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.
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)
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Oren Amitay is a Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender activist involved in the gender critical movement.
Background
Oren Aaron Amitay was born in 1968. Amitay attended York University, earning a master’s degree in 1999 and a doctorate in 2006.
In 2014 Amitay founded Straight Kill Films and began promoting the work of several members of the so-called intellectual dark web, described as a gateway to the far right.
In 2017 Amitay was involved in a controversy over transgender discussions on the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA) listserv.
In 2019 Amitay was suspended from Twitter for gender critical activity and investigated for misconduct by employer Ryerson University.
Amitay, Oren (2018). Complete narrative of DocAmitay’s OPA listserv history [PDF] http://docamitay.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Complete_Narrative_of_DocAmitays_OPA_Listserv_History.pdf See also YouTube: 12345
Soh is a member of the intellectual dark web, a loose alliance described as a “gateway to the far right.” Soh has promoted a number of disease models of gender identity and expression:
Debra W. Soh was born in 1990, is of Malaysian-Chinese descent, and grew up in Canada.
Soh earned a doctorate from York University in 2016. Soh’s dissertation is titled: “Functional and Structural Neuroimaging of Paraphilic Hypersexuality in Men” The examining committee included K. Schneider, James Cantor, G. Turner, D. Stevens, D. Vanderlann, C. Davis
Soh left academia in order to promote anti-trans views in the media.
Anti-transgender activism
Soh authored the 2020 anti-trans book The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.
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.
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.
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
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.
Małgorzata Anna Łamacz (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, Łamacz 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
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
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
“Dr. Małgorzata Łamacz, 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 Kraków.
“dr Małgorzata Łamacz, psycholog, zmarła dnia 2 listopada 2017 r. po ciężkiej chorobie.”
Kathryn Sandra Kaur Hall (born 1958) is a Canadian psychologist who with coauthor Yitzchak M. Binik has promoted pathologizing ideas about sex and gender minorities. Their 2014 book Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy presents the response to the 2003 anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen as that of “some militant gender activists.” It also allows psychologists Kenneth Zucker and Nicola Brown to make the case for non-affirmative models of care for minors. Zucker was fired the year after the book’s publication.
Background
Hall earned her Bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in 1980 and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University in 1986. Her husband is sports psychologist James L. “Jim” Mastrich, Jr. (born 1952).
Passage from Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy
The Future of Sex Therapy
The relationship between sexual dysfunction and the other sexual disorders might be best characterized as a DSM-arranged marriage. Paraphilia and gender dysphoria clinicians and researchers have usually not been sex therapists. Yet in the view of previous DSMs and most of the North American mental health community, all sexual and gender issues are alike. The net result is that the sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders have all been thrown into a single DSM chapter. This is not true in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) classification.
Whether sexuality is an important defining characteristic for gender dysphoria is matter of some controversy. Brown and Zucker (Chapter 11) point out that autogynephilia—that is, sexual arousal to the idea of oneself being a woman—may be a crucial mechanism in male-to-female gender dysphoria and that this “erotic location error” is considered by some as a sexual orientation. This theory has aroused bitter controversy, as evidenced by the recent brouhaha between J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and some militant gender activists (see special issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2008). Brown and Zucker also review the intervention literature and summarize the substantive changes in the DSM-5 diagnosis.
References
Binik YM, Hall SKS (2014). The Future of Sex Therapy. In Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, Fifth Edition. Guilford Publications. Edited by Yitzchak M. Binik and Kathryn SK Hall. ISBN 978-1462513673
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Irving Binik is an American-Canadian psychologist who promoted pathologizing ideas about sex and gender minorities.
Background
Yitzchak M. “Irv” Binik was born February 6, 1949. He grew up in Rochester, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Jewish Theological Seminary in 1970. He then attended University of Pennsylvania earning a master’s degree in 1972 and a doctorate in 1975,
He taught at McGill University from 1975 until his retirement.
He studied factors that affect sexual response in women in women and men, including menopause and circumcision He believed sexual pain should be reclassified from a sex disorder to a pain disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
In 2008, Binik was selected for the DSM-V Sexual & Gender Identity Disorders Work Group chaired by Kenneth Zucker.
2014 anti-transgender book
Binik and Kathryn S.K. Hall edited the 2014 book Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy. They present the response to the 2003 anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen as that of “some militant gender activists.” It also allows psychologists Kenneth Zucker and Nicola Brown to make the case for non-affirmative models of care for minors. Zucker was fired the year after the book’s publication.
The Future of Sex Therapy
The relationship between sexual dysfunction and the other sexual disorders might be best characterized as a DSM-arranged marriage. Paraphilia and gender dysphoria clinicians and researchers have usually not been sex therapists. Yet in the view of previous DSMs and most of the North American mental health community, all sexual and gender issues are alike. The net result is that the sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders have all been thrown into a single DSM chapter. This is not true in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) classification.
Whether sexuality is an important defining characteristic for gender dysphoria is matter of some controversy. Brown and Zucker (Chapter 11) point out that autogynephilia—that is, sexual arousal to the idea of oneself being a woman—may be a crucial mechanism in male-to-female gender dysphoria and that this “erotic location error” is considered by some as a sexual orientation. This theory has aroused bitter controversy, as evidenced by the recent brouhaha between J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and some militant gender activists (see special issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2008). Brown and Zucker also review the intervention literature and summarize the substantive changes in the DSM-5 diagnosis.
References
Binik YM, Hall KSK, Eds. (2014). Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, Fifth Edition. Guilford Publications. ISBN 9781462513673
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Ronald J. “Ron” Comer (born April 26, 1947) is an American psychologist who wrote the textbooks Abnormal Psychology and Fundamentals in Abnormal Psychology which promote pathologizing ideas about transgender people proposed by Ray Blanchard.
Background
Comer earned a degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Clark University in 1975. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1975 as an assistant professor and then transitioned to a lecturer with continuing appointment. He was appointed Emeritus Professor in February 2016.
