A WSN investigation found that at least two NYU faculty and alumni are members of organizations accused of promoting anti-transgender medical practices, which has sparked concern from students amid a federal crackdown on gender-affirming care for trans youth.

The organizations promote gender-exploratory therapy — formed by clinical social work and psychology experts — and legal and activist nonprofits allege that they spread misinformation about trans identities. Rather than provide treatment affirming one’s gender identity, such as puberty-blocking medication or hormone replacement therapy, these organizations allegedly connect what are known as “reparative” or “conversion” therapists with parents of trans children in order to slow or completely halt their personal or medical transitions.

Gender-affirming care has become a topic of great contention in the wake of the Trump administration’s executive order and NYU Langone Health’s cancellation of appointments for underage trans patients Prior to the Trump administration’s order blocking gender-affirming care for children under 19, NYU Langone Health provided children with trans care since at least 2020. With a program dedicated to serving trans youth, the medical center was a leading institution for trans health, providing personalized medical care and emotional support for children, adolescents and their families throughout the transition process.

WSN found that Dwight Panozzo, an adjunct professor at the Silver School of Social Work, and Silver alum Lisa Marchiano are board members of Therapy First — one of the organizations accused of engaging in gender-exploratory, or non-affirming, therapy.

Panozzo started at NYU in 2004. Long before he became involved in organizations that promote anti-trans sentiments, he served as a teaching assistant for Human Behavior in the Social Environment III, a graduate-level course at NYU. In 2011, he joined Silver as an adjunct professor and has been teaching at the school since.

Panozzo has worked with members of the LGBTQ+ community since 1987, according to Therapy First’s website. In December 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center — a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to civil rights and public interest litigation — identified Therapy First, originally named the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, as a group that spreads false information about trans people.

While working with Therapy First, which provides resources, information and therapy referrals for clients and their families, Panozzo has maintained a private therapy practice in New Jersey for over 20 years, according to the New Jersey State Board of Social Work Examiners. Human rights and medical experts who spoke with WSN said that Panozzo’s involvement in the group as a private practitioner and professor, and his public support for a care model often referred to as gender-exploratory therapy, raises concern. 

Exploratory, or non-affirming, therapy discourages gender affirmation in favor of exploring the potential pathological roots of youths’ trans identities or gender dysphoria — the medical term to describe one experiencing discomfort with their gender identity — through talk therapy. It is a model intended for gender-questioning clients that stands in opposition to gender-affirming therapy, a practice promoted by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers. While WPATH sets the highest standard for medical practices concerning trans patients, Panozzo and Marchiano signed a petition — titled “Beyond WPATH” — which claims the evidence-based Standards of Care promoted by WPATH are concerning and that the organization had “discredited itself.”

britt walsh, the director of transgender care at the Washington, D.C.-based medical center Whitman-Walker Health, said in an interview with WSN that exploratory therapy employs similar tactics to conversion therapy that have been used against the LGBTQ+ community for decades. walsh called “the language” of exploratory therapy “a thinly veiled way of saying conversion therapy,” and said that exploratory therapy poses a mental health risk for patients and is a potential violation of informed consent.

“Informed consent is about a qualified medical provider sharing information about hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery and then a person, the trans person or gender-expansive person in question, feeling like they have had all their questions answered and they have all the information they need to make an informed decision for themselves,” walsh said.

walsh stressed that for many trans children, no medical intervention is needed. Instead, they said often the only change needed was for children to be allowed to identify themselves with different names and pronouns. To deny this, walsh said, could have long-term effects on mental health. 

According to the SPLC, gender-exploratory therapy “largely assumes trans identity is a mental illness.” Human rights and medical experts told WSN that practitioners of gender-exploratory therapy often delay transition in order to identify an underlying cause of a client’s gender dysphoria.

In his practice, Panozzo provides exploratory therapy to people experiencing gender dysphoria, according to Therapy First’s clinical guide. A student in Panozzo’s social work research course for the spring semester — who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns — said that the Silver professor has discussed his practice while teaching, and allegedly referenced “using masculine stereotypes” to perform exploratory therapy on a client.

Panozzo has also referenced another anti-trans conspiracy theory that suggests trans women are motivated to transition by autogynephilia, or the thought of being sexually attracted to the idea of themselves as women — a theory that is not backed by scientific evidence. In a statement to WSN, the New Jersey State Board of Social Work Examiners said it could not confirm or deny that Panozzo has ever been reported or investigated for practices related to gender-exploratory therapy. 

Panozzo did not always hold his current beliefs about trans people, according to public records. In a 2021 panel titled “LGBTQ – Looking Back, Looking Forward,” Panozzo said that hatred directed to members of the trans community “really needs our focus at this point.” Three years later, Panozzo said on the website of Beyond Trans — another group advocating for anti-trans care for patients — that he had a change of heart. 

“I also once believed that trans was a thing to be protected and never questioned. In my own case it was a matter of respect and being a gay male ally, “ Panozzo said on his website. “I have learned so much more since those days.”

Despite opposing gender-affirming care, both Panozzo and Therapy First drew a firm line between their work and conversion therapy. In response to questions about Panozzo’s work at Therapy First, his legal team denied that he “implements or supports ‘conversion therapy’” in a statement to WSN. 

“Dr. Panozzo has been legally and ethically treating patients for 37 years without incident,” the statement read. “Any such claims would be false and defamatory.”

Public records show that Ilya Shapiro, an attorney and author of the statement, has worked with other organizations identified by the SPLC as involved in creating and spreading misinformation about members of the LGBTQ+ community. These organizations include the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group designated as a hate group by the SPLC that the nonprofit said has previously supported efforts to criminalize sexual activity between two consenting adults of the same sex in the United States and abroad.

In the application for Therapy First membership, the organization poses a question: “Some people believe that exploratory therapy is equivalent to conversion therapy. What do you think about this?”

Silver alum and Therapy First board member Lisa Marchiano is an adviser for the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, another nonprofit accused of promoting anti-trans sentiments. Genspect, a group that supports “individuals in expressing their true selves without unnecessary medical interventions,” shares “two dozen personnel connections” with Therapy First and SEGM, according to the SPLC. 

A source close to Therapy First told WSN the 2023 rebrand from its original name, the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, was linked to negative press the organization had received. Genspect continues to operate as a separate entity, run by Irish psychotherapist Stella O’Malley. 

In a conversation with WSN, O’Malley said that questions about Genspect’s alleged spreading of misinformation were “uneducated.” She said that the “emotional discomfort” experienced by trans people without access to gender-affirming care is less important than the “physical harm” caused by such treatment. 

In a later statement to WSN, O’Malley denied allegations that her organization sought to change or manipulate its clients’ gender identity, echoing Therapy First and Panozzo’s denouncement of conversion therapy.

When student leaders of the organization Pride in Practice, an affinity group for LGBTQ+ students at Silver, learned of Panozzo’s practice and involvement with Therapy First in the fall 2024 semester, they authored a petition calling for his immediate termination. The petition also urged Silver to incorporate teachings about gender-affirming care into the curriculum as well as “education about transphobia.”

One club leader, who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told WSN that the group met resistance from their faculty sponsor and administrators when they sent the petition to their club adviser for approval before distributing it to the Silver student body.

“They were told to pursue different avenues and that they should have led with a more restorative approach,” the student said. 

In the face of this pressure, the student said the club took the petition down. However, the student said that in a later conversation with Silver administrators, they were informed that some form of investigation into their concerns would take place. 

In a statement to WSN, Silver spokesperson Sheryl Salomon said that the school could not confirm or deny the existence of any current investigations into faculty or staff. Salomon said conversion therapy “has no place” in Silver’s curriculum, but added that Panozzo’s private practice is outside the school’s jurisdiction and that Silver would not be pursuing an investigation or taking any adverse employment action against Panozzo as a result. Salomon also said that the school’s required research courses “place no substantive focus on gender identity.” 

Four social work students who spoke to WSN said they were disappointed with Panozzo’s affiliations, but that they were not surprised that very little of Silver’s curriculum directly tackles questions of trans rights. Aleks Mejia, a graduate student at Silver, said that learning of Panozzo’s affiliations raised a number of ethical questions. 

“This is someone we’re learning from,” Mejia said. “We’re trusting this person to teach us things, and social work values integrity — this just feels like a lack of that.”

The petition also referenced Pamela Pareksy, a professor at Harvard University and a member of NYU’s Mindful Education Lab advisory board. Pareksy was a panellist at a Genspect conference in Denver, CO in 2023, where she said that the recognition of two or more sexes in the AP Stylebook — a guide that sets the journalistic standards followed by many publications in the United States and around the world — was “asserting a moral truth” rather than “seeking accuracy.” 

In Therapy First’s guide for parents of trans youth, Marchiano discourages parents and guardians from allowing their child to have “too much power” after coming out as transgender and details ways they can avoid using their child’s chosen name and pronouns. 

“We are not doing that in this house,” the article suggests. “You can wear your hair however you like. You can pick your own clothes. We want you to follow your interests. But we don’t accept that you are born in the wrong body.”

Timothy McCarthy, a human rights activist and professor at Harvard University, told WSN that the tactics employed by organizations like Therapy First and Genspect are part of a longer history of spreading misinformation about trans identity. McCarthy said that while a level of suspicion and inquiry into medical practices is healthy, the purpose of questioning the validity of gender-affirming care is oftentimes intended to “poison the waters” and raise concern around the common practice. 

McCarthy said that if any professor at any university, including Harvard, were found to be a member of organizations like Therapy First and Genspect, they should be removed and stripped of their academic titles. 

“There’s a particular place in hell for academics who use their academic expertise and power to distort and do violence to people in the world,” McCarthy said.

An NYU spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Hope Pisoni contributed reporting.

Contact Ania Keenan and Raea Lovett at [email protected].