transgender subsaidits among the top results.

Background

SaidIt was founded in 2017.

Moderators

  • magnora7 (Texas)
  • d3rr (California)
  • TheAmeliaMay (Arkansas) aka conservative transgender woman Amelia May Johnson [resigned]

Anti-trans subsaidits

SaidIt subreddit

enlarge

In the past, when the saidit.net domain was shut down, the domain would sometimes redirect to the SaidIt subreddit (r/saiditnet). Calculating the Jaccard index of posts, participants on the SaidIt subreddit accrete into five reddit community clusters:

  • reddit critics
    • RedditAlternatives
    • RedditCensorship
  • conspiracists
    • Conspiracyundone
  • anti-porn / separatist lesbians
    • LesBiGay
    • FightFemaleErasure
    • nametheproblem
    • LesbianDating Strategy
    • ThePinkPills
  • substance use / dependence
    • crippling alcoholism [CA]
      • OutlandishAlcoholics
      • IsCrashAlive
    • drug use [Pharma]
      • PharmacoGreen
      • PharmaShopsLegal
      • KamagraGreen
  • Axis/Nazi fans
    • ConservativeWW2
    • RebuttalTime
    • Wehradudes
  • BlockedAndReported fans
    • ShitLibSafari

References

JasonCarswell (8 December 2018 ff.). SaidIt. Infogalactic. https://infogalactic.com/info/SaidIt

Greg Carlwood (July 8, 2017). “Magnora7 | The Rothschild World Order & The Ownership of Everything” The Higherside Chats

Sam Tripoli (January 11, 2018). “#60: The Rothschild with Magnora7” Tin Foil Hat With Sam Tripoli

Sam Tripoli (August 27, 2018). “#119 The Return of Magnora 7” Tin Foil Hat With Sam Tripoli

Greg Carlwood (August 31, 2018). “Magnora7 | Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, & The Suicide String Conspiracy” The Higherside Chats

Resources

SaidIt (saidit.net)

reddit (reddit.com)

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.”