Contributors Bios for Live Assertively
Each coauthor and coeditor listed in their bios what they considered their primary social labels, locations, and characteristics of how they personally experience the world. This is to inform you and other readers about our potential prejudices, expertise, privileges, and disadvantages on the subject. We also hope it dismantles some stereotypes and expands your sense of community.
COAUTHORS
Paul Linden, PhD, has been practicing and teaching aikido for over 50 years and holds a sixth-degree black belt. He also holds a black belt in Isshin-ryū karate and a certificate as an instructor of the Feldenkrais method of somatic education. Paul has a BA in philosophy and PhD in physical education. He developed Being In Movement (https://www.being-in-movement.com) mind-body education as a way of living from an integrated mind-body state of power and love. He has applied it in areas such as sports, computer use, attention disorders, trauma recovery, and conflict resolution. He has taught internationally—in places from Russia to Israel and Ecuador. He has had Parkinson’s for 20 years and has found that the body awareness methods he has developed have allowed him to stay functional. His particular passion right now is saving the planet, so his grandchildren will have some place to live. Through body awareness education, people can develop the power, courage, and love they will need to create a peaceful and sustainable civilization.
A. Lee Beckstead (he/him), PhD, is white-Peruvian, gay, cisgender, currently nondisabled, and spiritual; was excommunicated in 2009 from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and has been in a primary relationship with a man since 1997. He has been a psychologist in private practice since 2003 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He tried to change his sexual orientation by himself in his teens and later with a few Latter-day Saint therapists during his early twenties. He attempted suicide at the age of 18 because he felt hopeless and ashamed about not being able to stop being attracted to guys. He conducted a qualitative study in graduate school from 1998 to 2001 on 50 individuals who tried to change their sexual orientation through psychotherapy. Half reported benefits, half reported harms, and many reported mixed results. Since 2005, he has co-facilitated weekend retreats for male survivors of sexual abuse (https://menhealing.org). He served on the 2009 American Psychological Association task force, making recommendations for those seeking therapy to change their sexual orientation (https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf). In 2012, he initiated the LGBTQ-affirmative Psychotherapist Guild of Utah to file ethical complaints against Utah clinicians providing sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). In 2013, he shifted focus and organized a workshop to foster dialogue and understanding with these individuals. Since then, he’s been meeting twice per month with therapists and educators holding differing views on sexual orientation, gender, and religion (https://reconciliationandgrowth.org). He testified as an expert witness in a 2015 New Jersey legal case against a Jewish organization accused of consumer fraud due to offering SOCE. Since 2016, he’s been part of a diverse research team studying the health and satisfaction of individuals who are single and celibate or noncelibate or in a same-gender/queer or mixed-orientation relationship (https://www.4optionssurvey.com). These experiences led him to organize in September 2017 the LGBTQIA+ Peacebuilding Book Project (https://lgbtqiapeacebuilding.com).
Jeannie DiClementi (she/her/hers), PsyD, is a White, cisgender, lesbian, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, licensed psychologist, community activist, and boat rocker. She has worked in academia for nearly 30 years and is in the process of retiring from Purdue University Fort Wayne. She has worked as a clinician with LGBTQIA+ clients since the mid-1980s and with HIV+ clients during the peak years of the HIV pandemic. In her current university faculty position, she created the campus Safe Zone training, the LGBTQIA+ Resource Center, the LGBTQIA+ Task Force, and mental health education and suicide prevention programming. She mentors LGBTQIA+ graduate students for the American Psychological Association’s Graduate Student Association. She provides consultation and training on clinical work with LGBTQIA+ clients for Northeast Indiana mental health centers, including clinical psychology internship programs.
Julia Mackaronis (she/her/they/them), PhD, has been a licensed clinical psychologist since 2015 and currently works with the Quinault Indian Nation and in her own small consultation practice. Her work involves a blend of therapy, supervision of other mental health providers, and community engagement. She continues to participate in research on interpersonal processes involved in therapy, sleep, and suicidality, among other topics. She is a former president of the Washington State Psychological Association (WSPA) and current member of the WSPA Good Trouble (Social Justice) Committee. As a bisexual member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, contributing to this book is a form of advocacy for her. She tries to understand and engage with the world as intersectionally as possible, which involves grounding her efforts toward social justice with awareness that certain aspects of her identity (e.g., she is White, cisgender, and currently nondisabled) mean she benefits from systemic forms of oppression that harm others. She made her contributions to this book from where she currently lives on what has been the land of the Quinault people since time immemorial, where Quinault people continue to live and thrive.
Jim Struve (he/him), LCSW, has been working with male victims of sexual violence and issues of social justice since the mid-1970s. He is currently executive director for MenHealing (www.menhealing .org), and he was a cofounding member of the LGBTQ-Affirmative Psychotherapy Guild of Utah in 2004 and served as guild coordinator until 2018. He is a nationally known speaker and workshop presenter and has a number of publications focused on patriarchy and the politics of sexual abuse, gender and sexually diverse male survivors of sexual abuse, and the cultural and historical context of gender regarding clinical perspectives about male sexual victimization.
Lauren Clinton
Annette S. Kluck
Eduardo Morales (he/him/él), PhD, is a cisgender gay man of Puerto Rican descent who is a distinguished professor emeritus of Alliant International University. He was one of the founders and is the current executive director of AGUILAS, an award-winning behavioral health and leadership development program for Latinx LGBTQ+. He received numerous distinguished awards, including the APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Institutional Practice, and is a fellow of 12 Divisions of the American Psychological Association. He is the 2024 chair of the APA Commission of Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention, and Training in Psychology Task Force-2. Dr. Morales is very active in obtaining research, program evaluation, and service grants. He was president of various psychological associations and founded many programs for various ethnic groups. Areas of expertise include health prevention and promotion, HIV, substance use, community interventions, juvenile delinquency prevention, program evaluation research, and strategic planning and policy development for various types of multicultural communities and organizations locally and nationally. The first person in Manhattan to receive the Pope Pius XII Award at St Patrick’s Cathedral, as well as an Eagle Scout with a gold palm as of 1967, he was frequently called on for public relations. An active musician and singer, he directed and performed with various arts organizations, toured the United States with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus in its first national concert tour in 1981 and performed solo for the 2014 APA Council’s opening session. These experiences provided the basis of his passion, advocacy, and motivation to serve and build teams for addressing community empowerment, embracing collaboration, and realizing dreams. He has had a regular column in the San Francisco Bay Times since 2021.
Tim van Wanrooij (he/him) is a chartered doctor of psychology and White (Dutch), queer/gay, cisgender, and neurodivergent (dyslexic). He was born and raised in the Netherlands and studied social work before completing his psychology training at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Tim has a private practice in Dublin, Ireland, in which he primarily focuses on relationships, sexuality, and intersectionality experiences.
COEDITORS
A. Lee Beckstead (see bio above)
Sulaimon Giwa (he/him/his) is an associate professor and interim dean of social work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Sulaimon is a scholar-activist who self-identifies as Black, Muslim, and gay. His intersectional identity adds depth to his contributions in the field of LGBTQ+ studies, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to fostering inclusive discourse from diverse perspectives. Through his academic and community pursuits, Sulaimon demonstrates his astute understanding of the intricacies surrounding identity and representation within the LGBTQ+ community, promoting crucial conversations on equity and social justice. He authored the 2022 book Racism and Gay Men of Color: Living and Coping with Discrimination.
Iva Žegura graduated from and specialized in clinical psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, in Zagreb and is currently pursuing doctoral studies. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and is educated in gestalt integrative therapy, cybernetic psychotherapy, and sexual therapy. She introduced the concept of affirmative and sensitive LGBTAIQ+ mental health practice in Croatia and the Balkans. Also, she initiated and established the Section for Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Gender of the Croatian Psychological Association. In 2015, she helped in implementation of legalization and health care for trans people based on SOC WPATH within the Croatian health-care system. She works at the Vrapče Psychiatry Clinic and collaborates with several national universities and departments of psychology. She is a member of the national list of experts for transgender health care at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia. She is the president of the Section for Clinical Psychology, president of the Section for Psychology and Human Rights, and vice president of the Section for Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Gender. In 2021, she was elected to be a member of the board of directors of the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) and now she is president-elect. She collaborates with the Global Education Institute of WPATH. She participated in starting the association. She was a member of the executive board of TransAid Croatia, now KolekTIRV, helping establish this nongovernment organization (NGO). She was also a cofounder of the association TransParent Croatia. She regularly collaborates with several Croatian and regional LGBTAIQ+ and human rights NGOs. She is a winner of several professional awards and has authored several books, chapters, and scientific papers. She is a member of several national, European, and international professional associations.