C.A. Tripp, 83; Psychologist Wrote on Homosexuality

C.A. Tripp, author of a widely read book that sought to dispel popular misconceptions about homosexuality, died May 17 of cancer in Nyack, N.Y. He was 83.

Tripp’s “The Homosexual Matrix,” a scholarly work published by McGraw-Hill in 1975, set forth new ideas about sexual attraction and sold nearly 500,000 copies.

Born Clarence Arthur Tripp in Denton, Texas, Tripp studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and served in the Navy before immersing himself in the work of Freud during the 1940s.

Beginning in 1948, he worked with Alfred Kinsey at his Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Ind., until Kinsey’s death in 1956.

Tripp earned an undergraduate degree from the New School for Social Research and a doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University, eventually establishing a private psychology practice.