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Marc Breedlove vs. transgender people

Marc Breedlove is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.

Background

Stephen Marc Breedlove was born in 1954 in Missouri. After graduating from Springfield High School in 1952, Breedlove aerned a bachelor’sdegree from Yale University, then attended University of California, Los Angelesm earning a master’s degree and doctorate.

Breedlove was a professor of psychology at the notoriuosly transphobic psychology department at University of California, Berkeley, from 1982 to ~2002.  Breedlove then moved to Michigan State University.

Breedlove publishes on brain sexual dimorphism and the biology of sexual orientation.

The Sex Files (2000)

Breedlove was featured on a show about homosexuality with Bailey and his usual suspects:

The Sex Files
HOMOSEXUALITY
IN THIS EPISODE

Why are some people gay? That’s the $64,000 question – at least in the scientific community. Is it something genetically predetermined? Or does environment have an impact on whether an individual turns out to be gay or lesbian? These questions are beginning to be probed in ways that might finally be leading to an answer, and the Sex Files has interviewed the foremost authorities on the topic to uncover some of those scientific clues:

  • Dr. Devendra Singh, University of Texas psychologist specializing in the evolutionary significance of human physical attractiveness
  • Dr. Ken Zucker, head of the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic at the University of Toronto’s Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
  • Dr. Ray Blanchard, head of the Clinical Sexology program at the University of Toronto’s Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
  • Dr. Michael Bailey, professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois and specialist in the genetics and environment of sexual orientation
  • Dr. Marc Breedlove, professor* specialising in the sexual differentiation of the brain.

* The original episode guide described Dr. Breedlove as a “professor of psychology at UCLA.” Dr. Breedlove noted in 2008 “I am not, and have never been, a professor of psychology or of anything else at UCLA.” Breedlove earned his Ph.D. at UCLA but taught at UC Berkeley before taking an appointment at Michigan State.

The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)

Breedlove was one of the first to write an Amazon shill review for the transphobic book The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey on 30 April 2003:

What’s the fuss about? Read the book, think for yourself

Why this vehement response to this terrific book? Because Bailey describes male-to-female transsexuals who report an experience that is quite different from the familiar “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. Bailey never casts doubt that there are such people, in fact he interviews and describes several. But he finds that not all M2F transsexuals fit that mold. So the fuss you’re reading in these reviews are from M2F transsexuals who refuse to acknowledge that other M2F transsexuals might have a different experience than their own. There’s no reason to think the women Bailey interviewed would have been lying to him, and why isn’t their experience as valid as yours, mine or that of other transsexuals?

So get past all the landmines the critics are trying to use to deflect you from reading a thought-provoking, honest and entirely sympathetic view of the fascinating phenomenon of transsexuality.

By the way, it’s a great read, not at all stodgy. I promise you the pages will fly by.

Whom You Love (2014)

In 2012 Breedlove launched a failed crowdfunding campaign for a film called Whom You Love: the biology of sexual orientation. The project was then relaunched and reached half its original funding goal.

In 2014, Breedlove released a series of YouTube videos on a channel with that name, featuring many key anti-trans activists in academia.

References

-http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-21-1999.html

Suplee, Curt (November 1, 1995). Possible transsexual brain trait found. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/11/02/possible-transsexual-brain-trait-found/0c9cf0e8-2182-4f68-8cce-2367ec7c7ca9/

Resources

Michigan State University (msu.edu)

  • Breedlove’s page
  • https://www.msu.edu/~breedsm/mb.htm [archive]
  • https://msu.edu/honoredfaculty/directory/breedlove-marc-stephen.html

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

YouTube (youtube.com)