Since 2008, Latty has been a clinical psychologist with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, specializing in post-traumatic stress treatments. Latty is currently based in Oregon.
Background
Elizabeth Marie Latty was born in July 1975. Latty earned a doctorate from Northwestern University in 2009. Latty discussed research interests as a graduate student:
In a broad sense, my research interests lie in the broad category of sexual arousal and sexual orientation, along with those of my advisor. My first year project involved studying the sexual arousal patterns of post-operative male-to-female transsexuals. Our lab was able to use the results we obtained to further support results we found for natal women, as reported in our controversial combined study including work done by Meredith Chivers, Gerulf Rieger, Mike Bailey and myself. (Latty 2004)
Anti-trans research
Latty and friends make sweeping unsubstantiated claims about sexuality in gender diverse women based on plethysmographic guesswork (Latty 2003):
To rule out the possibility that the differences between menâs and womenâs genital sexual arousal patterns might be due to the different ways that genital arousal is measured in men and women, the Northwestern researchers identified a subset of subjects: postoperative transsexuals who began life as men but had surgery to construct artificial vaginas.
In a sense, those transsexuals have the brains of men but the genitals of women. Their psychological and genital arousal patterns matched those of men â those who like men were more aroused by male stimuli and those who like women were more aroused by the female stimuli â even though their genital arousal was measured in the same way womenâs was.
âThis shows that the sex difference that we found is real and almost certainly due to a sex difference in the brain,â said Bailey. (Tremmel 2003)
The authors of âMen Trapped in Menâs Bodiesâ (Lawrence 1998) and The Man Who Would Be Queen (Bailey 2003) did not choose their titles just for provocation. They seek to prove that trans and gender-diverse women are really men, with âbrains of menâ (Tremmel 2003) who display âmale-typicalâ sexual arousal (Lawrence 2003). They also want to use us to claim that sexual orientation is immutable by asserting trans women who change their dating preferences after transition didnât really change their orientation.
The results from Lattyâs 11 transgender women are heralded as proof of several theories held by Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence, but the sample size and questionable methodology makes these claims hardly supportable.
In May 2004, Latty presented a paper with Bailey and Liz Sullivan at Rosalind Franklin University:
Sexually explicit images were used in conjunction with the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Self report ratings of these images resulted in significant differences for gender and sexual orientation in undergraduates. These results support previous research demonstrating category-specificity for men and provide further evidence of a more complex pattern of sexual arousal in women. (Latty 2004)
Latty was caught up in the publicity Bailey generated at the time The Man Who Would Be Queen came out. Below is a passage where Latty discusses the plethysmograph devices on which they base their claims.
At Baileyâs sex lab, really a tiny office on the second floor of a tiny addition to Northwesternâs Swift Hall, Elizabeth Latty , one of his graduate students, shows clips of explicit seventies-era porn, intercut with more neutral stimuli like landscapes. Latty shows the vaginal probe used to measure lubrication during the female arousal study, then the penile gauge for the male portion. âItâs kind of like a fancy rubber band,â she says. Over the course of two years, Bailey and his team of Ph.D.s have run subjects, solicited first from ads in the paper, then drawn from Northwestern students, to test how much genital arousal plays in sexual orientation. The female portion of the study was funded through a controversial $147,000 grant from the federal National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, paying women up to $75 to watch porn. (Zambreno 2003)
Bailey JM. The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press, ISBN 978-0309084185
Drier S, Anderson K (April21, 2003). Profâs book challenges opinions of human sexuality. Daily Northwestern http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/21/3ea39785e6cef?in_archive=1 [archive]
James AJ. Plethysmograph: a disputed device. tsroadmap.com version of 16 May 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20050206090753/http://tsroadmap.com/info/plethysmograph.html [archive]
Latty EM, Bailey J (unpublished, 2003). Sexual arousal of male-to-female transsexuals: male-typical or temale-typical patterns? http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/SPRStudent/%20Awards/2002/latty.pdf [archive]
Latty EM. Research interests. J. Michael Bailey faculty website. Retrieved 17 May 2004. http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/latty.html [archive]
Latty EM, Sullivan EA, Bailey JM (May 28, 2004). Gender and Sexual Orientation Differences in Self-report Arousal to Sexually Explicit Images. American Psychological Association meeting, 28 May 2004. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/convention/program/search/viewProgram.cfm?Abstract_ID=5940&AbType=&AbAuthor=40334&Subject_ID=&Day_ID=all&keyword= [archive]
Lawrence AA (online, 1999). Men trapped in menâs bodies: an introduction to the concept of autogynephilia. Originally at annelawrence.com http://home.swipnet.se/~w-13968/autogynephilia.html [archive]
Lawrence AA, Latty, EM., Chivers M, Bailey, JM (2003). Measuring sexual arousal in postoperative male-to-female transsexuals using vaginal photoplethysmography. International Academy of Sex Research conference http://www.iasr.org/meeting/2003/Program%20booklet.pdf [archive]
Tremmel, PV (June 12, 2003). Study suggests difference between female and male sexuality. Northwestern University press release http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/nu-ssd061203.php [archive]
Zambreno K (April 3, 2003). Dr. Sex: Michael Bailey gets into gay genes. New City Chicago http://www.newcitychicago.com/chicago/2392.html [archive]
Veale completed a doctorate at Massey University in 2012. Veale then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, researching the health of Canadian transgender youth.
In 2015 Veale was appointed Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Waikato.
Veale has served on the Board of Directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and has served as an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Transgender Health. Veale also helped to establish the University of Waikato Rainbow Staff/Student Alliance. Projects include:
Veale has attempted to refute Ray Blanchard and the controversial diagnosis of “autogynephilia” by applying Blanchardâs Core Autogynephilia Scale to people who are not trans women. This in effect reified the diagnosis itself, allowing “autogynephilia” activistAnne Lawrence to retort that “Transsexual groups in Veale et al. (2008) are ‘autogynephilic’ and ‘even more autogynephilic.'”
In 2022, Veale and biologist Julia Serano published a paper refuting J. Michael Bailey and Kevin Hsu, who made the claim that “autogynephilia in women” does not exist. Veale and Serano argued that “autogynephilia” is a flawed framework and expanded on Serano’s model of “female embodiment fantasies,”
BA Clark, JF Veale, M Townsend, H Frohard-Dourlent, E Saewyc 4 Non-binary youth Today’s Transgender Youth: Health, Well-being, and Opportunities for âŠ
JF Veale, RJ Watson, T Peter, EM Saewyc (2017). Mental health disparities among Canadian transgender youth. Journal of Adolescent Health 60 (1), 44-49 265 2017 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.09.014
BA Clark, JF Veale, M Townsend, H Frohard-Dourlent, E Saewyc (2018). Non-binary youth: Access to gender-affirming primary health care. International Journal of Transgenderism 19 (2), 158-169 125 2018 https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2017.1394954
RJ Watson, JF Veale, EM Saewyc (2017). Disordered eating behaviors among transgender youth: Probability profiles from risk and protective factors. International Journal of Eating Disorders 50 (5), 515-522 126 2017 https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.22627
JF Veale, T Peter, R Travers, EM Saewyc (2017). Enacted stigma, mental health, and protective factors among transgender youth in Canada. Transgender Health 2 (1), 207-216 116 2017 https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2017.0031
N Adams, R Pearce, J Veale, A Radix, D Castro, A Sarkar, KC Thom (2017). Guidance and ethical considerations for undertaking transgender health research and institutional review boards adjudicating this research. Transgender Health 2 (1), 165-175 114 2017 https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2017.0012
J Veale, EM Saewyc, H Frohard-Dourlent, S Dobson, B Clark (2015). Being safe, being me: Results of the Canadian trans youth health survey. Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC) 146 2015 [PDF] https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/Diff/gahps/SARAVYC_Trans%20Youth%20Health%20Report_EN_Final_Web.pdf
F Pega, JF Veale (2015). The case for the World Health Organizationâs Commission on Social Determinants of Health to address gender identity. American Journal of Public Health 105 (3), e58-e62 https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302373
Veale J, Clark DE, Lomax TC (2012). Male-to-female transsexuals’ impressions of Blanchard’s autogynephilia theory. International Journal of Transgenderism. 13 (3): 131â139. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2011.669659.
Veale JF, Lomax T, Clarke D (2010). “Identity-Defense Model of Gender-Variant Development”. International Journal of Transgenderism. 12 (3): 125â138. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2010.514217
JF Veale, DE Clarke, TC Lomax (2010). Biological and psychosocial correlates of adult gender-variant identities: A review. Personality and Individual Differences 48 (4), 357-366 93 2010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.09.018
JF Veale (2008). Prevalence of transsexualism among New Zealand passport holders. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 42 (10), 887-889 93 2008 https://doi.org/10.1080/00048670802345490
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Marta Meana is a Spanish-American psychologist and anti-transgender activist deeply involved in publishing and promoting disease models of gender identity and expression, with a focus on sexualized taxonomies of transgender people like “autogynephilia.”
Background
Meana was born in Madrid, Spain on December 1, 1957. Meana attended McGill University, earning a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree before earning a doctorate in 1996, writing a dissertation on dyspareunia. Meana had a post-doctoral research fellowship in womenâs health at the University of Toronto.
Meana joined the psychology department at University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1997. From 2018 to 2020, Meana was interim President of UNLV. Meana retired in 2024.
After years of following the developments surrounding the publication of TMWWBQ in real time, it was interesting to step back and read Dregerâs comprehensive reconstruction of events. The story that emerges is reminiscent of classical drama. It comes complete with a protagonist (Bailey), antagonists (Conway, James, McCloskey), characters caught in the crossfire (Kyeltika), and a balanced and half-detached chorus (Dreger) explaining to the audience (the rest of us) the lessons to be learned from the melee. Mercifully, this drama did not end up a tragedy, but it shares significant qualities with the latter. It features a well-meaning, though necessarily flawed, protagonist with the requisite amount of hubris and a group of antagonists whose sordid means nullify any possible empathy the audience may have had with their perceived injury. The chorus seems open-minded and fair, although perhaps a little naĂŻve in her belief in the healing power of her narrative.
Meana, Marta (2013). Gender Identity Diagnoses: History and Controversies. In Gender Dysphoria and Disorders of Sex Development (pp.137-150). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7441-8_7
Amy E. Sousa is an American anti-transgender extremist. Sousa is an unlicensed therapist, according to self-reports. Do not go to Sousa for therapy of any kind.
A search for Sousa’s therapy license in the State of Washington database did not show any results in 2023.
Background
Amy Elizabeth Sousa was born February 26, 1976. Sousa earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a master’s degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute. After living in New York for 15 years, Sousa moved to Port Townsend, Washington in 2009. Sousa was formerly involved in Key City Public Theatre. Sousa as also been involved in Sootsprites Productions and has volunteered for the local film festival.
“My activism has included organizing multiple protests: Against Biden’s EO in Washington DC, against the UN in New York City, against swimmer Lia Thomas at the NCAA championships in Atlanta, against child gender clinics in Seattle, free speech events, speaking at state legislature in defense of women/girl’s sports and in defense of single sex prisons for women, as well as speaking at school board meetings to protect kids from indoctrination by sex denying curriculum.”
When Sousa’s friend Julie Jaman was permanently banned from the local YMCA pool following an anti-trans encounter in 2022, Sousa organized those protests as well.
Sousa has been involved in additional protests against Marci Bowers and others who provide gender affirming care.
RevFoXX
Sousa is a member of anti-transgender group RevFoXX (“Reality Encompassed Values” for XX). They claim they are “advocating for the safeguarding of women & children, observing objective reality in solidarity, and countering the narrative of the gender lobby in the United States.” Members include:
Diana Fleischman is a Brazilian-American evolutionary psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Anti-trans activism is a family business; Fleischman’s spouse Geoffrey Miller also holds harmful views about sex and gender minorities.
Background
Diana Santos Fleischman was born in SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil and grew up in the United States. Fleischman earned a bachelor’s degree from Oglethorpe University. Under advisor David Buss, Fleischman earned a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin 2009, then did postdoctorate work at UNC Chapel Hill.
In addition to evolutionary psychology, Fleischman is also a proponent of effective altruism, a philanthropic movement with a disproportionate number of anti-trans activists. The movement is best exemplified by cryptocurrency scammer Sam Bankman-Fried.
Fleischman is also a proponent of various aspects of eugenics, including polygenic embryo screening. Fleischman characterizes this as an aspect of transhumanism.
Fleischman and Geoffrey Miller married in 2019 and have one child.
Sex segregationism
Fleischman’s life’s work is shoring up the idea of a sex binary in humans. In a 2021 online course on “sex differences,” the syllabus included most of the key sex segregationists in academia.
The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality with Tom Booth and Paul Irwing
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints with David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt
Peter Fitzgerald
Biological sex differences relevant to mental health with Timothy G. Dinan
Diana Fleischman:
“Most people miss this reason women donât want casual sex”
(2014). Womenâs disgust adaptations. In Weekes-Shackelford VA, & Shackelford TK (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on human sexual psychology and behavior
David C. Geary
The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. with Gijsbert Stoet
Sex Differences in Childrenâs Play
Sex differences in social development from Male, Female by David Geary
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints â Marco Del Giudice, David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt
His Standards or Hers? How Men and Women Define Success
Matt Ridley
Red Queen hypothesis in The Red Queen
Stuart Ritchie
Cordelia Fine’s “Testosterone Rex” â A Review
David P. Schmitt
Would you agree to sex with a total stranger?
The Truth about Sex Differences
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints â Marco Del Giudice, David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt
Aurora Sola
The science of sex differences is nothing for feminists to be afraid of
Steve Stewart-Williams
Men women and STEM with Lewis G Halsey
Larry Summers
President Summers’ Remarks at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Jan. 14 2005
Bo Winegard
The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny with Corey Clark
Unlike most of these people, Fleischman at least mentions a few people who disagree with this ideology, most notably Cordelia Fine, Daphna Joel, and Gina Rippon.
Anti-LGBT activism
Fleischman is associated with Aporia, formerly known as Ideas Sleep Furiously. Matthew Archer helped found it in 2021. In 2023 Bo Winegard joined after a long run as a Quillette contributor, and Fleischman became a podcast host.
Fleischman appeared with Louise Perry to discuss sex robots.
Mike Abrams is an American evolutionary psychologist who authored a college textbook which catalogs a number of “disorders” about sex and gender minorities.
Note: for the American journalist involved in the New York Times’ anti-trans coverage crisis in the 2020s, see Mike Abrams.
Background
Abrams is a Supervisor, Fellow and Diplomate of the Albert Ellis Institute.
Abrams and spouse Lidia Dengelegi Abrams (born October 1960) both practice at Psychology for New Jersey.
Transgender
In 2016, he mourned the firing of anti-transgender activist Kenneth Zucker:
“The accomplished researcher & clinician in transgender studies Ken Zucker was lost to false accusations of conversion therapy. Very sad.”
Jonathan Haidt is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.
In 2015 Haidt co-founded Heterodox Academy to promote “intellectual diversity” and challenge “enforced orthodoxies” in academia. These are buzzwords for people who want academic freedom without academic responsibility or accountability. The organization and its conference are popular among anti-transgender activists.
Background
Jonathan David Haidt was born October 19, 1963 in New York City and grew up in Scarsdale, New York.
Haidt earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1985, then attended University of Pennsylvania, earning a master’s degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1992. Following postdoctoral work and time working in India, Haidt took an appointment at University of Virginia in 1995. While there, Haidt published several works on positive psychology and moral psychology.
Haidt and spouse Jayne K. Riew (born 1971) have two children, Max and Francesca.
Lukianoff, Greg; Haidt, Jonathan (2019). The Coddling of the American Mind How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin, ISBN 9780735224919
Much of Berenbaum’s work is involved in shoring up the concept of “sex differences.”
Background
Sheri Ann Berenbaum was born on May 1, 1950.
Berenbaum earned a bachelor’s degree from The City College of New York, followed by a doctorate from the notoriously transphobic and conservative psychology department at University of California, Berkeley in 1977. Berenbaum’s dissertation focused on maintaining sex segregation. Berenbaum did a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral genetics at University of Minnesota.
Berenbaum then taught at University of Health Sciences / Chicago Medical School. Berenbaum was affiliated with Southern Illinois University prior to joining PennState in 2001. Chicago Medical School
Much of Berenbaum’s work is about hormones and behavior and has been cited as a reason to force adolescents through unwanted puberty.
Anti-transgender activism
Some researchers, such as Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD, a psychologist and the head of the child and adolescent gender identity clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, applaud Reiner’s study for renewing interest in the biological determinants of gender and calling into question the notion of some that gender identity is mainly socially constructed and determined by socialization.
That’s not to say, however, that socialization isn’t still a major or important factor, Zucker emphasizes. “The debate is still up in the air because there are other centers who have studied kids with the same diagnosis, and the rate of changeover from female to male is nowhere near what Reiner is reporting,” he explains. “It must be something about their social experience that is accounting for this difference.”
Contradictory evidence
Backing Zucker’s belief that socialization still plays a major role–and biology is only part of the story–is research by Sheri Berenbaum, PhD, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, and J. Michael Bailey, PhD, a psychologist at Northwestern University.
Berenbaum was quoted by Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett in their 2022 New York Times piece on puberty blockers for gender diverse youth. That fearmongering piece came out amid the Times’ transphobic coverage crisis on the 2020s.
References
Bailey JM, Bechtold KT, Berenbaum SA (2002). Who are tomboys and why should we study them? Archives of Sexual Behavior10.1023/A:1016272209463
Berenbaum SA, âBeyond Pink and Blue: The Complexity of Early Androgen Effects on Gender Development,â Child Development Perspectives 12, no. 1 (2018): 58.
Berenbaum SA, Bailey JM (2003). Effects on gender identity of prenatal androgens and genital appearance: evidence from girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 88, Issue 3, 1102â1106, https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2002-020782
Berenbaum SA (1999). Effects of Early Androgens on Sex-Typed Activities and Interests in Adolescents with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior Volume 35, Issue 1, February 1999, Pages 102-110
Chen, D. et al. (2020). Consensus Parameter: Research methodologies to evaluate neurodevelopmental effects of pubertal suppression in transgender youth. Transgender Health, 5, 246-257.
Twohey, Megan; Jewett, Christina (November 14, 2022). They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost?New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/health/puberty-blockers-transgender.html
Elias Heino is a Finnish researcher and anti-transgender activist who has published a number of papers that promote disease models of gender diverse youth.
Background
Heino is affiliated with Tampere University Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology and frequently publishes with conservative psychiatrist Riittakerttu Kaltiala-Heino.
Heino’s path to anti-trans activism is explained in this interview:
Why did I start doing psychiatric research?
After the first year of study, I got a summer job as a research assistant. I handled material related to youth psychiatric research. At the same time, my interest in research was awakened. After the research summer, I was offered the opportunity to start doing my own research related to the transgender topic, and I am still on this path.
The subject of my research
Our study compares the adolescent development of trans and cisgender identifying youth in the adolescent normal population. Adolescent development is examined with the help of sexuality, mental health, participation in school bullying and family relationships.
Why does research related to my topic matter?
The research aims to find out to what extent the developmental tasks of adolescence are solved despite the specificity of the identity experience and whether any problems are related to the identity experience itself or to possible external factors, such as a lack of support from family or friends. Based on the research results, the support that gender identity minorities may need can be targeted correctly, and the research data can be used as an aid in planning longitudinal studies, for example.
Anti-trans activism
Heino got âŹ3,000 from the Orion Foundation to study “Transgender identity, mental health and adolescent development in the adolescent population.”
In 2021, Heino got a grant from The Psychiatry Research Foundation for similar work.
Heino has published papers stating that trans youth perpetrate bullying and have high suicidality.
(9/12/2019). [The Kandi calendar is coming again – Fine art pearls inspire creators.] Mediuutiset https://www.mediuutiset.fi/uutiset/kandikalenteri-tulee-taas-kuvataiteen-helmet-inspiroivat-tekijoita/12fb0bf9-88db-49e4-8562-be21f86bb228
[Recipients of the 2021 grants.] Psykiatrian TutkimussÀÀtiö [Psychiatry Research Foundation] https://www.psykiatriantutkimussaatio.fi/index.php/myonnetyt-apurahat/
