Donna Reter is an American secretary who was instrumental in ending transgender healthcare at Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
Background
Donna Jean Reter was a secretary for anti-trans psychologist Jon Meyer. They published a 1979 paper that was used by anti-trans psychiatrist Paul McHugh as the premise to shut down the gender clinic at Johns Hopkins. It is Reter’s only publication credit under that name.
1979 paper
Reter’s affiliation on the paper stated: “From the Departments of Psychiatry and Surgery (Dr Meyer), The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Dr Meyer and Ms Reter), The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore.”
In the 2014 book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, Nick Gorton and Hilary Maia Grubb noted:
Indeed, an influential research study conducted by psychiatrist Jon Meyer and coinvestigator Donna Reter under McHugh’s direction (Meyer & Reter, 1979) resulted in the closure of many academic medical center transgender care programs. This study compared transgender women who were offered surgery to those who were not (Lombardi, 2010). There were serious problems with the methodology of this study, and subsequent criticisms suggested that its conclusions were motivated more by politics than good science (Lothstein, 1982; Pfafflin & Jung, 1998). In addition, the paper did not conclude that transgender women had poorer outcomes with surgery; in fact, they had the same or better outcomes in each area measured in the study, and they experienced a better overall sense of well-being. However, the amount of improvement did not reach statistical significance, so the paper concluded that surgery was of no benefit.
Historian G. Samantha Rosenthal noted in Scientific American:
In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they cracked down on transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe. In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine led to the closure of the most well-respected clinics in the United States. And since 2021, when Arkansas became the first U.S. state among now at least 21 other states banning gender-affirming care for minors, we have been living in a third wave.
References
Carolyn Wolf-Gould, Dallas Denny, Jamison Green · 2025 A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States
Rosenthal, G. Samantha; The Conversation US (February 12, 2024). Pseudoscience Has Long Been Used to Oppress Transgender People. Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pseudoscience-has-long-been-used-to-oppress-transgender-people/
- also published as:
- Rosenthal, G. Samantha (February 4, 2024). Backlash to transgender health care isn’t new − but faulty science used to justify it has changed over time. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/transgender/transgender-health-care-backlash-history
Schechter, Loren D. (May 31, 2018). Expert witness report of Loren S. Schechter, M.D. https://files.eqcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/104-Schechter-Expert-Witness-Report.pdf
Gorton, Nick; Grubb, Hilary Maia (2014). General, sexual, and reproductive health. In Erickson-Schroth, Laura [Ed.] Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community. Oxford University Press ISBN 978019932536
Meyer JK, Reter DJ. (1979). Sex reassignment. Follow-up Archives of General Psychiatry, 36(9), 1010. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780090096010
Staff (Mar 2, 1973) “and Donna Jean Reter both of Baltimore.” Morning Herald [Hagerstown, Maryland] p. 6