Lyn Duff, now principally known asAthena Kolbe, (born 1976) is an American journalist and college professor.[1] Her career began in eighth grade with an underground school newspaper and has continued in various written and audio mediums. After being forced into anti-gayconversion therapy by her mother she escaped. She has done extensive reporting in Israel and Haiti. She speaks out for youth rights and criticizes certain mental health systems. She was affiliated withFlashpoints, an evening drive-time public affairs show heard daily onPacifica Radio. She is now an assistant professor of social work atBarry University.
Born inCalifornia in 1976, Duff began her journalistic career as the founder of an underground school newspaper,The Tiger Club, while an 8th grader atSouth Pasadena Junior High School in 1989. After five published issues, she was suspended from school by the principal for refusing to stop disseminating the newspaper.[1]
After gaining help from theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), theSouth Pasadena Unified School District agreed to allow her to return to school. She completed her 8th grade year and was then accepted as an early entrance student to California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), which she attended for a year and a half.
While at CSULA Duff was on staff of an alternative newspaper published byLos Angeles art criticMat Gleason who, at the time, was a graduate student in the school of journalism and president of an alternative Greek organization,Omega Omega Omega, and later went on to publishCoagula Art Journal.
In 1991, Duff, then fourteen,came out publicly aslesbian.[2][3][4]
Concerned about her daughter'ssexual orientation, Duff's mother had her admitted to Rivendell Psychiatric Center (now called Copper Hills Youth Center) inWest Jordan, Utah. Duff was admitted to Rivendell Psychiatric Center on December 19, 1991, at age 15.[5]
During the drive from California to Utah, Duff covertly called journalist and friend Bruce Mirken who then wrote for both theLA Weekly andThe Advocate.[6] Although 30 years her senior, the two nevertheless had had plans to meet for dinner prior to her therapy stay, and upon hearing of her situation, Mirken phoned a public interestlegal aid society that securedpro bono services of corporate attorney Gina M. Calabrese of the Los Angeles firm Adams, Duque & Hazeltine.[5]
Although Rivendell was not affiliated withthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Duff later said that she was visited byMormon missionaries during her six months at the Utah psychiatric facility and that the treatment she received was heavily influenced by religion. Duff says that Rivendell therapists told her that agay and lesbian orientation was caused by negative experiences with people of the opposite gender and that having a lesbiansexual identity would lead to sexually abusing other people or engaging inbestiality. Duff was diagnosed withGender Identity Disorder (GID) andclinical depression.[2][7][8] Duff was subjected to a regimen ofconversion therapy. This involvedaversion therapy, which consisted of being forced to watchsame-sex pornography while smellingammonia.[9] She was also subjected tohypnosis,psychotropic drugs,solitary confinement, and therapeutic messages linking lesbian sex with "the pits ofhell".[10]Behavior modification techniques were also used, including requiring girls to wear dresses and harsh punishment for small infractions similar tohazing like having to cut the lawn with small scissors and scrubbing floors with a toothbrush, and "positivepeer pressure" group sessions in which patients demeaned and belittled each other for both real and perceived inadequacies.[5][11][12][13][14]
On May 19, 1992, after 168 days of treatment, Duff escaped from Rivendell and traveled toSan Francisco, where she lived on the streets and in safe houses.[15]
In late 1992, with the help of Legal Services for Children and theNational Center for Lesbian Rights, and with legal assistance provided by the National Center for Youth Law, Duff petitioned the courts to have her mother's parental rights terminated. She was one of a handful of children who divorced their parents that year.[16][17][18] In October 1992, a lesbian couple in San Francisco adopted Duff. She lived with them until the age of eighteen, when she began living independently and returned to college.[12][19][20]
From 1992 through 1998, Duff was an outspoken critic of the mental health system, appearing onCNN,ABC's20/20, and numerous print, radio and television media outlets.[21] She also spoke at a number of human rights, civil rights, mental health and youth services conferences about her experiences and the rights of young people to live free of discrimination and oppression on the basis of their sexual orientation.[22][23] During these years she also served on the board of several national organizations including the National Center for Youth Law (board member 1994–2001) and theNational Child Rights Alliance (board member 1992–1993, board chairperson 1994–1999). In 1996, Duff was honored as a keynote speaker and given a human rights award at the international conference of theMetropolitan Community Church.
During these same years, Duff was emerging as a journalist in her own right, writing forYouth Outlook, a column inThe San Francisco Examiner, and Pacific News Service. She joined the staff ofFlashpoints, a daily hour-long drive-time show broadcast on Pacifica Radio's KPFA in 1994. Her writings have appeared in theSan Francisco Chronicle,The San Francisco Examiner,Salon,Utne Reader,Sassy,The Washington Post,Seventeen, theMiami Herald and theNational Catholic Reporter.[24][25][26][27][28]
In 1995, Duff traveled toHaiti, where she established Radyo Timoun ("Children's Radio"), that country's first radio station run entirely by children under the age of seventeen.[29] She reportedly worked closely withHaitian PresidentJean Bertrand Aristide.[30][31]
In 1998, Duff graduated with a BA in international affairs and labor law fromSkidmore College inSaratoga Springs, New York.
By the late 1990s, Duff was a well-established international journalist with postings in Haiti,Israel,Croatia, several African countries, andVietnam. After theUnited States invadedAfghanistan, she traveled to the front lines as one of the few non-embedded Western journalists.[32]
In early 2000 she began to cover religious affairs from her posting inJerusalem, writing widely on the problems and conflicts between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. In 2002, Duff earned an MA in Theology.[33]
In February 2004, Duff, who was then living six months out of every year in Jerusalem, was home in theUnited States on a brief visit when a group of ex-soldiersoverthrew the democratically electedgovernment of Haiti. She quickly traveled to Haiti, arriving inPort-au-Prince when the coup was only days old and reporting on the situation extensively for several national media outlets.[34]
During 2004–2006, Duff regularly covered the situation in Haiti forSan Francisco Bay View, Pacifica Radio'sFlashpoints, and Pacific News Service. Her reporting is a blend of in-depth investigative reports and "as told to" first person commentaries by Haitian nationals. Subjects have included politically motivated mass rape,[35] theUnited Nations mission in Haiti, killings byAmerican Marines inPort-au-Prince,[36] civilians taking over the neighborhood ofBel Air[37] and murders of street children by police and ex-soldiers.[38]
In her academic career, she has used the name Athena Kolbe. Kolbe earned a Masters degree in social work atWayne State University inDetroit,Michigan in 2006. While at Wayne State Kolbe worked with her advisor Royce Hutson on a study of violence in Haiti. A 2 September 2006 article Kolbe and Hutson wrote forThe Lancet, "Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households", based on the study faced criticism for being too supportive of presidentJean-Bertrand Aristide and also for citing two articles written by Duff without disclosing that Duff and Kolbe were the same person.[39][40]
Kolbe earned a PhD from theUniversity of Michigan atAnn Arbor in 2015; her dissertation was titled "Reintegrating members of armed groups into Haitian society: An evaluation of three approaches".[41] She has taught at Barry University since 2022.[42]
Lyn Duff.
