Dr. Keith Brodie, who later became President of Duke University, was my mentor. He sponsored my Human Biology special project. I studied psychiatrists' attitudes concerning lesbians (in 1971). Under Dr. Brodie's supervision, I learned how to do social science research. I became a psychiatrist, researcher, and writer who served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and UCSF. 

I’ve been a Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, since 2009. My 56 years of scientific investigations focused primarily on families of parents with minoritized sexual identities. In 1986, I began the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study—the largest, longest-running investigation of its kind, with a 90% retention rate. On a separate research track, I was the principal investigator into sexual misconduct by physicians that led to a cleanup of professional ethics codes and the criminalization of sexual exploitation of patients. I contributed to the best-selling book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” My papers are archived at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and at Drexel College of Medicine. One of my oral histories is contained within the Stanford’s Pioneering Women collection.