Shrink Group Seems More Into Watching Drag Queens Dance Than Helping Patients, Scientists Allege
From drag queen performances to a focus on "dismantling oppressive institutions," the American Psychological Association seems to focus more on politics than professional healthcare, two scientists allege.
Libby Bandelin · Nov 11, 2026 · 2 min read
From drag queen performances to a focus on “dismantling oppressive institutions,” the American Psychological Association seems to focus more on politics than professional healthcare, two scientists allege.
Across two op-eds, evolutionary biologist Colin Wright and cynical psychologist Andrew Hartz, discussed APA Division 39’s April conference alleging that it seemed far more interested in advancing left-wing political causes than helping patients. Founded in 1892, the APA is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychologists in the U.S., and has over 190,000 members, according to its website.
“If you had randomly stumbled into this conference, you could easily assume it was a radical political convention instead of a professional gathering of credentialed therapists,” stated the pair’s latest opinion published Tuesday in City Journal.
“Of its 90 panels, we counted roughly 70 with a political focus. All talks were left-leaning, while other political perspectives were totally absent,” the Wright and Hartz wrote. “Topics included ‘family abolition,’ ‘queer anarchist psychoanalysis,’ and dismantling oppressive institutions. One session on drag and queer theory concluded with a drag performance.”
The APA did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
In Wright and Hartz’s initial op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 20 titled “The Inmates Run the Asylum at the Psychological Association,” the scientists alleged there is a deep “woke rot” within the APA. This followed a bipartisan Education Department vote to recommend suspending the APA’s accreditation on antisemitism charges.
APA Division 39 President Dana Charatan responded via a letter, accusing the pair of “biased assumptions about what belongs in psychological scholarship,” the scientists wrote in their Tuesday op-ed. She defended the conference arguing that “patients are affected by systems in which they live.”
In response, Wright and Hartz called Charatan’s letter “frustrating” because it ignored specific examples and questions they had raised.
“We would genuinely like to know, for instance, what clinical skills therapists were expected to gain from a session titled: ‘Feel the F—king Fantasy (Redux): Drag, Desire, and Queer Theory at WERK in Psychoanalysis,’ which concluded with a drag performance where attendees were encouraged to tip drag queens like strippers,” the biologist and psychologist wrote in City Journal.