Susan Mineka is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Mineka co-authored a college textbook on “abnormal psychology” that promotes many anti-transgender ideas, especially disease models like “autogynephilia.”
Mineka collaborated with other anti-trans activists while teaching at Northwestern University.
Background
Susan Mineka was born in June 1948 and grew up in Ithaca, New York. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, Mineka earned a doctorate from University of Pennsylvania in 1974. Mineka then did postdoctoral work at University of Wisconsin.
Mineka joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1987 and was named Professor Emerita in 2021.
Mineka was editor of The Journal of Abnormal Psychology from 1990 to 1994 and was editor for Emotion.
Hall, Julie (June 23, 2004). Psychology All-Stars: Susan Mineka.Association for Psychological Science https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/psychology-all-stars-susan-mineka
Ben Hamida S, Mineka S, Bailey JM (1998). Sex differences in perceived controllability of mate value: An evolutionary perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (4), 953 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.4.953
Susan W. Coates is an American psychologist and a key figure in the pathologization of gender diversity. Coates and Kenneth Zucker developed non-affirming “interventions” for gender diverse children as part of their gender identity change efforts. Coates was involved in revising the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) to reflect these views.
Background
Susan Winship Coates was born in 1940. Coates earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence in 1962 and a master’s degree from Vassar in 1968. Coates earned a doctorate from New York University in 1976.
Coates served as Director of the Childhood Gender Identity Service at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center from 1980 to 1997. Coates served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. Coates has served on the teaching faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Coates has also served on the faculty of the Division of Sexuality and Gender in the Psychiatry Department of Columbia University.
In addition to work on childhood trauma, Coates has been an expert witness in a number of prominent trials, including the custody battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Coates had seen their child Satchel Ronan Farrow professionally.
Coates or someone closely associated has also heavily edited her Wikipedia biography to remove material Coates does not want reported.
Disease models of gender identity and expression
In 1989, a colleague summarized Coates’ presentation on the topic as follows:
Susan Coates spoke about “Conflict in Gender Identity of Boys.” She has studied boys with extreme boyhood femininity. All the boys in her study wished to be girls, preferred female activities, avoided rough-and-tumble play and liked cross-dressing. These boys all had other pervasive difficulties such as separation anxiety and depression. The mothers were often borderline narcissistic, depressed, dependent women who devalued men. Many of the mothers had been severely traumatized when their sons were two or three years of age. She postulated that maternal psychopathology impairs the child’s separation-individuation process. In order not to lose “Mommy” he merges with “Mommy.” Dr. Coates invoked a bio-psycho-social model but emphasized that the specific biological influences predisposing to childhood G.F.O. have yet been identified.
Leiter (1989)
In 1994, Coates spoke with the New York Times about therapy for “GIDC”:
With therapy, younger kids usually come to accept their own gender and feel good about their temperament. When we go back to evaluate them three years or so after therapy, they don’t have compulsive cross-gender fantasies anymore, or often don’t remember them. But if you don’t treat it until 9 or 10, it’s much harder to turn around. And beyond age 12 or so, there’s a good chance they’re on course to become a transsexual as adults.
(Goleman 1994)
Coates reiterated that maternal trauma when the child was two or three was often a factor (Goleman 1994). Coates reported with Kenneth Zucker that five to thirty times as many boys are treated for “GIDC” (Coates 1992).
In 2008, Coates published these “intervention” techniques for gender diverse children:
This paper reviews the origins of gender identity issues in preschool boys and presents an overview of treatment strategies for working with parents of boys and with the boy. The goals of treatment are to reestablish a secure attachment relationship with both of his parents, to develop a range of coping mechanisms for handling separation anxiety and aggression, to help the child to understand and enjoy his temperament, to help the child to be able to have same sex friendships, to develop gender flexibility and most importantly, restore his self esteem and his sense of authenticity. Specific treatment interventions are reviewed.
Coates (2008)
Selected publications by Coates
Listed by date of publication
Coates S, Lord M, Jakabovics E (1975). Field dependence-independence, social-non-social play and sex differences in pre-school children. Percept Mot Skills. Feb 1975 40:1, pp. 195-202 https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1975.40.1.195
Coates SW (1985). Extreme boyhood femininity: Overview and new research findings. In Ruth Corn, Zira DeFries, Richard C. Friedman, eds. Sexuality: New perspectives. Greenwood Press ISBN 9780313242076
Coates SW, Person ES (1986). Extreme boyhood femininity: isolated behavior or pervasive disorder? J Am Acad Child Psychiatry. 1985 Nov;24(6):702-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-7138(10)60113-6
Bradley SJ, Blanchard R, Coates SW, Green R, Levine SB, Meyer-Bahlburg HFL, Pauly IB, Zucker KJ (1991). Interim report of the DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. Archives of Sexual Behavior Volume 20, Number 4 / August, 1991 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542614
Coates SW, Friedman RC, Wolfe S (1991). The etiology of boyhood gender identity disorder: a model for integrating temperament, development, and psychodynamics. Psychoanal. Dial., 1:481-523. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481889109538916
Coates S, Zucker KJ (1992). Gender identity disorders in children. In Kestenbaum CJ, Williams DT (Eds.) Handbook of clinical assessment of children and adolescents NYU Press. ISBN 0814746284
Marantz S, Coates SW (1991). Mothers of boys with gender identity disorder: a comparison of matched controls. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (Vol. 30, Issue 2, pp. 310–315). https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199103000-00022
Zucker KJ, Lozinski JA, Bradley SJ, Doering RW (1992). Sex-typed responses in the Rorschach protocols of children with gender identity disorder. Journal of Personality Assessment, Volume 58, Issue 2 April 1992 , pages 295 – 310. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5802_9
Zucker KJ, Green R, Coates S, Zuger B, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Zecca GM, Lertora V, Money J, Hahn-Burke S, Bradley SJ, Blanchard R. Sibling sex ratio of boys with gender identity disorder. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1997 Jul;38(5):543-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01541.x
Coates SW, Wolfe S. Gender identity disorder in boys: the interface of constitution and early experience. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1995, 51:6-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/07351699509534015
Coates SW (2008). Intervention with preschool boys with gender identity issues. Neuropsychiatrie de l’Enfance et de l’Adolescence 56/6 (2008), 386-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurenf.2008.06.004
Bryant K (2006). Making gender identity disorder of childhood: historical lessons for contemporary debates. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 3(3), 23-39. https://doi.org/10.1525/srsp.2006.3.3.23
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Joe Burgo is an American author and anti-transgender extremist. Burgo runs the anti-trans website Beyond WPATH, which is critical of mainstream healthcare organization WPATH. Burgo promotes “gender exploratory therapy” (GET) as well as gender identity change efforts (GICE), practices that are outlawed in California. Burgo is an advisor for anti-trans groups like Genspect and others.
Joseph Mark “Joe” Burgo was born on May 6, 1955. Burgo is from Taft, California, graduated from Inglewood High School, and got a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA.
Burgo holds graduate diplomas from California Graduate Institute (CGI) in West Los Angeles. California’s Board of Psychology stated that CGI was an unaccredited institution from 1976 to 2008. CGI was merely approved by the now-defunct California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, but not accredited. As journalist Jeff Walker noted:
CGI’s repeated pleas for accreditation have been rebuffed because it lacks a sufficient number of full-time staff, a decent library, and other features that students of the thousands of accredited albeit mediocre colleges throughout North America take for granted. In prestige this Ph.D. is, aside from the mail-order variety, rockbottom.
Walker (2012)
Burgo has written a number of books about narcissism and shame.
Burgo was in a “heterosexual marriage” for 17 years and has three children. Burgo then married Michael George Eha (born September 1953), a publicist associated with Me Rep Inc. and Michael Eha & Associates. They have been together since about 2003 and split their time between Palm Springs and London.
Anti-transgender activism
Burgo stated in 2023:
One of my children is trans-identified and alienated from me. And that was my introduction to this space back in 2014, and it’s part of the reason I started getting interested in things like autogynephilia, because I just took a deep dive into everything about trans, trying to find out everything. And then I found out that there was this thing called autogynephilia, which seemed stunning to me. I’d never heard of it before, and read The Man Who Would Be Queen and Blanchard, and more recently read Anne Lawrence’s work. And I look at these guys… I suppose it’s partly because my journey has been about making peace with myself as a man, feeling better about my own masculinity, which oddly I feel better about in my gay life than I did in my heterosexual life… my ostensibly heterosexual life.
Yang (2023)
Burgo is convinced that trans people are driven to transition by narcissism and/or shame, particularly shame about being gay. Burgo promotes the “ex-transgender” movement, similar to the ex-gay movement. Anti-trans therapists call a shift in gender identity or expression “desistance” for children and “detransition” for adults. Via Slate:
Genspect also supports an organization called Our Duty, which has stated that “it should be the objective of any advanced civilization presented with this problem to TARGET 100% DESISTANCE, and as early as possible.” Desistance means when someone stops identifying as transgender and pursuing medical transition.
When asked for an interview, GETA team member Joseph Burgo—who is also vice-director of Genspect—said that he and the rest of the GETA team declined to comment.
Burgo is very upset about being forbidden to practice “gender exploratory therapy” because California made it illegal:
In California, where I’m licensed to practise as a clinical psychologist, law prohibits me from engaging ‘in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under 18,’ which includes alternative ‘gender expressions’. For this reason, I must turn away the many distraught parents who reach out for help with their gender nonconforming, autism spectrum, or gay and lesbian children who have recently become trans-identified. To do otherwise would expose me to potential malpractice lawsuits and challenges to my licensure, a vulnerability which trans-rights activists do not hesitate to exploit in order to intimidate those who question the affirmative-care model.
Burgo wrote in the conservative Daily Caller:
For the troubled young men in my psychotherapy practice who have de-transitioned — that is, lived for a number of years as if they were women and then reverted to their biological sex — their female identity represented such as idealized false self. By imagining themselves to be female, my clients had taken flight from a shame-ridden self which was felt to be defective, damaged, and beyond repair. When this defensive new identity finally broke down, they found themselves engulfed in pain, confusion and shame, and as a result sought professional help.
Meanwhile, the militant trans-identified male continues shoring up his idealized false self. He insists he’s no different from and deserves the same rights and privileges as biological females. When others insist upon the reality of biological sex and assert that trans women aren’t actually women, he feels persecuted; on some level, this challenge to his sense of self may even feel life-threatening. His envy of biological women — for embodying the idealized state he longs for but can never truly reach — may lead to vindictive and physical assaults upon their persons. He wants to destroy them and the truth they embody.
Walker, Jeff (2012). Ayn Rand Cult, p. 156. ISBN 9780812698190
Burgo, Joseph (April 14, 2023). Are Trans Rights Activists Victims — Or Bullies?Daily Caller https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/14/opinion-are-trans-rights-activists-victims-or-bullies-dr-joseph-burgo/
Kirsty Entwistle is a psychologist who supports the “ex-transgender” movement, an anti-trans project similar to the ex-gay movement. Entwistle also promotes a form of delayed transition for gender diverse youth called “gender exploratory therapy.”
Background
Entwhistle earned a bachelor’s degree from University College London (UCL) in 2003, then earned a post graduate diploma from University of Bolton in 2009. Entwistle earned a doctorate at UCL in 2013.
Entwistle worked in several NHS services in the UK: a paediatric psychology service in Cambridge, an adult secondary care psychology service in London and the gender identity development service for under 18s in Leeds.
IATDD supported the “ex-transgender” movement, people who describe themselves as “desisters” and “detransitioners.” They sell their services to parents who do not want their children to make a gender transition, known as the “parental rights” movement.
Entwistle K (2020). Debate: Reality check – Detransitioner’s testimonies require us to rethink gender dysphoria. Child and Adolescent Mental Healthhttps://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12380
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 men’s and women’s 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 — those who like men were more aroused by male stimuli and those who like women were more aroused by the female stimuli — even though their genital arousal was measured in the same way women’s was.
“This shows that the sex difference that we found is real and almost certainly due to a sex difference in the brain,” said Bailey. (Tremmel 2003)
The authors of “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies” (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 “brains of men” (Tremmel 2003) who display “male-typical” 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 didn’t really change their orientation.
The results from Latty’s 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 Bailey’s sex lab, really a tiny office on the second floor of a tiny addition to Northwestern’s 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. “It’s kind of like a fancy rubber band,” 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). Prof’s 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 men’s 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]
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 women’s 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 Dreger’s 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 naïve 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
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 São 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 don’t want casual sex”
(2014). Women’s 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 Children’s Play
Sex differences in social development from Male, Female by David Geary
Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints – 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” — 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 – 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, “Beyond Pink and Blue: The Complexity of Early Androgen Effects on Gender Development,” 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, 1102–1106, 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
