Jack Turban

Turban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1] Fearful of violence from his father, he did not come out as gay until he attended college.[11] He later wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine about his early experiences of childhood homophobia and how they influenced his experience of medical education.[11] Turban attended Harvard College where he studied neuroscience, then earned his medical and master of health science degrees from Yale School of Medicine. He completed psychiatry residency at McLean Hospital (Harvard Medical School).[12][13] He is a chief fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine.[12][13]

Turban has published studies showing that gender identity conversion therapies (attempts to make transgender people cisgender) are widespread in the US[14][15] and associated with suicide attempts.[16][17][18][19][20] His research has shown that access to gender-affirming medical care (puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones) during adolescence is linked to better mental health outcomes in adulthood.[21][22][23][24] He has also been one of the few researchers to publish on the topic of gender de-transition,[25][26] including in the academic literature.[27][28][29]

Turban has been critical of the geosocial networking application Grindr, and argued in Vox that the app may have detrimental effects on the mental health of gay men.[30][9] He has complained that Grindr does not do enough to keep minors off of their platform, and that this may pose sexual risk to young people.[31] His opinion piece for The New York Times about minors on Grindr was one of several LGBT articles that were conspicuously censored with large white boxes in The New York Times print edition in Qatar.[32]

Turban has been criticized by conservative pundit Ben Shapiro as "embracing politically correct insanity as medicine."[33] The Daily Wire has accused him of misogyny for being in favor of transgender women competing in women's sports leagues.[34][35] Turban has been critical of Wall Street Journal writer Abigail Shrier's book Irreversible Damage, which claims that adolescents become transgender due to social contagion. He claimed that the book misinterpreted and omitted important scientific evidence about young people and gender identity.[36]