Angelo Vincent De Boni is a psychologist and anti-transgender activist. De Boni is involved with anti-trans organization Genspect.
Background
De Boni was born in 1973 and grew up with a sibling in a first-generation Italian immigrant Catholic family in apartheid South Africa. De Boni was suicidal as an adolescent due to a strained relationship with an abusive parent:
De Boni states that at age 15 “I was attacked again by my older, remorseless brother in front of my girlfriend.” Deboni also states “I became an adolescent alcoholic at 15.”
De Boni graduated from South Africa’s National School of the Arts in 1991 but remained deeply unhappy, including a complicated relationship with food:
I also abused porn, socialised recklessly and even shared an apartment with a friend who was gay, but also a kleptomaniac and occasional transvestite. I deflected from my emotions with alcohol again for the second time in my life.
After working in advertising, De Boni opened Angelo’s Kitchen in Johannesburg in 2000. De Boni returned to school about 20 years later, earning a bachelor’s degree from SACAP (The South African College of Applied Psychology) in 2021. De Boni maintains practices in Johannesburg and Sundsvall, Sweden. De Boni’s name has been styled several ways:
Angelo Vincent De Boni
Angelo Vincent Deboni
Angelo Vincenzo De Boni
Vincent De Boni
Vincent Deboni
Angelo De Boni
Angelo Deboni
Anti-transgender activism
De Boni is involved in the men’s rights movement, is a Jungian psychologist, and practices “male psychology.” De Boni has promoted a number of other anti-trans activists:
There are new brave voices in this debate. Research is improving our knowledge of gender detransitioning and the effects of social media on social contagion as described in Irreversible Damage (Shrier, 2020). This book details how young girls are lured by the trans trend on social media to transition permanently to boys, often undergoing detrimental chemical and surgical intervention to their development (Shrier, 2020). Another controversial book The End of Gender (Soh, 2020) by sexologist and neuroscientist Debra Soh, clarifies the science behind gender and warns of the pressures to comply with the narrative of gender being socially constructed.
We must ask what is the function of AGP behaviour? I believe it succeeds in one critical area; it provides much needed relief from the shame and guilt of overwhelming sexual urges, however distorted this relief is. It could help to avoid engaging in mating strategies at all, a way to survive a world where all mate-seeking strategies have been made problematic, supercharged by exposure to porn. In the wake of the #metoo movement, who would blame young men from being terrified of any “toxic” traits they may inadvertently present? The auto-gynephile succeeds in deflecting all risk related to sexually charged encounters. He transforms himself from aggressor, potential perpetrator, to a self-satisfying sexual singularity. He is rewarded in a transhumanist society.
De Boni, AV (2019) A male perspective of psychology from the Rainbow Nation. Psychreg Journal of Psychologyhttps://doi.org/fk3n https://www.pjp.psychreg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/de-boni-151-167.pdf
Deboni, Angelo Vincenzo (March 2022). A Post Covid-19 Scoping Review of Literature on Males in Mental Health Crisis.
Note: this profile originally misstated De Boni’s family history of alcohol use. Transgender Map regrets the error.
In response to this profile, De Boni stated on X:
I am absolutely NOT involved in the Men’s Rights Movement! The author, Andrea James clearly does not know the difference between male psychology as a field of study vs the MRA movement. What garbage. Apparently writing an article on AGP makes me an AGP activist?? And my father was NOT an alcoholic. More evidence of #gammabias by ignorant neurotics. My concern is, and always has been, the mental health of anyone crippled by fear, dysphoria and anxiety. This ‘map’ demands I ‘pick a side’ in political matters related to trans-ideology, in the sense that it is an ideology yes, I am against it being promoted by political opportunists and online groomers, but to say I am anti-trans suggests I blame trans people for this, I DO NOT! They are in-fact victims of a cruel world. Besides that, I am happy they are platforming my entire profile for people who ARE sick of trans-ideology.
Pamela Paresky is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Pamela Beth Prestyn Paresky was born on February 16, 1967 to David Paresky and Linda Sue (Kotzen) Paresky.
Paresky earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1990, a master’s degree from Pepperdine University in 1994, and a doctorate from University of Chicago in 2005.
Paresky was an aspiring actor and musician. Paresky met and married Hugh Zuker, and they moved to Aspen, Colorado. Zuker became a sheriff’s deputy in Aspen, the president of Mountain Rescue Aspen, and a victim of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. They have one adult child, Jared Aiden Zuker (born 1999).
As Pamela Zuker, Paresky authored the 2010 book A Year of Kindness.
Anti-transgender activism
Pareskyhas served as a Senior Fellow at the Network Contagion Research Institute and as primary researcher for The Coddling of the American Mind by anti-trans activists Greg Lukianoff of FIRE and Jonathan Haidt of Heterodox Academy.
On Substack, Paresky promoted many of the usual suspects, including:
Marco Del Giudice is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Del Giudice attended University of Turin, earning a bachelor’s degree in 2003 and a master’s degree in 2007.
Del Giudice taught at University of Turin from 2007 to 2014 and at University of New Mexico from 2014 to 2023. In 2023 Del Giudice began teaching at University of Trieste.
Anti-transgender activism
Del Giudice is an evolutionary psychologist and sex segregationist keen on shoring up the idea of sex differences.
In 2023, Del Giudice appeared with anti-trans activist Debra Soh and conservative trans activist Buck Angel on a show about “The Scientific Realities of Biological Sex” hosted by evolutionary psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman.
Also in 2023, Del Giudice and Paul Golding of the Santa Fe Boys Foundation organizaed an event called The Big Conversation about sex/gender differences.
IN 2024, the Italian Ministry of Health convened a panel on trans healthcare guidelines. The panel includes Del Giudice and other prominent skeptics of gender-affirming medical interventions for minors, including ethicist Assunta Morresi and journalist Sarantis Thanopulos.
Marco Mattei, Capo di Gabinetto del Ministro della salute, con funzioni di Coordinatore;
Assunta Morresi, Vice Capo di Gabinetto della Ministra per la famiglia, la natalità e le pari opportunità;
Maria Rosaria Campitiello, Capo della Segreteria tecnica del Ministro della salute;
Giulia Ferrari, Vice Capo di Gabinetto del Ministro della salute;
Alfonso Peluso, Vice Capo dell’Ufficio Legislativo della Ministra per la famiglia, la natalità e le pari opportunità;
Francesco Saverio Mennini, Capo del Dipartimento della programmazione, dei dispositivi medici, del farmaco e delle politiche in favore del Servizio sanitario nazionale;
Giovanni Leonardi, Capo ad interim del Dipartimento della prevenzione, della ricerca e delle emergenze sanitarie;
Gianfranco Costanzo, Capo del Dipartimento per le politiche della famiglia della Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri;
Carlo Petrini, Presidente del centro di Coordinamento Nazionale dei comitati etici territoriali per le sperimentazioni cliniche sui medicinali per uso umano e sui dispositivi medici;
Alessandro Nanni Costa, Presidente del Comitato Etico Nazionale per le sperimentazioni cliniche in ambito pediatrico;
Valentino Cherubini, Società italiana di endocrinologia e diabetologia pediatrica (SIEDP);
Vito Trojano, Presidente Federazione Italiana di Ginecologia e Ostetricia (Sigo);
Andrea Isidori, Società italiana di andrologia e medicina della sessualità (SIAMS);
Elisa Fazzi, Società italiana di neuropsichiatria dell’infanzia e dell’adolescenza (SINPIA);
Fabio Monticelli, Società italiana di terapia cognitiva e comportamentale (SITCC);
Antonio Lo Iacono, Società italiana di psicologia (SIPS);
Nicola Colacurci, Società italiana di ginecologia e ostetricia (SIGO);
Sarantis Thanopulos, Società psicoanalitica italiana (SPI);
Annamaria Staiano, Società italiana di pediatria (SIP);
Francesco Lombardo, Società italiana genere, identità e salute (SIGIS);
Gianluca Aimaretti, Società italiana di endocrinologia (SIE);
Francesco Frasca, Professore Ordinario di endocrinologia presso l’Università degli Studi di Catania;’
Rosario Pivonello, Professore Ordinario di endocrinologia presso l’Università Federico II di Napoli;
Emmanuele Angelo Jannini, Professore Ordinario di Endocrinologia, Andrologia e Sessuologia Medica presso l’Università Tor Vergata di Roma;
Arnaldo Morace Pinelli, Ordinario di Diritto Privato nell’Università di Roma – “Tor Vergata”;
Marco Del Giudice, Professore Associato Università di Trieste;
Luca Savarino, Professore di bioetica presso l’Università del Piemonte Orientale;
Gian Vincenzo Zuccotti, Professore Ordinario di Pediatria presso la Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia dell’Università degli Studi di Milano;
Furio Lambruschi, Direttore della Scuola bolognese di psicoterapia cognitiva (SBPC).
Lee Jussim is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Jussim has been a heavy promoter of the disputed diagnosis “rapid onset gender dysphoria.”
Lee J. Jussim was born on December 2, 1955 and grew up in New York City before moving to Levittown, Long Island around age 12. About a year later, one parent died of cancer and the other became unreliable in caring for Jussim and sibling. Jussim began cultivating a “rebel” persona that continued into academia.
Like many academics who fancy themselves edgy rebels (or in Jussim’s case, a “dread pirate”), their entire careers have been about defending the status quo.
Jussim dropped out of SUNY-Binghamton in 1975. Jussim later earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Massachusetts, Boston in 1981 and a doctorate from University of Michigan in 1987. Jussim has taught at Rutgers University since 1987.
Jussim and spouse Lisa Baum (born 1956) have three adult children: Rachel (born 1986), Kayla (born 1988), and Joshua (born 1993).
Jussim, Lee (December 22, 2019). Help Stop Another Academic Outrage Mob.PsychRabble https://psychrabble.medium.com/help-stop-another-academic-outrage-mob-eca601397495
Clark CJ, Jussim L, Frey K, Stevens ST, al-Gharbi M, Aquino K, Bailey JM, Barbaro N, Baumeister RF, Bleske-Rechek A, Buss D, Ceci S, Del Giudice M, Ditto PH, Forgas JP, Geary DC, Geher G, Haider S, Honeycutt N, Hrishikesh J, Krylov AI, Loftus E, Loury G, Lu L, Macy M, Martin CC, McWhorter J, Miller G, Paresky P, Pinker S, Reilly W, Catherine Salmon C, Stewart-Williams S, Tetlock PE, Williams WM, Wilson AE, Winegard BM, Yancey G, von Hippel W (2023). Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 120, Issue 48). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301642120
Elliot Kaminetzky is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Kaminetzky primarily opposes medical consensus on care for trans and gender diverse youth.
Do not go to Kaminetzky for any kind of therapy. If you are a trans or gender diverse minor forced to see Kaminetzky, do everything in your power to end the sessions and find supportive local resources.
Background
Elliot M. Kaminetzky was born in March of 1985. In 2014 Kaminetzky married pediatrician Rachel Sharret (born 1985). They have three children.
Kaminetzky earned a bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University in 2009 and a doctorate from Hoffstra University in 2016.
Following an internship at the Veterans Administration in 2017 and a fellowship at Northwell Health, Kaminetzky founded My OCD Care in 2018. In 2023, Kaminetzky was a founder of The Center for Child Behavioral Health.
Kaminetzky also attended the 2023 Genspect Denver conference of anti-transgender extremists:
While some may see us as hateful, I have only seen kind-hearted and brilliant people of all walks of life discussing youth gender medicine; one of the biggest medical scandals of our time.
David Jonathan Ley, Jr. was born on January 26, 1973. Ley earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Mississippi in 1995 and a doctorate from University of New Mexico in 2001.
From 2003 to 2004, Ley was a manager at Lovelace Sandia Health System. Since 2004 Ley has been affiliated with New Mexico Solutions and was serving as Executive Director as of 2024.
Ley has served on the boards of Sexual Health Alliance, National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and New Mexico Behavioral Health Providers Association.
Ley has authored several books and frequently criticizes the spurious concept of “sex addiction.” Ley is also a critic of pathologizing many unusual sexual interests and frequently appears in mainstream media to discuss sexuality.
Ley lives in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. Ley and spouse Roxanne Inez Candelaria-Ley (born 1973) have an adult child, Samantha. Ley trains and competes in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
References
Ley DJ (2014). A Review of “Treating Transgender Children and Adolescents: An Interdisciplinary Discussion.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 40:1, 69-70, https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2013.854548
Ley DJ (March 1, 2021). The Cancel Mob Is Coming.Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/202103/the-cancel-mob-is-coming
Evolutionary psychology (EP) is an ideology within psychology that proposes that neurological traits and behaviors have been shaped by sexual selection to serve survival and reproduction. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould described it as “Darwinian fundamentalism” because of the field’s rigid and dogmatic misunderstanding of evolution.
Evolutionary psychologists often engage in unfalsifiable theorizing about gender roles, derisively dubbed “just so stories” after the erroneous folk legends about how animals got various charateristics. Evolutionary psychologists are particularly fond of making claims about behaviors that allegedly evolved in prehistory. They then use the claims to explain and even justify sexist sterotypes.
Sex and gender minorities pose a special dilemma for evolutionary psychology: we muddle what they see as simple formulas regarding reproduction and sex differentiation.
If you think about gender diversity as a value that eludes full human understanding within a scientific language, like pi in mathematics, gender diversity exposes the limitations in EP’s system of representation. Rather than appreciating and understanding the elegance and intricacy of this mysterious value of gender diversity, evolutionary psychologists are suggesting we essentially round pi to a nice easy-to-understand integer by saying there are two sexes and rounding off the little fractions of sex and gender minorities to make the other equations easier.
J. Michael Bailey
J. Michael Bailey is a transphobic eugenicist and evolutionary psychologist trying to figure out “the puzzle of sexual roientation” within the dogma of evolutionary psychology. Bailey claims there are two, and only sexes, and two, and only two two “types” of trans women that fit into this paradigm: extremely gay males with a fetish for straight males and extremely paraphilic males with a fetish for their feminized selves.
This simplistic definition allows for an easy answer to the problem we pose for EP. Of course, this model is worthless given existing and upcoming reproductive technologies that bypass natural selection.
Nonetheless, Bailey insists this model is correct, since conceding it is not would open up a huge flaw in that worldview and hypothesis. In Bailey’s world, it is very important that gay/straight and male/female binaries be defended and justified.
This of course leads to fundamentally flawed results from calculations with this rounded number, but that hasn’t stopped Bailey and friends from a vigorous defense of this decision to simplify humanity to a Mendelian quadrant of XX/XY.
In the EP worldview, gay people are “a big mistake” evolutionarily (as J. Michael Bailey calls it), or perhaps more generously an evolutionary paradox: why does a trait that leads to fewer offspring persist?
I’ll have much more to say on this matter in the future, but evolutionary psychology is a very attractive field of inquiry to eugenicists and others who believe that all humans are not equal, and that many are in fact unfit or maladaptive. These people who measure human worth by a narrow definition of “intelligence” or reproductive capacity are the leading edge of the upcoming bioethical battle regarding diversity of all sorts, from genetics to gender.
Evolutionary psychologists and like-minded academics connected to anti-transgender activism include:
Gould, Steven Jay (June 12, 1997). Darwinian Fundamentalism. New York Review of Books http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/06/12/darwinian-fundamentalism/ https://archive.is/NPzx5 [archive]
Havens, Kiera (June 13, 2013). Box of Rocks #3 — Never Change.Medium https://medium.com/@Keira_Havens/box-of-rocks-3-never-change-80b879237314
Wren B, Launer J, Reiss MJ, Swanepoel A, Music G. Can evolutionary thinking shed light on gender diversity? BJPsych Advances. 2019;25(6):351-362. https://doi.org/10.1192/bja.2019.35
Hagen, Edward (2004). Evolutionary psychology FAQ. http://human.projects.anth.ucsb.edu/evpsychfaq.html [archive]
J. Michael Bailey‘s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen was an an important turning point in asymmetrical information warfare. Transgender activists had to employ novel strategies to fight the anti-transgender bias that was being put forth via socially-credentialed sources. One of the sites of dispute was the Amazon listing for Bailey’s book, where Amazon manipulated the consensus to remove the majority of negative reviews while sparing positive reviews by the author’s friends and colleagues.
The nascent online practices of “academic logrolling” vs. “review bombing” came to wider notice when a glitch in Amazon’s Canadian system revealed the names of anonymous reviewers, exposing how much of this activity was occurring on Amazon’s platform. Amazon later implemented a number of changes, including giving more weight to verified purchases and allowing readers to vote and comment on reviews. Because their ultimate goal is to make money by selling books, Amazon is generally going to favor the side of shills.
Shill reviews
The pro-Bailey shill reviewers in the first year included a number of colleagues and supporters, several of whom are mentioned in the book:
This page went live in 2003 as part of a systematic plan to document everyone involved in this debate. Trans people had begun reporting difficulties getting their reviews accepted, suggesting Amazon was manually blocking negative reviews:
I spent over a month of fighting with Amazon to get them to post my review. Amazon is systematically censoring negative reviews. You have to follow their rules precisely to get things posted and even then people may have to fight. I advise anyone trying to post a review to followup with an e-mail if it is not posted within a week. And then if it is not posted, it is key to ask for the supervisor in charge of book reviews and demand that it be posted (lest they be accused of censoring, which they are definitely definitely doing)
In April 2004, the book had a 2-star rating based on 80 reviews.
By March 10, 2004, Amazon had removed 24 customer reviews from the review section, including several from famous trans writers and scholars, and even a Top 500 Amazon reviewer (Geoff Puterbaugh). All but one of these reviews gave the book the worst numerical rating possible. Amazon’s actions raised the book’s overall rating from 2 stars to 3 stars.
The purge removed negative reviews by many notable people, including scientists and clinicians:
The reader who reported difficulties getting a review posted was one of the 24 suppressed in the purge.
Single-purpose reviewers
From the 2004 purge into June 2006, someone posted 40 different 5-star reviews under different names. In almost every case, Bailey’s book was the only review ever made by the account. It’s very likely these were all posted by the same person familiar with the controversy, probably Denise Magner. Magner compulsively used sockpuppets, starting with an Amazon review by her sockpuppet Stephanie Alejandra Velasquez on May 4, 2003. That review was taken down in the Amazon purge, and the 40 new reviews began appearing immediately after. Many of the names used are puns on people involved in the controversy, like Simon LeVay and John Bancroft.
Book publishers and authors were just learning about how to improve sales by manipulating Amazon, something Amazon encourages. Right below an author’s Amazon Sales Rank is an invitation: “(Publishers and authors: improve your sales)”
Publishers increasingly use these unconfirmed reviews edited by an unnamed Amazon employee as evidence about a book’s reception. Joseph Henry Press Executive Editor Stephen Mautner cited Amazon reviews in his open letter about Bailey’s book:
As of June 13, 2003 there were 27 1-star (lowest) ratings, and 11 5-star (highest) ratings, with only 5 in-between.
From the start, this book was marketed as controversial. The trans community had to use a number of innovative methods to fight the unscientific ideas presented in this book. Many of these methods have since been widely adopted, like online petitions and this kind of systematized documentation to expose patterns of bias like Amazon’s.
References
Harmon, Amy (February 14, 2004). Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers.New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/us/amazon-glitch-unmasks-war-of-reviewers.html
Lee Willerman (26 July 1939—10 January 1997) was an American psychology professor and eugenicist known for his work on twin studies. He was dissertation advisor and mentor for gender critical psychologist J. Michael Bailey, who has published work on eugenic ideologies.
Background
Willerman was born in and grew up in Chicago. Willerman received BA and MA degrees from Roosevelt University in 1961 and 1964 respectively, and his Ph.D. from Wayne State University in 1967. After a three-year stint at National Institutes of Health, Willerman completed a post-doctoral year at the University of Michigan in the Department of Human Genetics. In 1971 he took a position at University of Texas at Austin, where he remained until his death.
Eugenics
In 1974, Willerman joined the American Eugenics Society, and his work over the remainder of his life involved eugenics-themed hypotheses. His first study examined IQ and birth weight differences between identical twins, finding that the twin who had been heavier at birth tended to be higher in IQ. Willerman worked with Joseph M. Horn and John C. Loehlin on a major study of adoptive families, the Texas Adoption Project. Much of his work involved psychometrics and research into neuroanatomical predictors of intelligence.
Interracial offspring of white mothers obtained significantly higher IQ scores at 4 years of age than interracial offspring of Negro mothers, suggesting that environmental factors play an important role in the lower intellectual performance of Negro children.
Willerman (1970)
He also had a hypothesis that tangled capillaries in fingernail beds were evidence for a likelihood of schizophrenia, because similar capillaries in the brain were “allowing free radicals to leak into the brain.”
Eugenicists and hereditarians have long recognized the value of twin studies because they provide a natural control for experiments. Among the most notorious proponents of twin studies was Nazi Josef Mengele, who carried out experiments on 1,500 sets of twins, only 200 of these twins survived. Bailey’s initial work on twins led to several papers on the heritability of homosexuality.
Willerman and J. Michael Bailey
Willerman seems to have been a father figure for Bailey, shaping his thinking and setting him on the career path he followed:
My advisor, Lee Willerman, was a much better role model. Lee was one of the most intellectually and personally delightful people I’ve ever met, and he led me to discover a love of individual differences·IQ, sex differences, psychopathology, behavior genetics, etc. And he taught me the human sexuality course when I learned about an interesting theory of sexual orientation, which I investigated for my dissertation. The theory involved maternal prenatal stress, and I found no evidence for it. However, I loved the research area, and have stayed there, more or less.
Bailey has since published eugenic articles:
stating it is “morally acceptable” to screen for and abort gay fetuses: “selection for heterosexuality may benefit parents and children and is unlikely to cause significant harm.”
arguing that “offering sex offenders the opportunity to be castrated in return for a reduced sentence is not ethically problematic coercion.”
References
Willerman L, Naylor AF, Myrianthopoulos NC (1970). Intellectual Development of Children from Interracial Matings. Science Vol 170, Issue 3964 pp. 1329-1331 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.170.3964.1329
Willerman L, Naylor AF, Myrianthopoulos NC (1974). Intellectual development of children from interracial matings: Performance in infancy and at 4 years. Behavior Genetics volume 4, pages83–90 (1974) https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066706
Bailey JM (2003). Personal information. via his Northwestern University website. https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/personal.html [archive]
The Sex And Gender Explorer Test, or S.A.G.E. test is an online “gender test.” While it’s fine to take it for fun, it is not science and should not be used to make important decisions.
As the author says:
I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I have only a layperson’s understanding of the “science” that serves as the foundation for both the questions and the methodology of psychological evaluations. As the creator of the COGIATI test says, there is NO professionally authored psychological test for identification or classification of people with gender conflicts. It is obvious such a diagnostic tool would be useful to both the conflicted subject and the health care profession. If the creation of the S.A.G.E. test serves as an impetus or foundation for a credentialed professional to develop such a test, its purpose will have been served.
This test is built on the work of other supposed “gender tests” and shares many of the same short-comings. How you score is NOT a competition with other people or to show that you are “better” than someone else. I did not do ANY of the research on which this test is based, and I cannot speak for the validitiy or accuracy of those gender-related theories or research projects. Quite honestly, I’m not even sure if I totally agree with them. So why did I make this thing at all? I guess I just got bored and wanted to see if I could.
Remember, this test will not TELL you what your gender identity is. It is designed to help you EXPLORE and understand your gender identity against “social norms” and clinical diagnostic classifications. It is NOT a substitute for seeking professional therapy.
