The American Psychological Association Division 44 (The Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues) was founded in 1985 to represent sexual orientation issues within and beyond the Association. The Division sponsors 9 committees and 3 task forces in order to fulfill its mission.
Many of the problems raised by publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey intersect with the upcoming battle over depathologizing gender diversity. Many of the political gains made by gays and lesbians can be directly linked to the decision to depathologize homosexuality by the American Psychological Association in 1973. Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence promote a taxonomy that plays into the outmoded idea that gender variance is an expression of a psychosexual pathology.
Nicknamed DIV 44, they maintain an online presence here:
http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/
The official name as it stood in 2004 still does not include “Transgender,” suggesting DIV 44 is woefully behind the learning curve regarding the complex relationships involving aspects of gender variance and sexuality. Unfortunately, into this vacuum of ignorance has poured an infestation of Clarke Institute psychologists with a taxonomy of gender variance to promote and an axe to grind.
James Cantor and the Clarke Institute infest DIV 44
James Cantor is a notably virulent representative of the transphobia rampant at the Clarke Institute and in pockets of resistance within this psychology trade group.
Cantor has clear political aspirations in his field. Cantor was probably involved in orchestrating an event in August 2003, where DIV 44 President James Fitzgerald inexplicably gave an award to Cantor’s mentor Ray Blanchard of the Clarke Institute for his “contributions” on gender identity.
As noted by sociologists like Ekins, Blanchard’s “science” is yet another example of that tradition within the medical model and positivist science which seems overly preoccupied with classification, in the service of diagnosis, etiological theorizing and the management of “disorders.” Blanchard has another protégé named Anne Lawrence, who vigorously defends the diagnosis of “autogynephilia” that Ray Blanchard created. The similarities between Blanchard’s work on gender variance and pre-1973 “science” about the pathology of homosexuality are striking.
In 2003, Cantor had an incident placed on his personnel record after heckling a transgender presenter invited to the Clarke Institute. Ironically, the presenter was there to work on repairing the historically strained relationship between that mental institution and the Toronto transgender community. The Clarke Institute is nicknamed “Jurassic Clarke” for its regressive policies regarding access to health services for gender-variant clients. Though it has since changed its name, The Clarke has not shaken the sociobiological stigma of its namesake, renowned eugenicist Charles Kirk Clarke, and the Canada’s notorious policies toward “the unfit,” including the GLBT community.
Cantor praises J. Michael Bailey in the name of DIV 44
James Cantor wrote a glowing review of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey for their Summer 2003 newsletter. Cantor and Bailey are both protégés of Ray Blanchard. Bailey considers himself an adherent of evolutionary psychology and claims that “evolutionarily, homosexuality is a big mistake,” and that homosexuality may represent a “developmental error.”
http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/vol19nu2.pdf
The review appears on page 6, or you can read it on this site’s page on James Cantor.
Cantor’s shill review was later used in promotional material by Bailey’s publisher, Joseph Henry Press. In Summer, 2003, the APA DIV 44 Newsletter printed a review of Bailey’s book by James Cantor of Toronto’s Clarke Institute. This review was in turn used in promotional materials by Joseph Henry Press on their website. Publicist Robin Pinnel failed to include Cantor’s name with the blurbs, suggesting that Cantor’s views represented all of DIV 44’s assessment of the Bailey book. Cantor’s name was added after DIV 44 protested.
Below is a sample of the wide-ranging concerns about this book’s ideology:
Dr. Madeline Wyndzen responds in DIV 44’s Spring 2004 newsletter
Dr. Madeline H. Wyndzen has written several essays outlining flaws in Blanchard’s thinking and methodology. She was invited by DIV 44 to respond with a full-length article, which is available here:
A personal and scientific look at a mental illness model of transgenderism by Madeline H. Wyndzen, Ph.D. (pen name) Division 44 Newsletter, Spring 2004, page 4.
Editor’s Note: Ms. Wyndzen originally submitted a brief letter to the editor in response to a recent book review of The Man Who Would Be Queen in this Newsletter. I invited her to expand on that letter here.
If a man sought therapy due to unhappiness over his attraction to other men, a therapist would likely diagnose him with Depression. If a transsexual sought therapy due to unhappiness over his or her biological sex, a therapist would almost certainly diagnose him or her with Gender Identity Disorder. Whereas gay men and lesbian women are diagnosed for how they suffer , transsexuals are diagnosed for who they are. As a psychologist and transsexual, I find that the mental illness label imposed on transsexuality is just as disquieting as the label that used to be imposed on homosexuality.
Similar to antiquated ideas suggesting that homosexuality is a deviant sex-drive, Ray Blanchard (1989, 1991) proposed that transsexuality is a mis-directed form of either heterosexuality (named “autogynephilia”) or homosexuality. Rather than asking the scientifically neutral question, “What is transgenderism?” Blanchard (1991) asks, “What kind of defect in a male’s capacity for sexual learning could produce … autogynephilia, transvestitism …?” (p. 246).
Blanchard’s model is featured prominently and uncritically in J. Michael Bailey’s (2003a) recent book, The Man who would be Queen: the Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. A balanced portrait of Blanchard’s key empirical findings (1989) would reveal that they: (1) have never been replicated, (2) failed to include control groups of typically-gendered women, (3) failed to covary the acknowledged age-differences from ANOVA, and (4) drew conclusions about causality from entirely observational data.
Inconsistencies between transsexuals’ self-portraits and Blanchard’s model are reconciled by Bailey (2003a) with the suggestion that some transsexuals are deceptive: “There is one more reason why many autogynephiles provide misleading information about themselves that is different than outright lying. It has to do with obsession” (p. 175). Aware of concerns that some may be troubled by his portrayal of them, Bailey has said, “I cannot be a slave to sensitivity” (quoted in Wilson, 2003), and “ There is good scientific evidence that says you should believe me and not them” (quoted in Dreier & Anderson, 2003). In a critique of Bailey’s book available on my website, I provide alternate interpretations of this evidence:
http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/
Bailey (2003b) contends that negative reactions to his book are merely “identity politics” that are a “hindrance” to “scientific truth” (Bailey, 2003b). Contrasting his objectivity with others’ politics reminded me of “81 Words,” a radio documentary about the removal of homosexuality from the DSM (Spiegel, 2002). Those who diagnosed ‘homosexuality’ as a mental illness genuinely felt that they were helping their clients. I know that Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, and others are similarly concerned about the welfare of transsexuals. I only wish they would see the bias in their theories and diagnoses. When I listened to “81 Words,” I was struck by how foreign it sounded to talk about being gay or lesbian as a disorder. I am too young to remember that time. My hope is that someday my children will think it just as unfathomable that I was once diagnosed and treated for “Gender Identity Disorder.”
References
Bailey, J. M. (2003a). The Man who would be Queen: the Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press, Washington DC.
Bailey, J. M. (2003b, July 19). Identity politics as a hindrance to scientific truth , presented at the conference of the International Academy of Sex Research. Abstract retrieved July 16, 2003, from http://www.iasr.org/meeting/2003/ABSTRACTS2003.doc
Wilson, R. (2003, June 20). Dr. Sex’: A human-sexuality expert creates controversy with a new book on gay men and transsexuals. Chronicle of Higher Education , retrieved June 27, 2003, from http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i41/41a00801.htm
DIV 44 has been taking steps to be more responsive to the needs of transgender people interacting with mental health professionals, including the mission statement below:
One of the most important steps DIV 44 can take is to learn about the context of the Clarke Institute’s historically adversarial relationship with the clients they were supposed to serve.
The upcoming controversy
The American Psychiatric Association (http://psych.org) is currently gearing up to revise the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the DSM-IV-TR to the DSM-V (due around 2010).
A reader notes:
In short American Psychological Association (APA.org) are our friends, but American Psychiatric Association (PSYCH.ORG) are our oppressors, the ones who who re-pathologize homosexuality if they thought they could get away with it. I added their target date – 2010 – so as not to raise false hopes of a constructive change.Personally I believe GID will be rendered irrelevant for practical purposes (by increasing circumvention of the HBIGDA SOC) before GID is abolished.
One of my research assistants saw similarities in this story of behind the scenes manipulation of APA guidelines with the Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence controversy.
The full text of this roundtable discussion transcribed by June L Roberts can also be found here: https://transgendermap.com/info/div-44-roundtable.html
As a community, we must begin working with APA DIV 44 to counter the distortions and pseudoscience that the Clarke Institute has used to dominate this important debate. I encourage any of you with an interest in this matter to contact the following community leaders:
Jeff Sherman is a social psychologist and longtime supporter of J. Michael Bailey. I got the following note on May 7, 2003. Sherman’s comment in bold reflects typical thinking from anti-transgender psychologists. Sherman ignores that Bailey was mocking transgender people, including our young children, on his book tour. Apparently Sherman thinks it’s fine for Bailey to do that to our children while “trying to find the truth,” but any reciprocation is “vile.” Via Sherman:
you are a vile human being for putting pictures of mike’s kids on your web site. you disagree with mike’s theories? fine. there is ample opportunity for scientific debate, and no one more than mike welcomes a scientific critique of his work. to ascribe any motives to mike beyond trying to find the truth is nothing more than an attempt to stifle free and open discourse. you should hook up with kansas state legislature.
sincerely, jeff sherman
***************************************************************** Jeffrey W. Sherman Associate Professor Department of Psychology Northwestern University 2029 Sheridan Rd. Evanston, IL 60208-2710 phone: 847-467-4133 fax: 847-491-7859 url: www.psych.nwu.edu/People/JeffSherman.htm ******************************************************************
WEB LINK: http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/sherman/sherman.html email: [email protected]
My reply in part:
It’s what he’s doing to my kids in his lectures. “Vile” is an apt descriptor. May I borrow it?
Maybe Mike should open his lecture to the parents of those kids whose images he features. I wonder how they’d feel to see their children’s expressions of pain being used by Mike to amuse audiences? I bet they’d think he’s a pretty vile human being. I certainly do.
Sherman did not follow up.
Michael Kuban is a Canadian psychologist who served as manager of the Kurt Freund Phallometric Lab at the notorious Clarke Institute in Toronto.
Background
Michael Edward “Mike” Kuban was born in 1962 and earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Lethbridge in 1987, then attended University of Toronto, earning master’s degrees in 1992, 1996, and 2000.
Kuban began working at the Clarke Institute in 1990. In 2015, Kuban began working with therapist Rob Peach.
Freund K, Kuban M (1993). Toward a testable developmental model of pedophilia: The development of erotic age preference. Child Abuse & Neglect , vol. 17, 1993, pp. 315-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/0145-2134(93)90051-6
Blanchard R, Barbaree HE, Bogaert AF, Dickey R, Klassen P, Kuban ME, Zucker KJ (2000). Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Arch Sex Behav. 2000 Oct;29(5):463-78. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1001943719964
Blanchard R, Klassen P, Dickey R, Kuban ME, Blak T (2001). Sensitivity and specificity of the phallometric test for pedophilia in nonadmitting sex offenders. Psychol Assess. 2001 Mar;13(1):118-26. https://goi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.13.1.118
Blanchard R, Christensen BK, Strong SM, Cantor JM, Kuban ME, Klassen P, Dickey R, Blak T (2002). Retrospective self-reports of childhood accidents causing unconsciousness in phallometrically diagnosed pedophiles. Arch Sex Behav. 2002 Dec;31(6):511-26. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020659331965
Blanchard R, Kuban ME, Klassen P, Dickey R, Christensen BK, Cantor JM, Blak T (2003). Self-reported head injuries before and after age 13 in pedophilic and nonpedophilic men referred for clinical assessment. Arch Sex Behav. 2003 Dec;32(6):573-81. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026093612434
Cantor JM, Blanchard R, Christensen BK, Dickey R, Klassen PE, Beckstead AL, Blak T, Kuban ME (2004). Intelligence, memory, and handedness in pedophilia. Neuropsychology. 2004 Jan;18(1):3-14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0894-4105.18.1.3
Joan Aileen Winer Linsenmeier (born October 30, 1950) is an American psychologist best known for publishing biased and irresponsible research on sex and gender minorities with her longtime Northwestern University collaborator J. Michael Bailey. Linsenmeier is credited by Bailey in The Man Who Would Be Queen as a collaborator who read the entire manuscript and offered suggestions.
Among Linsenmeier’s published collaborations with colleagues:
questioning if bisexual men exist (Rieger 2013)
rating the attractiveness of “feminine” children (Rieger 2011)
claiming “homosexual transsexuals” are especially well-suited to prostitution (Bailey 2003)
Background
Linsenmeier earned a BA in Mathematics and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University in 1972. She earned her PhD at Northwestern in 1977 and taught there until her retirement in about 2015.
She married Northwestern neurobiologist Robert Alan Linsenmeier, who taught at Northwestern from 1983 until his retirement in 2019.
My email to Dr. Linsenmeier
17 May 2003
Joan Linsenmeier Senior Lecturer, Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology Swift Hall 311, 2029 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208-2710 Phone: (847) 491-7834 Fax: (847) 491-7859 Web: http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/~jlins/ E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Linsenmeier–
My name is Andrea James. I maintain an Our Bodies, Ourselves type website for transsexual women called tsroadmap.com.
After my business partner’s boyfriend Barry Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat because he was dating her, I expanded my efforts from practical matters of gender transition to improving media depictions of our condition.
I am writing to you today because of your involvement in J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen. In it, Bailey states that you “read the entire manuscript and made sure my thoughts were clear.” (p. xii-xiii).
Dr. Linsenmeier, you are complicit in the publication of what many in my community believe is the most defamatory book on transsexualism written since 1979. You are responsible for allowing us to be associated with depraved murderers (p. 142) and to be described as little more than socially stunted deviants generally unable to form long-term relationships or even hold conventional jobs. (p. 188). Imagine if the following were said about women you know:
[They] work as waitresses, hairdressers, receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in many other occupations. (p. 142)
I intend to see that you remain clearly linked to this historical document and are held accountable for this outrage during the remainder of your career. I also plan to secure your shameful place in the history of our community’s struggle to enjoy the same basic rights afforded other women. Make no mistake: you will have helped to hurt a great many women and children before we get those rights, and I can assure you your efforts will not go unnoticed.
I will be re-reading the entire manuscript as well and making a painstaking record of all the ways you and Bailey have hurt all of us by bringing out such bigotry in the name of science.
Though I doubt you are, you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.
Andrea James
Linsenmeier’s reply
18 May 2003
[my follow-up comments indented]
Andrea,
It is my sincere hope that the publication of Mike Bailey’s book will lead to further research on what I think are some very important issues. In my view, there is much more to be learned about many of the topics he addresses.
Thanks for your reply, Joan. We are in complete agreement here.
I am currently teaching a course in which we are reading books written for a popular audience by highly respected psychology professors. Throughout the course, I have tried to make the point that what’s in these books is not necessarily the final word on the topics we are studying. Rather, the books are the sincere efforts of top-notch scientists to communicate what they feel is currently known about these topics.
I feel Bailey’s work on transsexualism is anything but sincere, and anything but top-notch. I am not exaggerating when I say you and he have brought out the worst book on transsexualism in a quarter century. I will be collecting responses and shaping my case for the next several months here:
I encourage my students to read the books with some degree of skepticism, to think about alternative explanations of findings the authors present, to think about the match between what is in the texts and what they have seen in their own lives — and about the possible reasons for any discrepancies.
You and Bailey didn’t bother with the alternative explanations, and you did not discuss that your ideas on transsexualism are based on a questionable theory by a fringe element of academia. If you find yourself teaching Bailey, I suggest giving your students True Selves as an antidote, and the Milton Diamond piece at the top of my Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence clearinghouse, or send them to my Annotated Bailey when it’s done. I’m sure college kids will find it an entertaining read— it’s written to entertain and educate the high school and college aged women who read my site.
Even thought [sic] they are only first-year students, I encourage them to see science as a process, not as a fixed body of facts, and to speculate about future research projects that might answer remaining questions. This is how I anticipated that Mike Bailey’s book would be read also: as a sincere effort by a top-notch scientist to communicate what he feels is known at this point about the topics he studies and writes on — and as a stimulus to further thinking and research.
You have brought out what I consider to be The Bell Curve of transsexualism: bigotry cross-dressed in academic robes. I intend to show exactly how prejudicial the two of you are.
I would also like you to know that, in my role as an editorial consultant to Mike Bailey, there were certainly points where I suggested toning down some language, or presenting some ideas in a more tentative manner.
Then you failed miserably in making your case.
Throughout, however, my role was just to respectfully ask questions and make suggestions. The final language and content were always his.
Considering that I have found only three changes to date comparing Bailey’s manuscript to the published chapters on transsexualism, none of which are substantive, your questions and suggestions were apparently given as much credence as my own comments to him in May 2000.
If you actually did make any suggestions, Mike didn’t seem to consider your opinions to have much merit. In that sense, I suppose we both failed miserably. If you feel moved to write something explaining how your opinion on transsexualism differs from Bailey’s, or a piece outlining some of the specific suggestions you made, I will be happy to give it a permanent home online, on the page dedicated to your involvement in this historical book. Let me know. I respond to all emails. Andrea James
Linsenmeier’s reply
I think exposing students to disagreements is an excellent teaching technique, so if I do ever teach a course where this book is relevant, I’ll certainly consider your suggestions. Having students puzzle through ideas that don’t seem to fit together is a good way to get them to think — and, again, to see science as a process, with lots still to be learned. In fact, having them do their own Annotated ______ (where ______ is some author I do assign) might be a great assignment to give sometime.
I’m not an expert on any of the topics Mike covers in his book. That was not my role in reading the manuscript and giving feedback. Partly because of my lack of expertise, one thing I can say with confidence is that I don’t know if the two types Mike presents in the chapters on transsexualism are the only types [or] not. It certainly seems conceivable to me that the answer is no and that the full story is actually more complicated.
Many things I learned in my psychology classes as a student in the 1960s/70s turned out to be only part of the whole story. This has certainly been true when it comes to research on sex and gender. (As an aside, I find it interesting that when I was a student at Northwestern, I took a course called something like The Psychology of Sex Differences, but now we have, instead, a course called Psychology of Gender.) After all these years of additional work in this area, we’re still learning. As you noted in your response to my earlier message, one thing you and I agree on is that there’s more to be learned about the topics that Mike Bailey has chosen to address in his book.
Bailey JM, Kim PY, Hills A, Linsenmeier JA (1997). Butch, femme, or straight acting? Partner preferences of gay men and lesbians. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1997 Nov;73(5):960-73.
Li NP, Bailey JM, Kenrick DT, Linsenmeier JA (2002). The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: testing the tradeoffs. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2002 Jun;82(6):947-55.
Skidmore WC, Linsenmeier JA, Bailey JM (2006). Gender nonconformity and psychological distress in lesbians and gay men. Arch Sex Behav. 2006 Dec;35(6):685-97. Epub 2006 Nov 16.
Rieger G, Linsenmeier JA, Gygax L, Bailey JM (2008). Sexual Orientation and Childhood Gender Nonconformity: Evidence From Home Videos. Dev Psychol. 2008 Jan;44(1):46-58. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.46.
Childhood Gender Nonconformity Remains a Robust and Neutral Correlate of Sexual Orientation: Reply to Hegarty (2009).
Sylva D, Rieger G, Linsenmeier JA, Bailey JM (2010). Concealment of sexual orientation. Arch Sex Behav. 2010 Feb;39(1):141-52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9466-2. Epub 2009 Jan 24.
Rieger G, Linsenmeier JA, Gygax L, Garcia S, Bailey JM (2010). Dissecting “gaydar”: Accuracy and the role of masculinity-femininity. Arch Sex Behav. 2010 Feb;39(1):124-40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9405-2. Epub 2008 Sep 23.
Valentova J, Rieger G, Havlicek J, Linsenmeier JA, Bailey JM (2011). Judgments of sexual orientation and masculinity-femininity based on thin slices of behavior: A cross-cultural comparison. Arch Sex Behav. 2011 Dec;40(6):1145-52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9818-1.
Rieger G, Gygax L, Linsenmeier JA, Siler-Knogl A, Moskowitz DA, Bailey JM (2011). Sex typicality and attractiveness in childhood and adulthood: Assessing their relationships from videos. Arch Sex Behav. 2011 Feb;40(1):143-54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9512-8. Epub 2009 Jul 9.
Rieger G, Rosenthal AM, Cash BM, Linsenmeier JA, Bailey JM, Savin-Williams RC (2013). Male bisexual arousal: A matter of curiosity? Biol Psychol. 2013 Dec;94(3):479-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.09.007 Epub 2013 Sep 17.
Resources
Joan Linsenmeier faculty page [archive] http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/linsenmeier/
Joan Linsenmeier faculty page [archive] http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/~jlins/
Gerulf Rieger is a psychologist best known for publishing “science” that claimed bisexual men don’t exist. After getting money from bisexual activist John Sylla at the American Institute of Bisexuality, Rieger suddenly “discovered” male bisexuality. Sylla was also an author on Rieger’s published “discovery,” an unethical conflict of interest.
Rieger is also infamous for “science” claiming no woman is “totally straight.”
Rieger has also published anti-trans “science” claiming that trans women exhibit “male arousal patterns.” Rieger is on the editorial board of anti-trans journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Background
Rieger was born in July 1972. Rieger earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Vienna in 1995, followed by a master’s degree from University of Zurich in 1999. Rieger then attended Northwestern University, earning a master’s degree in 2004 and a doctorate in 2006.
Rieger’s dissertation advisor was anti-trans psychologist J. Michael Bailey. Bailey is notorious for engaging in “science by press conference,” a way of getting money and attention for questionable research through carefully timed media manipulation. Bailey is also known for work in the field of eugenics. Bailey has made a career of controversial “findings” about minorities which are reported uncritically by inept journalists. Bailey’s “finding” is later called into question and/or retracted after the damage is done. By then Bailey is on to some new “finding,” and the pattern of using gullible journalists begins again.
Rieger did postdoctoral work at Cornell University before taking a Lecturer position at University of Essex in 2014. As of 2024, Rieger was no longer listed as a Reader on the University of Essex psychology staff. Rieger was then affiliated with Webster Vienna Private University in Vienna, Austria.
Rieger on bisexuality (2002–present)
Rieger became famous for parroting Bailey’s claims that “true bisexuality” does not exist in men, who are “gay, straight, or lying.” These claims were supported by plethysmograph quackery initially published by Rieger in 2002:
Recently, we finished our study on male sexual arousal and sexual orientation. We were most interested in figuring out whether putative bisexual men do really get aroused to both men and women. There has been a long-lasting skepticism as to whether bisexual men are really what they say they are. Some people suggested that they are closet gay men. Others said that they are confused heterosexual men. So what are they? We invited all heterosexual, gay, and bisexual men into our lab, and measured their sexual arousal with help of a penile strain gauge while showing them movies of naked men or of naked women. We found no obvious bisexual arousal trends for the bisexual men. Most of them showed arousal like gay men, and a few got aroused like heterosexual men. Here you will find a link to the poster, which was presented at the IASR conference in Hamburg in the Summer of 2002. (Rieger 2004, poster published via morov.com)
Rieger’s greatest media triumph was a 2005 puff piece by Benedict Carey in the New York Times. Titled “Straight, Gay, or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” it was one of the most widely shared stories from the Times website in the week following publication. Carey called Rieger’s claims “a new study” in an article timed to coincide with the opening of the International Academy of Sex Research conference, where the study had been presented three years earlier. The only apparent difference is the sample size. Carey’s report drew widespread criticism from media watchdog groups and civil rights groups including FAIR and GLAAD.
Rieger is also infamous for claiming no woman is “totally straight.” In a “science by press conference” piece for The Telegraph, Rieger said of women, “Our research shows that, when it comes to what turns them on they are usually bisexual or gay, but never totally straight”.
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)
In 2003, Rieger’s dissertation advisor J. Michael Bailey published the transphobic book The Man Who Would Be Queen. After several academics expressed concerns about Bailey’s unscientific and exploitative lectures in support of the book at Emory on 8 April 2003 (reported by Dr. Saralyn Chesnut) and at Stanford on 23 April 2003 (reported by noted biologist Joan Roughgarden), Bailey complained about “irate transsexuals” in a terse response to Rieger [all links added for reference]:
From: Gerulf Rieger gerulf[at]northwestern.edu Date: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:36:08 AM US/Central To: gluu[at]listserv.it.northwestern.edu Cc: rainbow[at]listserv.it.northwestern.edu Subject: Dr. Bailey’s reply: Prof. Michael Bailey’s lecture lacks sensitivity…
Here is a message from Professor Bailey, my advisor. Gerulf
Background: Roughgarden is a transsexual woman (who used to be a man), who is part of a group (I think a small one) who is extremely angry with me about my recent book, The Man Who Would Be Queen. For examples of vitriol (to the extent that one put dirty captions under pictures of my children) see:
The main complaint is that I do not believe that all transsexuals are “women trapped in men’s bodies” but instead, believe the scientific evidence that one type of male-to-female transsexual is, prior to transition, a man with a sexual obsession for being a woman. The other type can be conceived of as an extremely feminine type of gay man. I explain in the book why the first type of transsexual tends to be very threatened by this explanation of their behavior. I posted on this before here, so instead of doing so again, I refer interested people to a website where they can read the book: (available to read for free at)
The second section, on homosexuality, is what I lectured about at Stanford. The third section is the one that has Roughgarden mad. The transsexuals have been writing everyone possibly affiliated with the book, from the publisher (and someone in the upper echelon has a wife who is good friends with one Lynn Conway–see negative review #1 above–and this resulted in the book being taken off the publisher’s website for nearly 24 hours) to people who wrote positive blurbs on the cover (Steven Pinker and David Buss, for example) to my colleagues. I don’t have time for individual responses to irate transsexuals, so I’m writing something for my webpage.
In 2003, Rieger appeared in a short film by fellow Northwestern grad Jason Bolicki, titled “Twenty Gay Stereotypes Confirmed.” It was described as “a tongue-in-cheek look at gay stereotypes using the director’s childhood home movies.”
Rieger then solicited home movies that demonstrated stereotypes based on sexual orientation.
http:// www.gptforum.com/forum/Topic14319.htm
Men and Women Wanted in Paid Northwestern Study Reply to: gerulf[at]northwestern.edu Date: 2005-05-21, 5:55PM CDT
Men and Women wanted who have home movies from their childhood and are willing to be interviewed for a study on child development. Participation takes about two hours. Participants will be paid $50. Please call Gerulf Rieger at Northwestern University, The Human Sexuality Lab at 847 / 491-3820. You may also email gerulf[at]northwestern.edu . IRB#: 0108-016
Please note: in order to be eligible for this study, you must have a childhood home movie of yourself (approximately ages 0-10), and bring it with you during your interview.
* Job location is Evanston * Compensation: $50
Rieger’s mentor J. Michael Bailey previously misused clips of gender diverse children for the amusement of “academic” audiences.
In 2007 Bailey and Rieger appeared on CNN to support their claims about stereotypically “gay” walking style, with Bailey as the “straight” one (Cohen 2007). Never have two people been filmed walking more self-consciously.
Bond, Alison (September 22, 2005). Grad student’s study sparks criticism from bisexuals.Daily Northwestern https://dailynorthwestern.com/2005/09/22/archive-manual/grad-students-study-sparks-criticism-from-bisexuals/ original URL http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/23/43339007ed9b2 [archive]
Creager, Cyndi (July 7, 2005). New York Times Promotes Bisexual Stereotypes in “Straight, Gay or Lying?” GLAAD http://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3827&PHPSESSID=0b9e8b63af283601f7dc071e1a4c4568 [archive]
DeNoon, Daniel J. (August 30, 2005). Do Bisexual Men Really Exist?WebMD via CBS News, Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD https://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-bisexual-men-really-exist/
Drier, Sarah; Anderson, Kevin (April 21, 2003). Prof’s book challenges opinions of human sexuality. Bailey tackles sensitive transsexuality issues; some find his views offensive. Daily Northwesternhttp://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/21/3ea39785e6cef?in_archive=1 [archive]
Selected publications
Holmes L, Rieger G, Paulmann S (2024). The effect of sexual orientation on voice acoustic properties. Frontiers in Psychology (Vol. 15). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1412372
Rieger G (2023). Genetically identical twins discordant for sexual orientation: potential reasons for their differences. Genetics and evolution of sexual orientation meeting at The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2023/03/sexual-orientation/ [archive]
About 75% of genetically identical twins who are homosexual have heterosexual co-twins, and it is largely unknown what causes their difference. However, the majority of past work with such twin pairs was based on self-reports, which can be biased, and how these twins truly differ remained uncertain. The author will summarise research from his lab showing that these twins differ in behavioural, physiological, and anatomical traits linked to sexual orientation: gender-nonconformity, genital arousal, and finger length ratios, respectively. Dr Rieger will then propose a mechanism that explains their different development. About 30% of identical twins develop with separate placentas. Maternal androgens or antibodies could diffuse differently through these placentas, affecting the differentiated development of the twins. The author will also propose a study design to indirectly test this hypothesis.
Milani S, Zhang JY, Zdaniuk B, Bogaert A, Rieger G, Brotto LA (2022). Examining Visual Attention Patterns among Asexual and Heterosexual Individuals. Journal of Sex Research (Vol. 60, Issue 2, pp. 271–281). https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2078768
Gruia DC, Holmes L, Raines J, Slettevold E, Watts-Overall TM, Rieger G (2022). Stability and Change in Sexual Orientation and Genital Arousal over Time. Journal of Sex Research (Vol. 60, Issue 2, pp. 294–304). https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2060927
Holmes L, Watts-Overall TM, Slettevold E, Gruia DC, Rieger G (2022). The relationship between finger length ratio, masculinity, and sexual orientation in women: A correlational study. In L. Bartos (Ed.), PLOS ONE (Vol. 17, Issue 3, p. e0259637). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259637
Holmes L, Watts-Overall TM, Slettevold E, Gruia DC, Rieger G (2021). Sex Differences in Sexual Arousal and Finger Length Ratio. Journal of Sex Research (Vol. 59, Issue 4, pp. 515–523). https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.1874262
Sanders AR, Beecham GW, Guo S, Dawood K, Rieger G, Krishnappa RS, Kolundzija AB, Bailey JM, Martin ER (2021). Genome-Wide Linkage and Association Study of Childhood Gender Nonconformity in Males. Archives of Sexual Behavior50, 3377–3383 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02146-x
Holmes, L., Watts-Overall, T.M., Slettevold, E. et al. Sexual Orientation, Sexual Arousal, and Finger Length Ratios in Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior 50, 3419–3432 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02095-5
Raines J, Holmes L, Watts-Overall TM, Slettevold E, Gruia DC, Orbell S, Rieger G (2021). Patterns of Genital Sexual Arousal in Transgender Men. Psychological Science (Vol. 32, Issue 4, pp. 485–495). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620971654
Rieger G, Holmes L, Watts-Overall TM, Gruia DC, Bailey JM, Savin-Williams RC (2020). Gender Nonconformity of Bisexual Men and Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior 49, 2481–2495 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01766-z
Rieger G, Watts-Overall TM, Holmes L, Gruia DC (2020). Gender Nonconformity of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations: Evidence from Video Recordings. Archives of Sexual Behavior49, 2469–2479 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01709-8
Bailey, J.M., Rieger, G., Krishnappa, R.S. et al. Familiality of Gender Nonconformity Among Homosexual Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior49, 2461–2468 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01626-w
Jabbour, J., Holmes, L., Sylva, D., Hsu, K. J., Semon, T. L., Rosenthal, A. M., Safron, A., Slettevold, E., Watts-Overall, T. M., Savin-Williams, R. C., Sylla, J., Rieger, G., & Bailey, J. M. (2020). Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 117, Issue 31, pp. 18369–18377). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003631117
Slettevold, E., Holmes, L., Gruia, D., Nyssen, C. P., Watts-Overall, T. M., & Rieger, G. (2019). Bisexual men with bisexual and monosexual genital arousal patterns. In Biological Psychology (Vol. 148, p. 107763). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107763
An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 48(3) of Archives of Sexual Behavior (see record 2018-64336-001).
Sanders, A., Beecham, G., Guo, S., Dawood, K., Rieger, G., Krishnappa, R., Kolundzija, A., Bailey, J. M., & Martin, E. (2019). S67GENOME-WIDE LINKAGE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD GENDER NONCONFORMITY IN MALES. In European Neuropsychopharmacology (Vol. 29, p. S148). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2019.08.068
Booker CL, Rieger G, Unger JB (2017). Sexual orientation health inequality: evidence from understanding society, the UK longitudinal household study. Preventive Medicine 101, 126-132 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.06.010
Rieger G, Bailey JM (2005). The misfit of sex atypicality (IASR conference paper) iasr.org/meeting/2005/abstracts2005.doc [archive]
Homosexual people tend to reject sex-atypical partners: Homosexual men tend to find feminine men less attractive, and conversely, lesbians tend to find masculine women less attractive. We investigated what traits could trigger this disadvantage. Ten-second video clips of 95 targets, ages 18 to 30, were judged on sex atypicality of their movements, voice patters and appearances by 58 raters of both sexes and sexual orientations without explicit information on the targets’ sexual orientation. Another sex of 121 raters of both sexes/sexual orientations would rate targets on attractiveness, rating their preferred sex, again without explicit information on the targets’ sexual orientation. Homosexual targets of both sexes were, on average, rated as having more sex-atypical movements, voices, and appearance (ds = .6 to 1.5, ps < .01). The expressions of these traits were significantly related to each other (rs = .4 to .7, ps < .05) and we thus computed one factor of sex atypicality. Using a multi-factorial design, including raters as random factor, we would then assess the relation between sex atypicality and attractiveness. In men, only the most sex-atypical targets were judged to be less attractive (b = -.11, p < .0001). In women, however, both moderate and strong expressions of sex atypicality seemed to affect attractiveness negatively (b = -.12, p < .0001). Independent of their sex atypicality, homosexual men were less attractive than same sex heterosexuals (b = -.12, p < .0001), and lesbians were rated to be less attractive than heterosexual women (b = -.09, p < .0001). Thus a yet unknown parameter related to homosexuality seemed relevant to raters. Attraction patterns were mostly unaffected by the raters’ sex or sexual orientation, and self reported gender identity and homophobia.
Siler-Knogl AK, Rieger G, Bailey JM. Sex Atypicality and Attractiveness in Gay and Heterosexual People. Psychological Science 2004. Later ASB paper https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9512-8
Gay people are more sex-atypical (e.g. feminine men, masculine women), yet they don’t seem to seek sex-atypical partners. However, this study suggests that while sex atypicality enhances attractiveness, independently, homosexuality has a negative effect, especially for men. Thus, a yet undefined factor seems to detriment the attractiveness of gay people.
Chivers ML, Rieger G, Latty E, Bailey JM (2004). A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal. Psychological Science, 15(11), 736-744. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00750.x
Chivers ML, Rieger G, Latty EM, Bailey JM (2003). A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal. Psychological Science conference 2003.
Sexual arousal is category-specific in men; heterosexual men are more aroused by female than by male sexual stimuli, while homosexual men show the opposite pattern. There is reason to believe that female sexual arousal is altogether differently organized. We assessed genital and subjective sexual arousal to male and female sexual stimuli in women, men, and postoperative male-to-female transsexuals. In contrast to men, women showed little category-specificity on either genital or subjective measures. Both heterosexual and homosexual women experienced strong genital arousal to both male and female sexual stimuli. Transsexuals showed a category-specific pattern, demonstrating that category specificity can be detected in the neovagina using a photoplethysmographic measure of female genital sexual arousal. In a second study, we showed that our female results are unlikely to be explained by ascertainment biases. These findings suggest that sexual arousal patterns play a fundamentally different role in male and female sexuality.
Rieger G (2003). Research interests. J. Michael Bailey faculty website http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/rieger.html [archive]
Rieger G, Chivers ML, Bailey JM (2002), Who are bisexual men? Sexual orientation and sexual arousal in men. International Academy of Sex Research conference http://www.iasr.org/meeting/2002/abstracts_2002.pdf [archive]
Media
Cara Delevingne (2022). Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne. BBC 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0df24z1/planet-sex-with-cara-delevingne
Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker (2008). Bi the Way. [featuring Ritch Savin-Williams, Dan Savage, Gerulf Rieger, Pepper Schwartz, Meredith Chivers, J. Michael Bailey]
Lesley Stahl (August 27, 2006). “Gay or Straight?” [featuring J. Michael Bailey, Gerulf Rieger, and Marc Breedlove] 60 Minutes S38E25 CBS
“Recently, we finished our study on male sexual arousal and sexual orientation. We were most interested in figuring out whether putative bisexual men do really get aroused to both men and women. There has been a long-lasting skepticism as to whether bisexual men are really what they say they are. Some people suggested that they are closet gay men. Others said that they are confused heterosexual men. So what are they? We invited all heterosexual, gay, and bisexual men into our lab, and measured their sexual arousal with help of a penile strain gauge while showing them movies of naked men or of naked women. We found no obvious bisexual arousal trends for the bisexual men. Most of them showed arousal like gay men, and a few got aroused like heterosexual men. Here you will find a link to the poster, which was presented at the IASR conference in Hamburg in the Summer of 2002.” [published 2003]
I am interested in human behavior, especially non-verbal behavior that does not depend on self-reports. Right now I am of course interested in human sexuality. What are the causes and the effects of a person’s sexual orientation? Could there be any adaptive qualities to being gay? Is sexual orientation correlated with any other personality traits, and if so, what can they tell us about the development of sexual orientation?
Right now, we are working on a study on the butch and femme behavior of gay people and at its effects on the mate value of the individual. We do know that gay men tend to prefer masculine men as partners and claim that they want “no femmes”. Lesbians on the other hand seek feminine partners and want “no butches” (link to Mike’s butch, femme study). Despite this tendency towards attraction for gender conforming traits, we also know that gay men are on average more feminine than heterosexual men and that lesbians are, on average, more masculine than heterosexual women (link to Mike’s unpublished study). However, we do not yet know what specific characteristics gay men mean when they say “no femmes” and what do lesbians mean when they want “no butches.
Recently, we finished our study on male sexual arousal and sexual orientation. We were most interested in figuring out whether putative bisexual men do really get aroused to both men and women. There has been a long-lasting skepticism as to whether bisexual men are really what they say they are. Some people suggested that they are closet gay men. Others said that they are confused heterosexual men. So what are they? We invited all heterosexual, gay, and bisexual men into our lab, and measured their sexual arousal with help of a penile strain gauge while showing them movies of naked men or of naked women. We found no obvious bisexual arousal trends for the bisexual men. Most of them showed arousal like gay men, and a few got aroused like heterosexual men. Here you will find a link to the poster, which was presented at the IASR conference in Hamburg in the Summer of 2002.
My next project will have a closer look at the possible genetic contribution to sexual orientation. We plan to work with discordant twins. These are identical twins, who differ on a specific trait. In our case, this will be their sexual orientation. For example, one twin is a gay man, but his brother is heterosexual. This could support the idea that sexual orientation is not solely genetically determined. However, no one has to our knowledge ever systematically tried to explore the twins’ sexual orientation by other means than pure self-report. There are several traits that we know gay and heterosexual people differ. We can use these traits to study our twins. How different or similar are these discordant twins in their psychology, their voices, their movements, or less subtle, their sexual arousal, and their brain activity while sexual aroused?
Personal Information
On a personal note, I seem to be a person who likes to move. I started in Biology in Vienna then moved to Biological Anthropology in Zurich and now I am here at Northwestern in the Psychology Department.
Here’s a picture of me & Marcel, [http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/pictures/gerulf&marcel.jpg archive] and one of me and some people from the lab [http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/pictures/gerulfparty.jpg archive] at a party.
Cornell University Sex and Gender Lab (sexgenderlab.human.cornell.edu) [archive]
“Research interests: My work focuses on sexual orientation: how it is organized, how it develops, and how it affects a persons life. I use a diversity of methodologies, including self-report, behavioural observations, physiological activity and neurological correlates, and employ an array of quantitative skills in order to pursue my research. I use videos and photos from childhood to examine whether masculine and feminine behaviours during early development predict adult sexual orientation. I also investigate the social impact of these signals. I have used large data sets of family members to investigate potential evolutionary reasons for sexual orientation. In another line of research, I study the association of sexual orientation with physiological sexual arousal in order to illuminate sex differences in sexual response. With a different methodology, pupil dilation, I am currently conducting research that will aid in explaining how early sex and sexual orientation differences in sexual attraction emerge. These studies have broad relevance for understanding how people perceive themselves and others, for the consequences of these perceptions, and for the development of differences between and within the sexes.”
Note: The original 2003 URL for this article was http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/gerulf-rieger.html [archive]
David Sylva is an American psychologist whose graduate work involved questionable studies about sex and gender minorities.
Background
David M. “Dave” Sylva was born in July 1980. Sylva did graduate work with controversial Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey. Bailey is well known for work in the field of anti-LGBT eugenics, which Bailey euphemistically calls “parental selection of children’s sexual orientation.” Bailey’s other students at the time included Gerulf Rieger, Chris Skidmore, and Elizabeth Latty.
One of Sylva’s early projects was to claim that gay men can be identified by their stereotypical gait.
Bailey claimed for years that male bisexuality did not exist, stating that men are “gay, straight, or lying.” After taking money from the American Institute of Bisexuality, Sylva and Bailey grad students Jeremy Jabbour and Luke Holmes magically “discovered” bisexual orientation among men.
After the bisexuality organization paid Sylva to “discover” male bisexuality, Sylva’s 2012 dissertation was titled “Neural Correlates of Sexual Arousal in Bisexual, Homosexual, and Heterosexual Men.” Since that payoff, Sylva’s work has been used to shore up one of Bailey’s other claims: that women may not have a sexual orientation.
Impact on transgender clients at Kaiser
Following this amazing “discovery” with Bailey, Sylva then began working for insurance company Kaiser Permanente in California.
Licensure:
NPI Number: #1790106961
Medical license: PSY26122 (CA)
Though Sylva is a member of WPATH, sex and gender minorities should avoid getting healthcare from Sylva due to this professional affiliation with J. Michael Bailey and associated anti-trans psychologists.
Safron A, Sylva D, Klimaj V, Rosenthal AM, Li M, Walter M, Bailey JM (2018). Neural Correlates of Sexual Orientation in Heterosexual, Bisexual, and Homosexual Women. Scientific Reports. 8: 673 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep41314
Safron A, Sylva D, Klimaj V, Rosenthal AM, Li M, Walter M, Bailey JM (2017). Neural Correlates of Sexual Orientation in Heterosexual, Bisexual, and Homosexual Men. Scientific Reports. 7: 41314 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-18372-0
Jabbour J, Holmes L, Sylva D, Bailey JM (2020). Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117 (31) 18369-18377 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003631117
Klimaj V, Safron A, Sylva D, Rosenthal AM, Li M, Walter M, Bailey JM (2021). Sexual Orientation and Neuroanatomy: An MRI Study of Gray Matter Differences in Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Women and Men. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zuyhp
Klimaj V, Safron A, Sylva D, Rosenthal AM, Li M, Walter M, and Bailey JM (2021). Comparing the Structure and Function of Social-cognition-related Brain Areas in Bisexual, Heterosexual, and Homosexual Women and Men. PsyArXiv, August 16 https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/62wvd
Sylva D, Safron A, Rosenthal AM, et al. (2013) Neural correlates of sexual arousal in heterosexual and homosexual women and men. Hormones and Behavior. 64: 673-84 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.08.003
Sylva D, Rieger G, Linsenmeier JAW, Bailey JM (2010). Concealment of sexual orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 39: 141-52 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9466-2
Can you tell whether someone’s gay just by the way he or she walks?
David Sylva wants to know. He straps bright red lights to people’s bodies and videotapes them walking in the dark. He then shows the videotape to observers (who won’t be biased by clothing or hairstyles since the walker is in the dark) and asks them to guess the walker’s sexual orientation.
Sylva’s observations focus on the physical characteristics of the individual’s stride, such as the closeness of the knees.
Why does Sylva, a graduate student at Northwestern University, care so much about how gay people walk? Because he’s one of a growing number of researchers who think sexual orientation may be as basic as how you walk, something inborn that you don’t choose.
David Sylva, a graduate student at Northwestern University, has been studying individual walking styles to see if homosexuals’ strides are different from those of their straight counterparts. He hopes the data will give support to the nature side of the sexual orientation argument.
Connie Lee (July 6, 2007). Research points to inherit [sic] trait for homosexuality; some dispute. The Purdue Exponent. http://www.purdueexponent.org/index.php?module=article&story_id=6347 [archive]
Below: Skidmore as he appears on Bailey’s website.
Gender Nonconformity and Psychological Distress in Lesbians and Gay Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Volume 35, Number 6 / December, 2006
W. Christopher Skidmore, Joan A. W. Linsenmeier and J. Michael Bailey
Abstract
Some lesbians and gay men tend to be more gender nonconforming, on average and for certain traits, than their heterosexual counterparts. Gender nonconformity in childhood has also been linked to adult homosexuality. Studies of both lesbians and gay men also find elevated rates of psychological distress. We hypothesized that these facts may be related. Individuals who violate social norms for gender-appropriate behavior may suffer from stigmatization by both heterosexual and homosexual people, leading to higher levels of psychological distress. We examined whether several measures of gender nonconformity were related to psychological distress in a community-based sample of gay men and lesbians. These included self-reports of childhood and adulthood gender nonconformity, as well as observer ratings of current behavior. Several measures of gender nonconformity were related to each other for both lesbians and gay men. In addition, gender nonconformity was related to psychological distress, but only for gay men. Finally, both lesbian and gay male participants reported more positive attitudes towards gender conformity than nonconformity, although the pattern was somewhat different for each group. We discuss the implications of these results for future studies of gender nonconformity and for the promotion of psychological health in lesbians and gay men.
29. 03. 2007 :: :: Sexuality Experiment for Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual, and Queer Men Chris Skidmore Northwestern University Your answers are completely confidential, and you won ‘t have to provide identifying information about yourself. People say the study is fun, and it doesn’t take long. You will have a chance to enter to win a gift certificate, too. Men, over the age of 18, wanted for a study about relationships and health (IRB #0108-017). Participation takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes. You will have a chance to win one of three $50 gift certificates if you choose to participate.
Bailey is well known for his work in the field of eugenics.
Anthony Francis “Tony” Bogaert (born 1963) is a Canadian psychologist who has written on asexuality and paraphilia.
Background
Bogaert earned a PhD in Psychology from the Western University in 1993, with a dissertation titled “The Sexual Media: The Role Of Individual Differences.”
He then did postdoctorate work at the University of Toronto and Queen’s University. In 1996, he was appointed to a position at Brock University.
Asexuality and transgender people
Bogaert argues that some asexual people have a lack of subjective sexual attraction, meaning that they experience objective attraction or arousal, but their subjective identity as a person is not connected to that attraction. Via his book Understanding Asexuality:
They–as individuals– are disconnected from their sexual responses to others of to sexual stimulation on some level. The missing piece for them is the I or me, or an identity as an individual, in subjective sexual attraction. In other words, the I is missing in the statement “I am attracted to . . .”
A similar phenomenon may occur in some forms of transgenderism. A transgendered person who was born as a biological male, for example, may not “own” his masculine responses. This individual may behave in a traditional masculine way, he may appear masculine, and his body my respond to stimulation in a traditionally masculine way, even sexually. But if this person does not “own” her responses, and in fact is completely disconnected from them because of an internal sense of self as female, these masculine responses are not part of her identity, or her I or me.
Similar forms of disconnected sexuality have been discussed in the clinical literature on paraphilias. Indeed, this phenomenon may be construed as a rather exotic paraphilia, which literally means “beyond love,” or “love beyond the usual.” Thus, a paraphilia can mean that an individual has a sexual attraction to something unusual. It could also imply something broader: any kind of unusual sexual phenomenon associated with a person, and not merely a sexual attraction to something unusual. As a consequence, if you are keeping score, the label of “asexuality” could still apply to masterbating asexuals with “disconnected” fantasies, because their paraphilia is an unusual sexual phenomenon: there is no subjective sexual attraction to anything. Complicated indeed!
Bogaert, p. 118-119
Automonosexualism and transgender people
Automonosexualism was proposed by Rohleder in 1907 as a term for people who are attracted to themselves sexually. Bogaert subscribes to Blanchard’s “erotic target location error” hypothesis, where someone directs their sexual interests inward instead of outward:
Automonosexualism is rare and has sometimes been associated with transgendered individuals. For example, the phenomenon of autogynephilia (in which a man is sexually attracted to himself, but as a woman) is a type of auyomonosexualism.
Bogaert, p. 120
Publications
Understanding Asexuality
Bogaert, A.F., Ashton, M.C., & Lee, K. (in press). Sexual orientation and personality: Extension to asexuality and the HEXACO model. Journal of Sex Research.
Ellis, L., Skorska, M. N., & Bogaert, A.F. (in press). Handedness, sexual orientation, and biomarkers for prenatal androgens: Are southpaws really that gay? Laterality.
Hafer, C. L., Mantonakis, A., Fitzgerald, A., & Bogaert, A. F. (in press). The effectiveness of deservingness-based advertising messages: The role of product knowledge and belief in a just world. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences.
Hoffarth, M., & Bogaert, A. F. (in press). Opening the closet door: Openness to experience, masculinity, religiosity, and coming out among same-sex attracted men. Personality and Individual Differences.
Bogaert, A. F. (2017). What asexuality tells us about sexuality: Commentary on Brotto and Yule (2016). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 629.
Skorska, M. N., & Bogaert, A. F. (2017). Pubertal Stress and nutrition, and the association of sexual orientation and height in the Add Health data. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 217-236.
Skorska, M., Blanchard, R., Zucker, K., VanderLaan, D. & Bogaert, A. F. (2017). Gay Male Only-Children: Evidence for Low Birth Weight and High Maternal Miscarriages. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 205-215.
Skorska, M. N., & Bogaert, A. F. (2017). Sexual orientation, objective height, and self-reported height. Journal of Sex Research, 54, 19-32.
Bogaert, A. F. (2016). Asexuality as an orientation. In S. B. Levine (Ed.) Handbook of Clinical Sexuality for Mental Health Professionals, 3rd Ed. (pp. 385-388).New York: Routledge.
Bogaert, A. F., Visser, B. A., & Pozzebon, J. A. (2015). Gender differences in object of desire self-consciousness sexual fantasies. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 2299-2310.
Skorska, M. N., Geniole, S. N., Vrysen, T., McCormick, C.M., & Bogaert, A. F. (2015). Face structure predicts sexual orientation in men and women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 1377-1394.
Bogaert, A. F. (2015). Asexuality: What is it, and why it matters. Annual Review of Sex Research, 52, 362-379.
Pozzebon, J.A., Visser, B. A., & Bogaert, A. F. (2015). Vocational interests, personality, and sexual fantasies as indicators of a general masculinity/femininity factor. Personality and Individual Differences, 86, 291–296.
Visser, B. A., DeBow, V., Pozzebon, J. A., Bogaert, A. F., & Book, A. (2015). Psychopathic sexuality: The thin line between fantasy and reality. Journal of Personality, 83, 376–388.
*Bogaert, A. F., & Brotto, L. (2014). Object of desire self-consciousness theory. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 40, 323-338. *Awarded the best theory paper for 2014, Ira and Harriet Reiss Theory Award, by the Society for Scientific Study of Sex (SSSS) and the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sex (FSSS) in September, 2015.
Rubel, A.N., & Bogaert, A.F. (2014). Consensual non-monogamy: Psychological well-being and relationship quality correlates. Journal of Sex Research, 4, 1-22.
Bogaert, A. F. (2013). The demography of asexuality. In A. Baumle (Ed.), International handbook on the demography of sexuality. (pp. 275-288). New York: Springer Press.
Bogaert, A. F., & Liu, J. (2013). Physical size and sexual orientation: Analysis of the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42, 1555–1559
.Bogaert, A. F. (2012). Understanding Asexuality. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Inc.
Bogaert, A.F. (2012). Asexuality and autochorissexualism (identity-less sexuality). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 1513-1514.
Pozzebon, J. A., Visser, B. A., & Bogaert, A. F. (2012). What makes you think you’re so sexy, tall, and thin? The prediction of self-rated attractiveness, height, and weight. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,42, 2671–2700.
Anthony Bogaert on transsexualismAnthony Bogaert is and associate professor at Brock University in Ontario. He has published work with Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey.
Johnson is Managing editor of The Archives of Sexual Behavior journal controlled by Clarke Institute personnel via the International Academy of Sex Research.
Co-authors include race scientist Julian-Phillippe Rushton (at Western Ontario University) John Cairney (also at Brock) and Ray Blanchard of the Clarke Institute.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. Proportion of homosexual men who owe their sexual orientation to fraternal birth order: An estimate based on two national probability samples. Am J Human Biol. 2004 Mar-Apr;16(2):151-7. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Bogaert AF, Cairney J. The interaction of birth order and parental age on sexual orientation: an examination in two samples. J Biosoc Sci. 2004 Jan;36(1):19-37. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St Catharines, Canalda L2S 3A1.
Bogaert AF. Interaction of older brothers and sex-typing in the prediction of sexual orientation in men. Arch Sex Behav. 2003 Apr;32(2):129-34. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1. tbogaertATspartan.ac.brocku.ca
Bogaert AF. The interaction of fraternal birth order and body size in male sexual orientation. Behav Neurosci. 2003 Apr;117(2):381-4. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF. Number of older brothers and sexual orientation: new tests and the attraction/behavior distinction in two national probability samples. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Mar;84(3):644-52. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF, Friesen C. Sexual orientation and height, weight, and age of puberty: new tests from a British national probability sample. Biol Psychol. 2002 Mar;59(2):135-45. Department of Community Health Sciences, Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada L2S 3A1. [email protected]
Bogaert AF, Friesen C, Klentrou P. Age of puberty and sexual orientation in a national probability sample. Arch Sex Behav. 2002 Feb;31(1):73-81. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1. [email protected]
Cantor JM, Blanchard R, Paterson AD, Bogaert AF. How many gay men owe their sexual orientation to fraternal birth order? Arch Sex Behav. 2002 Feb;31(1):63-71. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Bogaert AF. Personality, individual differences, and preferences for the sexual media. Arch Sex Behav. 2001 Feb;30(1):29-53. Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1. [email protected]
Bogaert AF. Handedness, criminality, and sexual offending. Neuropsychologia. 2001;39(5):465-9. Community Health Sciences, Brock University, L2S 3A1, St. Catharines, Canada. [email protected]
Blanchard R, Barbaree HE, Bogaert AF, Dickey R, Klassen P, Kuban ME, Zucker KJ. Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Arch Sex Behav. 2000 Oct;29(5):463-78. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF, Hershberger S. The relation between sexual orientation and penile size. Arch Sex Behav. 1999 Jun;28(3):213-21. Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. [email protected] Comment in: Arch Sex Behav. 2000 Jun;29(3):303-5.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. Birth order in homosexual versus heterosexual sex offenders against children, pubescents, and adults. Arch Sex Behav. 1998 Dec;27(6):595-603. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Ontario, Canada.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. The relation of closed birth intervals to the sex of the preceding child and the sexual orientation of the succeeding child. J Biosoc Sci. 1997 Jan;29(1):111-8. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Bogaert AF. Birth order and sibling sex ratio in homosexual and heterosexual non-white men. Arch Sex Behav. 1998 Oct;27(5):467-73. Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF. Birth order and sexual orientation in women. Behav Neurosci. 1997 Dec;111(6):1395-7. Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF, Bezeau S, Kuban M, Blanchard R. Pedophilia, sexual orientation, and birth order. J Abnorm Psychol. 1997 May;106(2):331-5. Department of Behavioral Sexology, Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. Additive effects of older brothers and homosexual brothers in the prediction of marriage and cohabitation. Behav Genet. 1997 Jan;27(1):45-54. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]
Bogaert AF. Genital asymmetry in men. Hum Reprod. 1997 Jan;12(1):68-72. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Canada.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. Biodemographic comparisons of homosexual and heterosexual men in the Kinsey Interview Data. Arch Sex Behav. 1996 Dec;25(6):551-79. Gender Identity Clinic, Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Bogaert AF, Blanchard R. Handedness in homosexual and heterosexual men in the Kinsey interview data. Arch Sex Behav. 1996 Aug;25(4):373-8. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Bogaert AF. Volunteer bias in human sexuality research: evidence for both sexuality and personality differences in males. Arch Sex Behav. 1996 Apr;25(2):125-40. Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.
Blanchard R, Bogaert AF. Homosexuality in men and number of older brothers. Am J Psychiatry. 1996 Jan;153(1):27-31. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comment in: Am J Psychiatry. 1997 Jan;154(1):136-7. Am J Psychiatry. 1997 Jan;154(1):136; author reply 137. Am J Psychiatry. 1997 Jan;154(1):136; author reply 137.
Rushton JP, Bogaert AF. Population differences in susceptibility to AIDS: an evolutionary analysis. Soc Sci Med. 1989;28(12):1211-20. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Allen Rosenthal is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist who published pathologizing research on transgender people and trans-attracted people with advisor J. Michael Bailey at Northwestern University.
Rosenthal is based in Vallejo California. Do not go to Rosenthal for therapy of any kind, especially if you are trans or gender diverse.
Background
Allen Michael Rosenthal was born December 10, 1979. Rosenthal graduated in 1997 from Robinson Secondary in Fairfax, Virginia, then attended Brigham Young University from 2004 to 2006. Around that time, Rosenthal earned the first of two Bachelor’s degrees.
Rosenthal earned a second Bachelor’s Degree in psychology from University Of Utah in 2006, where he was a member of Psi Chi, Phi Kappa Phi, and Golden Key Honor Society. He then came to Northwestern University for his PhD.
Rosenthal wrote in 2008:
I moved to Chicago in July of 2007 after having spent ten bittersweet years in Utah. While there, I started college at Brigham Young University, came out of the closet at the ripe ol’ age of 18, left BYU, moved to Salt Lake City, and met my partner (now of nine years). Together, we became ‘New Agers’ for several years, were heavily involved with life enhancement trainings, and then became anti-‘New Agers’ (read: realists). Finally, beginning in 2004, I discovered psychology–the ‘science of the mind’–and completed a BS (my second) in Psychology at the University of Utah.
The Northwestern University psychology department profiled him in 2011:
Originally from the suburbs of Washington, DC, Allen Rosenthal completed his undergraduate work at the University of Utah, where he graduated with a major in psychology in 2006. Before he began attending graduate school, he worked in three psychology labs and gained clinical experience doing psychological assessments of sex offenders. Allen’s primary research area is sexual orientation and the paraphilias (i.e., uncommon / unusual sexual interests). Although his interests within this field are many, he is especially interested in the relationships between sexual arousal, behavior, and orientation. His lab has recently published two papers on a study of the sexual arousal of bisexual men. Contrary to earlier controversial findings which suggested that bisexual men are only aroused by men, they found that a subpopulation of bisexual men are aroused by both men and women (in the lab). Currently, Allen is conducting two studies of men who are sexually attracted to partially transitioned male-to-female transsexuals. This phenomenon is referred to as gynandromorphophilia (GAM), which roughly translates to woman-man-form-lover. Very little is known about men with GAM. Perhaps of greatest interest is whether they are otherwise primarily sexually attracted to men or women; one could easily tell the story either way. In another ongoing study, they are assessing the genital arousal of some of these men in the lab. When Allen is not doing research or clinical work, he enjoys being with his partner of twelve years and their two cats. He and his partner enjoy good food, movies, and gardening. His idea of heaven is making dinner with him using their own produce while Frank Sinatra plays in the background. He is also an avid cyclist and is oft to be found on the lakeshore trail bordering Lake Michigan. He gets some of his best thinking done while biking to and from Northwestern everyday. After graduate school, he plans on finding an academic job that will allow him to continue to wear his three favorite hats: researcher, clinician, and teacher.
Rosenthal interned from 2015-2016 at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Charleston. That school says he then worked in the Department of Psychiatry at a Kaiser Permanente facility in Vallejo, California.
Rosenthal was reportedly subjected to sexual orientation change efforts by NARTH.
Anti-transgender activism
Rosenthal diagnoses the common attraction to trans women as “gynandromorphophilia” (GAMP), which he and his colleagues describe as “sexual interest in gynandromorphs (GAMs; colloquially, shemales).”
Rosenthal and Bailey also magically “discovered” that bisexual men exist after receiving money from the American Institute of Bisexuality. Before the payment, Bailey had proclaimed in the press that bisexual men do not exist, saying males are “gay, straight, or lying.”
Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Miller DI, Bailey JM (2015). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women. Psychological Medicine. 2016 Mar;46(4):819-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002317 Epub 2015 Oct 26.
Rosenthal AM, Hsu KJ, Bailey JM (2017). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? An internet survey of men with sexual interest in transgender women. Archives of Sexual Behavior [17 Nov 2016, 46(1):255-264] https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0872-6
Khytam Dawood was a J. Michael Bailey student at Northwestern University and is now a geneticist at University of Chicago trying to replicate the “gay gene” work reported by Dean Hamer.
Dawood wrote one of the first glowing Amazon reviews for Bailey’s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. This book is widely considered the most defamatory book on gender variance since Janice Raymond published The Transsexual Empire in 1979. Dawood is a member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church as well as the member of a n number of behavior genetics trade groups.
Dawood is also involved in the gay brothers study with Alan Sanders.
This study reports on genetic and environmental influences on the frequency of orgasm in women during sexual intercourse, during other sexual contact with a partner, and during masturbation. Participants were drawn from the Australian Twin Registry, and recruited from a large, partly longitudinal twin-family study. Three thousand and eighty women responded to the anonymous self-report questionnaire, including 667 complete monozygotic (MZ) pairs and 377 complete dizygotic (DZ) same-sex pairs, 366 women from complete DZ opposite-sex pairs, and 626 women whose co-twins did not participate. Significant twin correlations were found for both MZ and DZ twin pairs for all three items of interest. Age effects were statistically significant for some items. Models incorporating additive genetic, shared and nonshared environmental influences provided the best fit for Items 1 and 3, while a model with additive and nonadditive genetic influences along with nonshared envir-onment fitted the data from Item 2. While an independent pathway model fits the data most par-simoniously, a common pathway model incorporating additive genetic (A), shared environment (C), and unique environment (E) effects cannot be ruled out. Overall, genetic influences account for approximately 31% of the variance of frequency of orgasm during sexual intercourse, 37% of the variance of frequency of orgasm during sexual contact other than during intercourse, and 51% of the variance of frequency of orgasm during masturbation. Following Baker (1996), we speculate that this additive genetic variance might arise from frequency-dependent selection for a variety of female sexual strategies.
Research has generally supported the existence of familial-genetic factors for male sexual orientation, but has not shed much light on the specific nature of those influences. Gay men with gay brothers provide the opportunity to examine several hypotheses. Sixty-six men, representing 37 gay male sibling pairs, completed questionnaires assessing behavior on various measures including childhood and adult gender nonconformity, timing of awareness of homosexual feelings, self-acceptance, and the quality of family relationships. Consistent with prior findings using twins, gay brothers were similar in their degree of childhood gender nonconformity, suggesting that this variable may distinguish etiologically (e.g., genetically) heterogeneous subtypes. The large majority of gay men with brothers knew about their own homosexual feelings before they learned about their brothers’ homosexual feelings, suggesting that discovery of brothers’ homosexuality is not an important cause of male homosexuality.
Available evidence suggests that male homosexuality is both familial and somewhat heritable and that some cases may be caused by an X-linked gene. However, most studies have recruited subjects in a relatively unsystematic manner, typically via advertisements, and hence suffer from the potential methodological flaw of ascertainment bias due to volunteer self-selection. In the present study we assessed the familiality of male homosexuality using two carefully ascertained samples and attempted to replicate findings consistent with X-linkage in three samples. The percentage of siblings of the probands rated as either homosexual or bisexual, with a high degree of certainty, ranged from 7 to 10% for brothers and 3 to 4% for sisters. These estimates are higher than recent comparable population-based estimates of homosexuality, supporting the importance of familial factors for male homosexuality. Estimates of lambda s for male homosexuality ranged from 3.0 to 4.0. None of the samples showed a significantly greater proportion of maternal than paternal homosexual uncles or homosexual male maternal first cousins. Although our results differed significantly with those of some prior studies, they do not exclude the possibility of moderate X-linkage for male sexual orientation.
University of Chicago researchers Khytam Dawood and Alan Sanders seek assistance in a research study entitled “Molecular Genetic Study of Sexual Orientation”. The study seeks to recruit approximately 500 pairs of homosexual brothers and available parents in order to perform a linkage study to better understand the genetic contributions to this trait. A sample size of 500 brother pairs will allow the study to clear up some of the statistical uncertainty in this field of inquiry in previous work (~50 or fewer pairs of brothers each, and only examining the X chromosome, i.e., Dean Hamer’s work and others). For further information, contact Alan Sanders, M.D., University of Chicago, phone: 773 834-3502, email: [email protected]; website: http://psychiatry.bsd.uchicago.edu/research/familyschizophrenia.html
Khytam Dawood, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in human behavior genetics research. Her work is primarily focused on investigating the genetics and development of human sexual orientation. A related area of clinical and research interest is in child and adolescent gender nonconformity, and gender identity disorder.
Child/Adolescent Gender Identity Service. This rotation includes clinical experience with both children and adolescent populations. Interns will also receive training in providing comprehensive psychological evaluation for gender identity problems in children and adolescents where there is concern about a child’s gender identity development, or an adolescent who is struggling with sexual orientation. A support group for parents will also be offered. The rotation requires participation in weekly group supervision and a weekly clinical/research seminar, and guided practice in cognitive-behavioral case formulation. (Director: Khytam Dawood)
