Irina Dinu vs. transgender people

Irina Dinu is a researcher based in Canada who has published with anti-trans activists Chan Moruzi and Ari R. Joffe.

Background

Irina Dinu earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Bucharest in 1999 and a doctorate from University of Alberta in 2005. Following a fellowship there from 2005 to 2007, Dinu joined the faculty of the University of Alberta School of Public Health.

Dinu has served as a biostatistical collaborator to pediatric critical care physician Ari Joffe through the Western Canadian Complex Pediatric Therapies Follow-up Program, a long-running effort to track how children fare after intensive, life-saving treatments early in life. They have coauthored research on neurocognitive outcomes following major treatmments such as heart surgery or liver transplant. Their partnership dates back at least to 2011.

Anti-trans coauthors

Dinu has coauthored letters to the editor with Ari Joffe and Chan Moruzi in response to articles that examined data on transgender healthcare. The letters critique the methods of studies using clinical records from gender-diverse patients, argue that the size of effects matters more than statistical significance alone, and highlight the high mental health burden in people seeking gender-related care. In the 2025 letter, they praise Lewis and coauthors’ approach but note some limitatuons. In the 2026 letter, they urge caution in interpreting the data. In both cases, they argue that the size of effects matters more than statistical significance alone and highlight the high mental health burden in people seeking gender-related care.

Selected writing by Dinu

Dinu, I., Kulatunga-Moruzi, C., & Joffe, A. R. (2026). Methodological Cautions in Interpreting Autism and Gender Dysphoria in a Referred Clinical Sample. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 71(11), 882–883. https://doi.org/10.1177/07067437261471757

• comment on Pascoe, M. I., Vincent, J., Lai, M.-C., Desarkar, P., Vitopoulos, N., Lunsky, Y., MacKinnon, K. R., & Lam, J. S. H. (2026). The Intersection of Autism and Gender Diversity in the Canadian Clinical Context: Characterizing a Sample of Adults Referred to Canada’s Largest Publicly Funded Adult Gender-Care Service. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 71(11), 840–849. https://doi.org/10.1177/07067437261442432

Kulatunga-Moruzi, C., Dinu, I., & Joffe, A. R. (2025). Letter to the Editor on “Examining gender-specific mental health risks after gender-affirming surgery: a national database study.” The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 22(9), 1712–1713. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdaf160

• comment on Lewis, J. E., Patterson, A. R., Effirim, M. A., Patel, M. M., Lim, S. E., Cuello, V. A., Phan, M. H., & Lee, W.-C. (2025). Examining gender-specific mental health risks after gender-affirming surgery: a national database study. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 22(4), 645–651. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdaf026

Resources

University of Alberta (ualberta.ca)

• Irina Dinu, PhD, BSc
• apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/idinu

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

• irina-dinu-a6538227

Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)

• Irina Dinu
• scholar.google.com/citations?user=goiUbgEAAAAJ