| Discipline | Clinical psychiatry |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Kenneth Zucker |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1971–present |
| Publisher | |
| Frequency | Bimonthly |
| Hybrid | |
| 2.9 (2023) | |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Arch. Sex. Behav. |
| Indexing | |
| CODEN | ASXBA |
| ISSN | 0004-0002 (print) 1573-2800 (web) |
| LCCN | 71648996 |
| OCLC no. | 1183760 |
| Links | |
The Archives of Sexual Behavior is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal in sexology. It is the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research.
The journal was established in 1971 by Richard Green, who served as its editor-in-chief until 2001. [1] He was succeeded by Kenneth J. Zucker. [1] It is published by Springer Science+Business Media [2] and has become a leading journal in its field. [3] [ when? ]
The journal is abstracted and indexed in Biological Abstracts, Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences, EMBASE, Family & Society Studies Worldwide, Health and Safety Science Abstracts, Index Medicus/MEDLINE, Psychological Abstracts, PsycINFO, Referativny Zhurnal, Risk Abstracts, Sage Family Studies Abstracts, Scopus, Sexual and Relations Therapy, Social Sciences Citation Index, Social Science Index, Sociological Abstracts, Studies on Women & Gender Abstracts, and Violence and Abuse Abstracts. [2] According to the Journal Citation Reports , the journal's 2023 impact factor is 2.9. [4]
 | This section may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (October 2024) |
In 2003, a paper by Robert Spitzer was published outside "the usual peer-review process". [5] [6] This was based on 200 self-selected phone interviews, [7] including some with members of the ex-gay movement who self-reported that conversion therapy (a.k.a. "reparative therapy") changed their sexual orientation. [8] [5] The paper concluded: "There is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians." [7] [9] Before publication, the paper was presented at a psychiatry conference in 2001, [5] after which it "generated enormous public attention and controversy". [7] The journal published the paper alongside critical commentaries, including one saying conversion therapy violates ethics as defined by the Nuremberg Code. [5] Spitzer's paper became cited by political activists opposed to homosexuality, and the ex-gay movement. [7] [6] [5] Spitzer later agreed with critics of his paper's methodology, calling them "largely correct". [5] [8] In 2012, he asked the journal's editor (Kenneth Zucker) to retract it. [5] [8] [10] Zucker declined to retract the paper. [8] [10] A letter to the editor by Spitzer later appeared in the journal on the matter. [11] [7] [9]
A 2012 review of psychological literature concerning transgender youth between 1999 and 2008 found that cisgenderism and pathologization was common, the Archives was the second most prolific journal in their sample, there was an invisible college surrounding Zucker, and stated "our finding that Archives of Sexual Behavior, a journal for which Zucker serves as editor, was among the two journals that published the largest number of psychological articles on children's genders and expression may explain how editors in this field can fail to notice or address cisgenderist ideology in articles submitted for publication." [12]
On March 29, 2023, a methodologically flawed paper on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria authored by J. Michael Bailey and Suzanna Diaz was published. [13]
Researchers and LGBTQ organizations wrote an open letter to Springer Nature, the publisher, charging that the paper lacked institutional review board (IRB) approval and replicates "the severe methodological and interpretive flaws of previous research". [14] [15] The letter also stated the journal had a history of publishing questionable research under Zucker and signatories pledged to boycott the journal until Zucker was "replaced with an editor who has a demonstrated record of integrity on LGBTQ+ matters, and, especially, trans matters." [15] The press officer of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, which signed the letter, stated that "[a]rticles published in the journal during Dr. Zucker's editorship have repeatedly drawn criticism from the sections of the LGBTQ+ community about which the article claims to advance sexological knowledge". [15]
On May 10, a Publisher's Note was added to the article noting that concerns had been raised about its methodology. A spokesperson for Springer Nature said the paper's supplementary information "has been removed and a note added to record that this has been removed due to a lack of documented consent by study participants". [15] The same month, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism launched a counter-petition calling for Zucker to be kept and the article not be retracted, with signatories from the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, Genspect, the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, and the American College of Pediatricians. [15] [13] The paper was retracted by Springer in June 2023 due to the lack of IRB approval. [16] [13]
Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. Methods that have been used to this end include forms of brain surgery, surgical or chemical (hormonal) castration, aversion therapy treatments such as electric shocks, nausea-inducing drugs, hypnosis, counseling, spiritual interventions, visualization, psychoanalysis, and arousal reconditioning. There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity and that it frequently causes significant long-term psychological harm. The position of current evidence-based medicine and clinical guidance is that homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender variance are natural and healthy aspects of human sexuality. An increasing number of jurisdictions around the world have passed laws against conversion therapy.
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder. The International Classification of Diseases uses the term gender incongruence instead of gender dysphoria, defined as a marked and persistent mismatch between gender identity and assigned gender, regardless of distress or impairment.
The relationship between biology and sexual orientation is a subject of on-going research. While scientists do not know the exact cause of sexual orientation, they theorize that it is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. However, evidence is weak for hypotheses that the post-natal social environment impacts sexual orientation, especially for males.
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.
John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation and paraphilia. He maintains that male sexual orientation is most likely established in utero.
Fraternal birth order, also known as the older brother effect, has been correlated with male sexual orientation, with a significant volume of research finding that the more older brothers a male has from the same mother, the greater the probability he will have a homosexual orientation. Ray Blanchard and Anthony Bogaert first identified the association in the 1990s and named it the fraternal birth order effect. Scientists have attributed the effect to a prenatal biological mechanism, since the association is only present in men with older biological brothers, and not present among men with older step-brothers and adoptive brothers. The mechanism is thought to be a maternal immune response to male fetuses, whereby antibodies neutralize male Y-proteins thought to play a role in sexual differentiation during development. This would leave some regions of the brain associated with sexual orientation in the 'female typical' arrangement – or attracted to men.
Robert Leopold Spitzer was a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City. He was a major force in the development of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Richard Green was an American-British sexologist, psychiatrist, lawyer, and author known for his research on homosexuality and transsexualism, specifically gender identity disorder in children. He is known for his behaviorism experiment in which he attempted to prevent male homosexuality and transsexuality by extinguishing feminine behavior in young boys. He later came to favor biological explanations for male homosexuality.
In behavioral science, androphilia and gynephilia are sexual orientations: Androphilia is sexual attraction to men and/or masculinity; gynephilia is sexual attraction to women and/or femininity. Ambiphilia describes the combination of both androphilia and gynephilia in a given individual, or bisexuality. The terms offer an alternative to a gender binary homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization of sexuality.
Ray Milton Blanchard III is an American-Canadian sexologist who researches pedophilia, sexual orientation and gender identity. He has found that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay than men with fewer older brothers, a phenomenon he attributes to the reaction of the mother's immune system to male fetuses. Blanchard has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including autoerotic asphyxia. Blanchard also proposed a typology of transsexualism.
The American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s. Building on the work of earlier researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund, Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body. Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.
Gender incongruence is the state of having a gender identity that does not correspond to one's sex assigned at birth. This is experienced by people who identify as transgender or transsexual, and often results in gender dysphoria. The causes of gender incongruence have been studied for decades.
Kenneth J. Zucker is an American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist known for the living in your own skin model, a form of conversion therapy aimed at preventing pre-pubertal children from growing up transgender by modifying their gender identity and expression.
Jack Drescher is an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for his work on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Sexual fluidity is one or more changes in sexuality or sexual identity. Sexual orientation is stable for the vast majority of people, but some research indicates that some people may experience change in their sexual orientation, and this is slightly more likely for women than for men. There is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed through psychotherapy. Sexual identity can change throughout an individual's life, and does not have to align with biological sex, sexual behavior, or actual sexual orientation.
James M. Cantor is an American-Canadian clinical psychologist and sexologist specializing in hypersexuality and paraphilias.
Anne Alexandra Lawrence is an American psychologist, sexologist, and physician who has published extensively on gender dysphoria, transgender people, and paraphilias. Lawrence is a transgender woman and self-identifies as autogynephilic. She is best known for her 2013 book on autogynephilia, Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism, which has been regarded by Ray Blanchard as the definitive text on the subject. Lawrence is one of the major researchers in the area of Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and has been one of the most major proponents of the theory. While Blanchard's typology and autogynephilia are highly controversial subjects and are not accepted by many transgender women and academics, some, such as Lawrence, identify with autogynephilia. Lawrence's work also extends beyond Blanchard's typology, to transgender women and to transition more generally.
Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) beginning with the first edition, published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). This classification was challenged by gay rights activists during the gay liberation following the 1969 Stonewall riots, and in December 1973, the APA board of trustees voted to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1974, the DSM was updated and homosexuality was replaced with a new diagnostic code for individuals distressed by their homosexuality, termed ego-dystonic sexual orientation. Distress over one's sexual orientation remained in the manual, under different names, until the DSM-5 in 2013.
Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial, scientifically unsupported hypothesis which claims that some adolescents identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria due to peer influence and social contagion. ROGD is not recognized as a valid mental health diagnosis by any major professional associations. The APA, WPATH and 60 other medical professional organizations have called for its elimination from clinical settings due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept, major methodological issues in existing research, and its stigmatization of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The history of conversion therapy can be divided broadly into three periods: an early Freudian period; a period of mainstream approval of conversion therapy, when the mental health establishment became the "primary superintendent" of sexuality; and a post-Stonewall period where the mainstream medical profession disavowed conversion therapy.
