The concept that sexual orientation is problematic is creating confusion and poor sexual boundaries in LGBT youth (and adult) environments, particularly online but also in real life. You will find that these are not isolated incidences but part of a pattern on our site here.

It is also logically inconsistent for people to argue, be they gender activists or mental health professionals, that trans people have a right to body autonomy and body choice, but this is problematic when applied to lesbians or gay men or straight people. Yet that is what we are seeing day in and day out.

Imagine the outrage that would ensue from a Psychology Today article alternatively titled “Why Can’t Trans People Just Be Happy with Their Natural Bodies & Stop Having Sex Reassignment Surgeries.” Yet the study this article is based on is in the same vein.

Our board consists of a gay man well aware that only about 2% of the male population would be willing to date other men. This is a lower percentage than the rate of those willing to date trans people, which is 12.5% in this article. Our board also consists of two bisexual women, who also may be subject to dating exclusion but support the right of people to not have fluid sexual orientations and the rights of bisexuals to not be fluid and desire specific traits without guilt.

Sexually fluid people will be more willing to date trans people and social acceptance will make them feel more comfortable doing that. But it is not appropriate to tell people their sexual orientations are problematic because they are not based on another’s self-perception. And there are trans people who agree.

We are concerned that the social sciences are beginning to play an active role in feeling entitled to be intrusive into others people lives, sexuality, and opinions about gender. And we are concerned that mental health professionals are not properly managing the expectations of trans youth who are becoming angry when they learn body parts are important to other people’s sexuality.

You claim in the article that “Ultimately, each individual has the freedom to decide whom they date.” While this is a good caveat it isn’t protecting anyone from the harm that this is actually doing in some real-life situations. And gender ideology is now being reinforced to school children who are being taught to believe biological sex is literally based on identity alone, told they must use third gender pronouns, and that there are “dozens of genders.”

It is social scientists’ professional and moral obligation to consider unintended consequences and externalities to narratives and agendas they promote beyond unemotional presentations of data. The Psychology Today article is not an objective presentation of data.

DeeDee Massey:

I'd see value in psychologists using a study to derive questions to design another study to find out why trans people have problems, if any, finding dates. But this PT article seems to speculate and come to forgone conclusions. By pushing these narratives, PT is helping to apply social pressure to coerce the public to play along with an agreed-upon fiction. I've dated people of various gender expressions, from "GNC" to post-op TS. I've determined that I don't want to date someone who doesn't share my values of honesty and authenticity. Denying the truth of one's sex doesn't reflect my values.

We want everyone to have love and support. We want everyone in the LGBT community to be included in social and family institutions. We want an LGBT community based on mutual respect for other peoples’ personal boundaries. We think sexual flexibility is a great thing if that is someone’s true nature.

But people have a right to reject postmodern queer theory without being painted as “problematic” by the mental health profession. People have sexual orientations and a right to reject indentity-based views of how sexuality works. And the lack of acknowledgment of these rights has done a lot of serious, irrevocable damage within the LGBT population. Psychologists and sociologists need to be more aware of this because they are increasingly participating in promoting these ideas. Many in the LGB population and elsewhere, are not going to tolerate these recent attempts at sexual shaming from the left any more than they are from the right. It’s not enough to say “you can date whoever you want…but.” It’s time to role model sexual boundaries to LGBT youth and come out in favor of respecting them.

Thank you for your time,



Rafael Quiles

Justine Kreher

DeeDee Massey