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Lisa Diamond vs. transgender people

Lisa Diamond is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Diamond has published work with anti-trans activists J. Michael Bailey, Paul Vasey, Marc Breedlove, Eric Vilain, and Marc Epprecht. Diamond has been involved in Vasey’s anti-trans Puzzles of Sexual Orientation events and has received funding from the anti-trans American Institute of Bisexuality.

Diamond views sexual orientation identity and gender identity as potentially fluid over developmental time, starting in childhood and continuing into adulthood. Diamond’s claim that these characteristics can change over time has been used to argue against LGBT rights by conversion therapists and in Supreme Court briefs.

Background

Diamond earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Chicago in 1993, then attended Cornell University, earning a master’s degree in 1996 and a doctorate in 1999, studying with Ritch Savin-Williams.

Criticism of “born this way”

Diamond has been a key critic of the idea that sexual orientation is an innate and unchangeable characteristic. A 2018 article states:

Sexual fluidity entered the spotlight in 2008 when Lisa Diamond published her book, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, where she presents the results of a study in which she tracked women’s desires and identity labels over the course of a decade. She found that over time many of her participants shifted along Kinsey’s sexual orientation spectrum, often adopting new identity labels to accommodate their changing attractions and relationships. She’s careful to point out that sexual fluidity is not the same as bisexuality. Traditionally, even bisexual people were thought to occupy a fixed spot on the spectrum, but Diamond challenges that narrative. She recalls one participant who described herself as equally attracted to men and women, but two years later reported that she was four times more attracted to women than to men.

Male bisexuality claims

Diamond was quoted by Benedict Carey in a 2005 New York Times article uncritically promoting the claim by Gerulf Rieger and J. Michael Bailey that male bisexuality does not exist, and that men are either “gay, straight, or lying.”

“Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures,” said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study.

The discrepancy between what is happening in people’s minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle “that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire.”

“We have assumed that everyone means the same thing,” she added, “but here we have evidence that that is not the case.”

Bailey frequently engages in “science by press conference,” a way of getting money and attention through carefully timed media manipulation with gullible or biased reporters. This study involved the use of a penile plethysmograph, a sort of genital “lie detector” which is considered inadmissible in court because it does not meet legal standards for reliability.

In 2020 Bailey and Rieger suddenly “discovered” male bisexuality after getting money from the anti-trans American Institute of Bisexuality. The person who gave them the money, AIB leader John Sylla, was also a co-author of their “discovery,” a clear conflict of interest. Once again, they got favorable press coverage for their remarkable “discovery” in the New York Times:

While some bisexual activists filled Bailey’s email inbox with hate mail, Sylla invited Bailey to dinner. “I wanted to work with Mike and help him design a better study,” Sylla told me. “What I said to him early on was: ‘Of course there are bisexual men. You just haven’t found them yet.’ ” Bailey said he was skeptical, but he was impressed with Sylla’s civility and decided to hear him out. That turned out to be a smart decision: A few years later, A.I.B. became an important source of funding for research on bisexuals. Lisa Diamond, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah who receives A.I.B. support, told me, “It’s difficult to get funding to study sexual orientation for its own sake, unless you’re linking it to mental or physical health issues like H.I.V. or suicidality.”

References

Cook, C. C. H. (2020). The causes of human sexual orientation. Theology & Sexuality, 27(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2020.1818541

Adiami, Nicholas (July 2018). Sex and Gender Fluidity versus ‘Born This Way.’ Gay & Lesbian Review https://glreview.org/article/sex-and-gender-fluidity-versus-born-this-way/

Dalton, Colette; Mower, Kate (April 11, 2022). Dr. Lisa Diamond (she/her). https://calledtoqueer.com/index.php/2022/04/11/dr-lisa-diamond-she-her/

Granek, Leeat (August 6, 2011). Psychology’s Feminist Voices Oral History Project: Interview with Lisa Diamond. https://feministvoices.com/files/profiles/pdf/Lisa-Diamond-Oral-History.pdf

Boso, Luke, Disrupting Sexual Categories of Intimate Preference (2010). 21 Hastings Women’s L. J. 59 (2010), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1537243

Vaughn-Blount, Kelli (2008). Champions of Psychology: Lisa Diamond. Observer. 21 (2). https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/champions-of-psychology-lisa-diamond original url https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2008/february-08/champions-of-psychology-lisa-diamond.html

Coverage in anti-trans press

Maltz Bovy, Phoebe (April 15, 2025). Unintended consequences: MAGA vs. microaggressions. Close-reading the reruns with Phoebe Maltz Bovy https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/unintended-consequences

Carey, Benedict (July 5, 2005). Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/straight-gay-or-lying-bisexuality-revisited.html original url http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html

Selected writing by Diamond

Diamond, Lisa M.; Villicaña, Ángel; Burton, Raven (2024). The Development of Diversity in Gender/Sexual Identity and Expression. In Marc H. Bornstein, Michael E. Lamb [editors]. Developmental Science (8th edition). Routledge, ISBN 9781003387145

Diamond, Lisa M. (2023). The Health of Sexually-Diverse and Gender-Diverse Populations. In Gia Merlo, Christopher P. Fagundes [editors]. Lifestyle Psychiatry: Through the Lens of Behavioral Medicine. CRC Press ISBN 9781003275671

Diamond, L.M. What Develops in the Biodevelopment of Sexual Orientation?. Arch Sex Behav 52, 2985–2991 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02542-5

Diamond, L. M. (2020). Gender Fluidity and Nonbinary Gender Identities Among Children and Adolescents. Child Development Perspectives, 14(2), 110–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12366

Diamond, L. M., & Rosky, C. J. (2016). Scrutinizing Immutability: Research on Sexual Orientation and U.S. Legal Advocacy for Sexual Minorities. The Journal of Sex Research, 53(4–5), 363–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1139665

Bailey, J. M., Vasey, P. L., Diamond, L. M., Breedlove, S. M., Vilain, E., Epprecht, M. (2016). Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(2), 45–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616637616

Diamond, L. M. (2013). Sexual-minority, gender-nonconforming, and transgender youths. In D. S. Bromberg & W. T. O’Donohue (Eds.), Handbook of child and adolescent sexuality: Developmental and forensic psychology (pp. 275–300). Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-387759-8.00011-8

Diamond, L.M., Pardo, S.T., Butterworth, M.R. (2011). Transgender Experience and Identity. In: Schwartz, S., Luyckx, K., Vignoles, V. (eds) Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_26

Diamond, L.M., Butterworth, M. Questioning Gender and Sexual Identity: Dynamic Links Over Time. Sex Roles 59, 365–376 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9425-3

Savin-Williams, R. C., & Diamond, L. M. (2000). Sexual Identity Trajectories Among Sexual-Minority Youths: Gender Comparisons. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29(6), 607–627. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1002058505138

Book

Diamond, Lisa (2009). Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0674032262

Media

SUU Eccles A.P.E.X. (February 20, 2024). Dr. Lisa Diamond – Eccles A.P.E.X. Speaker on 02/15/2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPF2uFc8rk

The Science and Cocktails Foundation (December 3, 2023). The Science Of Sexual And Gender Fluidity with Lisa Diamond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTPt1brlXA4

Southwestern University (February 18, 2022). “Gender, Genes, Desire, and Behavior: New Perspectives on Old Questions” with Lisa Diamond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL9j-oB8LKg

TEDx Talks (December 18, 2018). Why the “born this way” argument doesn’t advance LGBT equality | Dr. Lisa Diamond | TEDxSaltLakeCity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjX-KBPmgg4

Cornell Univeristy (December 6, 2013). Lisa Diamond on sexual fluidity of men and women. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2rTHDOuUBw

Truth Wins Out (November 6, 2013). Dr. Lisa Diamond: ‘It’s Important to Speak Out Against Research Distortions’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz3EVZichVE

psychfeministvoices (December 12, 2012). PFV Interview with Lisa Diamond: On Sexual Fluidity and the Media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTddYScFZLI

Big Think (April 23, 2012). Is Bisexuality a Phase? | Lisa Diamond | Big Think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U7kAZUTa7w

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

University of Utah Psychology (psych.utah.edu)

Psychology’s Feminist Voices (feministvoices.com)