Kenneth Zucker is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender extremist.
Zucker’s ideology has caused profound harm to sex and gender minorities over a long career. Zucker has created several disease models to describe these minorities and has promoted many more sex and gender “disorders” as editor of The Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Zucker developed a non-affirming model of care for gender diverse youth that has been described as “child abuse.” Zucker was fired by employer CAMH in 2015. Zucker’s clinic was shut down, and non-affirming models of care have been outlawed in many jurisdictions.
After I was defamed in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2007, I personally began working in earnest to get Zucker fired. Below is the last major exposé I wrote prior to that firing:
Kenneth J. “Ken” Zucker was born on December 29, 1950 to Eugene M. Zucker (1922–1997) and Sara Miller Zucker (1924–2020). Zucker has one sibling, Barbara Ann Zucker-Romanoff aka Barbra Zucker (born 1957). The family lived in Skokie, Illinois. Zucker married Rochelle Fine, also from Niles Township. Their child Simone Zucker is a Toronto-based filmmaker, and their child Josh aka “Concentration Camp” is guitarist in Toronto band Fucked Up.
Zucker attended Southern Illinois University during the Vietnam War and was one of the key campus leaders in the anti-war protest movement there, staging mock trials and declaring people war criminals in absentia (Lagow 1977). Zucker earned a bachelor’s degree there, then a master’s degree at Roosevelt University in 1975.
Zucker headed to Canada eventually just to be safe. Zucker earned a doctorate from University of Toronto in 1982.
Zucker’s frequent collaborator Richard Green had the same impulse for self-preservation: “I left Los Angeles in 1964 to avoid the Vietnam War by going to NIMH [National Institutes of Mental Health]” (Green 2004). In 2001 Green handed over editorial control of Archives of Sexual Behavior to Zucker, to continue pushing their toxic ideology about sex and gender minorities.
Physical attractiveness of children “research” (1993–1996)
Zucker was a psychologist at the Clarke Institute (aka “Jurassic Clarke”) in Toronto. Zucker is infamous for forcing gender-diverse children into reparative therapy to conform to expectations for gendered behavior in children. Zucker considers a gender transition a “bad outcome.”
Zucker had access to hundreds of children through the Clarke and took topless photos of all children brought to the clinic. In one particularly troubling “study,” Zucker wanted to see how “physically attractive” these children’s faces and upper torsos were. Adults were shown images of children in Zucker’s care and asked to rate their attractiveness.
Zucker’s conclusion: “Boys with gender identity disorder were judged to be more attractive than were the clinical control boys.”
Zucker repeated the “research” with the remaining children a few years later, concluding the “Girls with gender identity disorder had significantly less attractive ratings than the normal control girls for the traits attractive, beautiful, and pretty.”
Zucker is a darling of the ex-gay movement because of decades of attempts in “curing” gender-diverse children. Zucker was frequently cited by ex-gay groups like NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuals) and Leadership U.
As the rest of the world begins to understand and accept gender diversity as a trait and not a disease, Zucker has been increasingly cast as the old-school holdout in press coverage. As noted in the New York Times:
Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a psychologist and head of the gender-identity service at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, disagrees with the “free to be” approach with young children and cross-dressing in public. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Zucker has treated about 500 preadolescent gender-variant children. In his studies, 80 percent grow out of the behavior, but 15 percent to 20 percent continue to be distressed about their gender and may ultimately change their sex.
Dr. Zucker tries to “help these kids be more content in their biological gender” until they are older and can determine their sexual identity — accomplished, he said, by encouraging same-sex friendships and activities like board games that move beyond strict gender roles.
Zucker thinks that an important goal of treatment is to help the children accept their birth sex and to avoid becoming transsexual. His experience has convinced him that if a boy with GID becomes an adolescent with GID, the chances that he will become an adult with GID and seek a sex change are much higher. And he thinks that the kind of therapy he practices helps reduce this risk. Zucker emphasizes a three-pronged treatment approach for boys with GID. First, he thinks that family dynamics play a large role in childhood GID—not necessarily in the origins of cross-gendered behavior, but in their persistence. It is the disordered and chaotic family, according to Zucker, that can’t get its act together to present a consistent and sensible reaction to the child, which would be something like the following: “We love you, but you are a boy, not a girl. Wishing to be a girl will only make you unhappy in the long run, and pretending to be a girl will only make your life around others harder.” So the first prong of Zucker’s approach is family therapy. Whatever conflicts or issues that parents have that prevent them from uniting to help their child must be addressed.
The second prong is therapy for the boy, to help him adjust to the idea that he cannot become a girl, and to help teach him how to minimize social ostracism. Zucker does not teach boys how to walk in a manly fashion, but he does give them feedback about the likely consequences of taking a doll to school.
The third prong is key. Zucker says simply: “The Barbies have to go.” He has nothing against Barbie dolls, of course. He means something more general. Feminine toys and accoutrements—including Barbie dolls, girls’ shoes, dresses, purses, and princess gowns—are no longer to be tolerated at home, much less bought for the child. Zucker believes that toleration and encouragement of feminine play and dress prevents the child from accepting his maleness. Common sense says that a boy who wants to play with dolls so much that he is willing to risk his father’s wrath and his peers’ scorn is unlikely to change his behavior due to inconsistent feedback, sometimes forbidding, sometimes tolerating, and sometimes even encouraging it. Inconsistent parenting like this is ineffective in stamping out any kind of unwanted behavior.
Failure to intervene increases the chances of transsexualism in adulthood, which Zucker considers a bad outcome. … Why put boys at risk for this when they can become gay men happy to be men?
Zucker blames poor family dynamics and maternal psychopathology for gender-nonconforming behavior. Zucker claims this phenomenon is more likely in non-white children with lower IQs. As J. Michael Bailey noted:
Ken Zucker, whom we met in Chapter 2, has tried to predict which boys with gender identity disorder (GID) would still have the disorder when they become adolescents. Adolescents with GID are much rarer and presumably much closer to being transsexual. Zucker found several predictors of adolescent GID: lower IQ, lower social class, immigrant status, non-intact family, and childhood behavior problems unrelated to gender identity disorder.
Zucker’s alleged “desistance” rate hides the fact that many children brought to Zucker’s clinic are hardly success stories in terms of quality of life outcomes:
Yet Zucker’s approach has its own disturbing elements. It’s easy to imagine that his methods—steering parents toward removing pink crayons from the box, extolling a patriarchy no one believes in—could instill in some children a sense of shame and a double life. A 2008 study of 25 girls who had been seen in Zucker’s clinic showed positive results; 22 were no longer gender-dysphoric, meaning they were comfortable living as girls. But that doesn’t mean they were happy. I spoke to the mother of one Zucker patient in her late 20s, who said her daughter was repulsed by the thought of a sex change but was still suffering—she’d become an alcoholic, and was cutting herself. “I’d be surprised if she outlived me,” her mother said.
Lagow, Larry Dwane (1977). A history of the Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University, 1969-1976. Ph.D. dissertation; typescript in Hoover Institution Archives https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0d5nd9g7/entire_text/
Staff report (December 29, 1997). Obituary: Eugene Zucker. Chicago Tribune
Eugene Zucker. 75. beloved husband of Sara, nee Miller; loving father of Dr. Ken (Rochelle) Zucker and Barbra (Steven) Romanoff; devoted grandfather of Joshua and Simone Zucker and step-grandfather of Samantha Sprigel: fond brother of Howard (Shirley) Zucker; dearest uncle of Deborah, Adina, David, and Ellen. Mr. Zucker was a life-long intellectual.
Sandeen, Autumn (May 20, 2009). GID Reform Now Protest At Annual APA Meeting. Pam’s House Blend http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11064/gid-reform-now-protest-at-annual-apa-meeting-speaker-madeline-deutch-md [archive]
Conway, Lynn (April 5, 2007). “Drop the Barbie”: Ken Zucker’s reparatist treatment of gender-variant children. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/Drop%20the%20Barbie.htm
Conway, Lynn (April 30, 2009). “The War Within: CAMH scathing internal report Zucker’s and Blanchard’s gender clinics http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/US/Zucker/The_War_Within_CAMH.html
Conway, Lynn (February 18, 2009). Kenneth Zucker’s legal threats: Part of a pattern of silencing transgender critics. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/US/Zucker/Kenneth_Zucker%27s_pattern_of_silencing_transgender_critics.html
Winters, Kelley (2009). Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity BookSurge, ISBN 978-1439223888 – see also (gendermadness.com) [harchive]
Staff report (July 1997). Childhood Gender-Identity Disorder Diagnosis Under Attack. Leadership U http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/childhood.html [archive] – now merged with Cru: Campus Crusade for Christ International (cru.org)
Singh D, Bradley SJ, Zucker KJ (2021). A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder. Front. Psychiatry, Volume 12 – 28 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784
Brown, Patricia Leigh (December 2, 2006). Supporting Boys or Girls When the Line Isn’t Clear. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/us/supporting-boys-or-girls-when-the-line-isnt-clear.html
Rosin, Hannah (November 2008). A Boy’s Life. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/
Robert “Bob” Withers earned a master’s degree from University of Sussex.
Withers helped establish the Rock Clinic in Kemp Town in 1990.
Anti-trans activism
In 2015, Withers published an article titled “The seventh penis,” which was later withdrawn over patient consent issues:
The above article published online on 19 May 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and in print and online in issue 60:3 (cover date June 2015) has been withdrawn by agreement between the author, the journal’s Editors-in-Chief, Marcus West and Nora Swan-Foster, and John Wiley & Sons Limited. The withdrawal has been agreed because consent to publish was not obtained. The author and the journal apologize for this oversight.
References
Flourish, Clare (July 26, 2020). Robert Withers. https://clareflourish.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/robert-withers-transgender-professional-standards/
Withers R (2020). Transgender medicalization and the attempt to evade psychological distress. J Anal Psychol. 2020 Nov;65(5):865-889. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12641
Withers R (2015). The seventh penis: towards effective psychoanalytic work with pre-surgical transsexuals. J Anal Psychol. 2015 Jun;60(3):390-412. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12157.
Withdrawal statement: R. Withers, ‘The seventh penis: towards effective psychoanalytic work with pre-surgical transsexuals’, Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2015, 60, 3, 390-412, (https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12157).
Anastassis Spiliadis is a Greek anti-transgender psychologist who supports the “ex-transgender” movement and promotes a form of delayed transition for gender diverse youth called “gender exploratory therapy.” Spiliadis was a member of the anti-trans organization Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria Working Group.
Anastassis Spiliadis’ name is sometimes styled Anastasios Spiliadis and is Αναστάσης Σπηλιάδης in Greek.
Background
Spiliadis was born in July 1987. After earning a bachelor’s degree from National University of Athens (NKUA/Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών), Spiliadis earned master’s degrees from Kings College London, Westminster University, and Imperial College London.
Spiliadis has held a number of roles within the UK’s National Health Service. Spiliadis has worked at the Maudsley Centre for Child & Adolescent Eating Disorders (MCCAED).
Spiliadis also worked for four years at the infamous Tavistock Centre Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).
Anti-trans activism
Spiliadis supports the disputed diagnosis “rapid onset gender dysphoria” and urged for more research in the anti-trans publication Archives of Sexual Behavior. That journal’s stated goal since its founding has been “the prevention of transsexualism.”
Spiliadis is a member of the Institute of Mental Health for Children and Adults in Athens, Greece. Spiliadis is based in London and in Athens.
References
United Nations Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity – IESOGI. Report on Conversion Therapy. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/SexualOrientation/ConversionTherapyReport.pdf
Hutchinson A, Migden M, Spiliadis A (2020). In Support of Research Into Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2020 Jan;49(1):79-80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01517-9
Soh is a member of the intellectual dark web, a loose alliance described as a “gateway to the far right.” Soh has promoted a number of disease models of gender identity and expression:
Debra W. Soh was born in 1990, is of Malaysian-Chinese descent, and grew up in Canada.
Soh earned a doctorate from York University in 2016. Soh’s dissertation is titled: “Functional and Structural Neuroimaging of Paraphilic Hypersexuality in Men” The examining committee included K. Schneider, James Cantor, G. Turner, D. Stevens, D. Vanderlann, C. Davis
Soh left academia in order to promote anti-trans views in the media.
Anti-transgender activism
Soh authored the 2020 anti-trans book The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.
Dianna Theadora Kenny earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Sydney in 1975, followed by training in music and education. Kenny then attended Macquarie University, earning a master’s degree in 1980 and a doctorate in 1988. While in school, Kenny worked in troubled students. Kenny taught at University of Sydney from 1988 to 2019. In 2019 Kenny founded DK Consulting.
James Cantor is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender extremist.
Cantor is an online troll best known for promoting fringe and regressive beliefs about sex and gender minorities. Cantor has special contempt for the transgender rights movement. Cantor’s questionable beliefs and practices involve:
Sexual attraction to minors
Child-sized sex dolls: Cantor says “no evidence suggests sex dolls increase any risk of harm to anyone.”
Promotes Virtuous Pedophiles and other pedophilia support organizations
Promotes non-affirming models of care like “watchful waiting” and gender identity change efforts
Testifies against affirming healthcare for gender diverse youth
Depsite frequently presenting as being an ally to trans people, Cantor is widely considered a major figure in anti-transgender extremism.
Cantor is one of the most vocal supporters of colleague Ray Blanchard and Blanchard’s disease model of trans women and those attracted to us. Cantor is also a major supporter of fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker’s “therapeutic intervention” on gender diverse children that has been widely outlawed.
Cantor was one of the earliest and most tenacious supporters of J. Michael Bailey’s transphobic 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Cantor often appears on conservative outlets to criticize and complain about the transgender community.
Cantor was forced to apologize by former employer CAMH for attacking trans guest lecturer Kyle Scanlon. Cantor has been banned from many online groups for aggressive behavior toward those who disagree about sex and gender.
In 2019, Cantor criticized the mainstream consensus statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics for rejecting Cantor’s non-affirming model of care for gender diverse youth. Cantor calls this “watchful waiting,” but he AAP calls it “delayed transition” and advises against it.
In 2022, Cantor submitted a report to end state-funded healthcare for transgender residents of Florida. The report was apparently originally funded by conservative Christian organization Alliance Defending Freedom. A rebuttal to Cantor noted:
James Cantor’s document, presented as Attachment D to the June 2 Report, also faces serious questions about bias and lack of expertise. In a 2022 case, a federal court took a skeptical view of Cantor’s purported expertise, noting that “the Court gave [Cantor’s] testimony little weight because he admitted, inter alia, to having no clinical experience in treating gender dysphoria in minors and no experience monitoring patients receiving drug treatments for gender dysphoria.20 Cantor’s document is nearly identical to what appears to be paid testimony in another case, where Cantor’s declaration was used to support legislation barring transgender athletes from sports teams,21 Troublingly, Cantor’s appearance in that case seems to have been funded by the Alliance Defending Freedom (“ADF”),22 a religious and political organization that opposes legal protections for transgender people and same-sex marriage23 and defends the criminalization of sexual activity between partners of the same sex.24 Because Cantor provides no conflicts of interest disclosure, readers cannot ascertain whether Florida AHCA also paid for Cantor’s report and whether Florida officials were aware that the Cantor report reused his work for (apparently) the ADF.
James M. Cantor was born on January 2, 1966 in Manhasset, New York and grew up in nearby Sayville. Parents Henle Cantor (born 1943) and Stuart “Stu” Cantor (born 1940) married in 1965. Cantor’s parents owned a parts-related business serving Pepsi plants outside the United States. Cantor has two younger siblings, David and Leah.
Cantor earned a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s degree from Boston University, and a doctorate from McGill University in 1999. Cantor’s advisors were Irv Binik and James Pfaus. Cantor did postdoctoral training with Ray Blanchard.
Cantor founded the Toronto Sexuality Centre and has worked there with Morag Yule, Marie Faaborg-Andersen, and Ian McPhail.
Cantor is married to psychologist Neil Pilkington.
Cantor JM (2019). Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy. J Sex Marital Ther. 2020;46(4):307-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2019.1698481. Epub 2019 Dec 14.
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Ray Blanchard is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Blanchard is a key historical figure in academic exploitation and oppression of sex and gender minorities.
Blanchard’s Toronto gender clinic rejected 90% of trans people seeking healthcare. Blanchard also created several obscure diseases to categorize trans people and those who love us, including the mental disorders “autogynephilia” and “gynandromorphophilia.”
Following a long career of gatekeeping trans healthcare and creating transphobic diseases, Blanchard has become a key figure in anti-transgender extremism.
Overview
See this biography for Blanchard’s background and motivations.
Blanchard’s “contributions” to the field of gender identity and expression to date have been:
Regressive requirements for access to medical service
Forced submission to sexualized testing in order to get access to medical services
An obscure and largely-forgotten disease model of gender identity cribbed from Magnus Hirschfeld
A disease model of attraction to transgender people, which Blanchard called “gynandromorphophilia.”
Blanchard created a system in which only two subgroups of people could get through the Clarke Institute/CAMH program:
“Homosexual transsexuals,” or “gay males” who fetishize straight men
“Autogynephilic transsexuals,” or “nonhomosexual males” who fetishize feminizing themselves
“A man without a penis… is in reality what you are creating.”
From a June 2004 article :
Toronto psychologist Ray Blanchard, one of Canada’s leading — and most controversial — gender experts, argues the transgender movement is rife with delusion. “This is not waving a magic wand and a man becomes a woman and vice versa,” he says. “It’s something that has to be taken very seriously. A man without a penis has certain disadvantages in this world, and this is in reality what you’re creating.” [1]
A 1984 article in the Toronto Star indicated that between 1969 and 1984, 90% of all people seeking trans health services were turned away at The Clarke. The Clarke averaged about 5 acceptances a year, totaling about 100 people. In other words, they denied access to over 900 applicants during that time. [2]
Blanchard’s program was more like a parole office than a therapeutic setting. It was a system based on mutual distrust, and treats gender diverse clients like sex offenders. In fact, Blanchard’s program used the same halls, offices, and staff for treating sex offenders. Imagine the dynamic that creates. Following in the footsteps of mentor Kurt Freund, B;anchard even subjects clients to the same sort of testing used on sex offenders (see plethysmograph: a disputed device).
By selecting for these patients and rejecting the rest, Blanchard has been able to advance the claim that being trans is all about sex, rather than gender identity. Blanchard published several articles regarding this theory, which went unnoticed until disgraced anesthesiologist Anne Lawrence latched on to them as a form of validation.
1998 was the year the Clarke Institute lost its federal funding for vaginoplasties, and the year Anne Lawrence wrote the pro-“autogynephilia” essay “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies.” Blanchard’s sudden irrelevance in the field of gender identity and to indigent patients in Toronto seeking funding for surgery made Anne Lawrence’s interest a natural opportunity for teamwork to advance their mutually beneficial agendas.
Following the publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey, trans people and concerned professionals from around the world decided enough was enough with these people and started a public awareness campaign about Blanchard’s ties to a conservative-run eugenics think tank and behind-the-scenes bullying of dissenting peers. Once peers at HBIGDA expressed their concerns about Bailey to Northwestern University, Blanchard resigned in protest in November 2003.
Blanchard is going to go down in history as the George Rekers of gender diversity. Rekers was one of the most vocal critics of the American Psychiatric Association’s depathologization of homosexuality in 1973.
“Autogynephilia”
“Autogynephilia” is a sex-fueled mental illness made up by Blanchard, who defines it as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.” [2]
This diagnosis appeals to some transgender people, who see the scientific-sounding term as a way to “elevate” themselves in social acceptability rather than compulsive masturbators, sex addicts, or people with a fetish for possessing a piece of female clothing or anatomy.
Look at the definition of “paraphilia” put forth in the textbook used by Bailey in his cancelled Sexuality course (LeVay and Valente, Human Sexuality, p. 454). LeVay’s description of paraphilias as “problematic sexual behavior” and “illnesses that need treatment” is a major insight into their entire project. These academic imply that “autogynephilia” involves non-consenting adults, that being trans is a form of exhibitionism that requires responses from others. The suggest that coming out to friends and family and asking for public acceptance is a form of sexualized humiliation brought on by the very expression of gender.
Blanchard ideas appeal to a small group of other “autogynephilia” activists and conservative supporters. Most trans people and most mainstream scientists criticize “authogynephilia” as being similar to “nymphomania” and other fake sex diseases created to oppress others.
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)
Below is a shill review by Blanchard, posted on Amazon.com defending J. Michael Bailey.
[five stars] Man Who Would Be Queen, April 17, 2003 Reviewer: Ray Blanchard from Toronto
The explosion of rage detonated by the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, has largely obscured an important message of that book: There are two fundamentally different types of male-to-female transsexualism, and they are equally valid. The homosexual type are erotically aroused by other (biological) males, and the autogynephilic type are erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women.
When I joined the Clarke Gender Identity Clinic in 1980, the literalist interpretation of transsexualism as the condition of men-trapped-in-women’s-bodies reigned supreme. Many clinicians dismissed all transsexuals with a history of sexual arousal in association with cross-dressing as “mere transvestites” and summarily excluded them from consideration for sex reassignment surgery. This situation was extremely confusing to many male-to-female transsexuals who desperately wanted to undergo sex reassignment and live their lives as women, but who thought that their past history of masturbation in women’s attire meant that they were “merely” transvestites.
Fortunately for these patients, the policy of “one erection and you’re out” was never followed at the Toronto clinic. Several of the earliest patients approved for sex reassignment had been husbands and fathers in the male role, and they freely reported clear-cut histories of sexual arousal in association with cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy. It gradually became clear to me that for such patients the erotic value of becoming a woman was the essential motive behind the desire for sex reassignment, and that erection and ejaculation in women’s attire were not simply accidental by-products. I never saw this as an invalid reason for desiring sex reassignment, I never saw these patients as some lesser breed of transsexuals, and I never designated their form of gender dysphoria as “secondary.”
During the years when I was publishing the autogynephilia papers, several autogynephiles wrote me to express their relief at learning that there were many others like themselves, and that their feelings of being transsexual were not a delusion. Those articles were published in specialty journals with limited circulations, and it is remarkable that any autogynephiles encountered them at all. Prof. Bailey’s book, which is written for a general audience in a clear and accessible style, has the potential to bring the same reassurance to a much larger group of people. The audiences for which this book was intended, which include students, clinical professionals, and laypersons, should not mistake the campaign of disinformation (verging at times on hate-mail) currently being waged by an ideologically-driven group of self-appointed “activists” as the universal view of all transsexual and transgender persons.
APA DIV 44
From an August 2003 CAMH newsletter: http://www.camh.net/careers/bt_pdfs/bt_august292003.pdf
Holding the framed citation is Ray Blanchard. Right is James S. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., President of Division 44 of the American Psychological Association.
The CAMH Gender Identity Clinic is delighted to announce that our clinic received a Presidential Citation from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association (the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues) at a ceremony on August 9, 2003.
The text of the Citation reads as follows:
“The Gender Identity Clinic has established itself as the premier research center on gender dysphoria research and clinical care since 1968, and is celebrating its 35th year.”
Resignation from HBIGDA
On 4 November 2003, Blanchard resigned from HBIGDA in protest of a letter they sent to Northwestern University regarding charges of ethical misconduct leveled at J. Michael Bailey.
November 4, 2003 Walter J. Meyer III, MD President, HBIGDA Bean Robinson, PhD Executive Director, HBIGDA
Dear Drs. Meyer and Robinson:
It is with deep regret that I tender my resignation in the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA). I have long supported the goals of the HBIGDA. I have been involved in the clinical care of transsexual persons for 24 years. During the years 1983 to 1991, I conducted eight research studies on the therapeutic impact of hormonal and surgical treatment of transsexuals, studies that were reported in six refereed journal articles and two book chapters. I published an additional article on the desirability of insurance coverage for sex reassignment surgery as recently as 2000. It is therefore a matter of some sadness that the recent actions of the HBIGDA Executive have made it necessary for me to disassociate myself from this organization.
I am referring to the appalling decision of the HBIGDA Officers and Board of Directors to attempt to intervene in Northwestern University’s investigation into the allegations made by certain members of the transsexual community against Prof. J. Michael Bailey. This decision is documented in the attached letter, which is prominently displayed on a popular transsexual Web site. Such an intervention, undertaken without any effort by the HBIGDA to conduct their own systematic inquiry or to learn all the relevant facts of the matter, could only be prejudicial to Northwestern’s investigation. In fact it has the appearance, whether this is accurate or not, of being a deliberate and improper attempt to bias that investigation. The HBIGDA would have been better advised to allow the Northwestern authorities, who are actually taking the trouble to investigate the allegations, to reach an impartial decision based on all relevant testimony and factual evidence.
I do not know the motives behind the Officers’ and Board of Directors’ actions, but those motives are irrelevant. It is their actions that are unacceptable and that make it impossible for me to continue to belong to the HBIGDA.
Very truly yours, Ray Blanchard
Blanchard and DSM
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association lists three “mental disorders” that can be diagnosed in gender variant people: gender identity disorder, transvestic fetishism, and childhood gender nonconformity.
Blanchard, who happens to be an American citizen, says a DSM listing has different implications in Canada than in the U.S. “This question of whether autogynephilia should be listed as a disorder is strictly an American preoccupation,” he says. “In the U.S. there is no universal health insurance plan, so people will pay for their SRS out of their own pocket. But in most of the Western world, where there is government-run health insurance, in order for their sex reassignment to be paid for, it has to be a disorder, it has to be in the DSM. Health plans don’t pay for surgery that is elective. They pay for surgery that is medically necessary.”
He points out that from 1970 to ’99 the Ontario Health Insurance Plan covered sex-reassignment surgery for patients who’d been approved for it by the Clarke Institute. But the conservative government that came to power in 1999 stopped paying for it. “Now a group of transsexuals have brought a human rights complaint against removal of sex-reassignment surgery as a benefit,” he says. “Their argument is that this is a recognized treatment for a psychiatric disorder. It’s got to remain in the DSM. The DSM has no formal jurisdiction in Canada, but in fact it’s taken as the standard.” [4]
Many are beginning to question whether these diagnoses are really necessary in order to receive health services. Many are even questioning whether these are diseases at all. Because Blanchard and several cronies are heavily involved in the DSM’s language about these “disorders,” it is likely that we will see a pitched battle about this matter when the next DSM revision is made.
In the meantime, Blanchard’s star continues to fade, reduced to eugenicists, old-school sexologists and psychologists, and those self-hating gender variant people who seek a “cure” for their gender variance. The Clarke has been surpassed by several other Toronto facilities offering more flexible and inclusive access to health services. As numbers at those clinics continue to surge, numbers at The Clarke continue to decline, a harbinger of Blanchard’s place in history as an interesting curiosity from the waning years when our community was considered disordered and diseased.
Blanchard on fifth estate
In October 2004, Ray Blanchard and team were featured in a news magazine program on transsexualism, reported by Hana Gartner. Below is a transcript of selected sections:
Gartner voiceover: One of the most established gender clinics in the world is at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health. It’s run by psychologist Ray Blanchard, who has been studying transsexuals for the past 25 years. He says they have a serious illness.
Blanchard: Transsexualism is considered a psychiatric disorder by the World Health Organization and by the American Psychiatric Association. We probably know more about how to treat them or manage them than we do know about what causes them.
Gartner voiceover: Those who come here looking for help must first be diagnosed and assessed by this panel of experts.
Blanchard to experts: They told the GP that they had some gender problem. It’s a biological female. It looks to me that the patient hasn’t been started on a testosterone medication yet.
Gartner voiceover: The only effective treatment for this psychiatric disorder is a combination of hormones and surgery.
Gartner to Blanchard: Can cosmetic surgery cure this disorder?
Blanchard: You are giving someone surgeries that enable them to be accepted as the opposite sex. Cosmetic surgery can help people lead much happier and more productive lives.
Blanchard: Her vocal cords will thicken and her voice will drop into the male range, and that is a permanent change.
Gartner voiceover: Ray Blanchard, who is in charge of Canada’s top gender clinic, believes very few people should go on hormones or change their sex. His clinic sees only about 50 patients a year, and he rejects most of them.
Blanchard: We are not trying to encourage people to have sex reassignment surgery; on the contrary, we encourage people to try and make an adjustment to their biological gender.
Gartner: A 17 year old female, if she came to see you, what advice would you give her?
Blanchard: At our clinic, the minimum age we would consider a patent for hormonal treatment would be 20 years, and the minimum age for considering them for surgical treatment would be 21 years.
1. Armstrong J. The Body within, the body without. Globe and Mail, 12 June 2004, p. F1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040612/COVER12/TPComment/TopStories
2. Newbery L. Trans-sexuals happier after operation, MD says. Toronto Star, 27 November 1984, p. H2.
3. Bailey JM. (Chair), Phenomenology and classification of male-to-female transsexualism. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research, Paris. June, 2000. Slide 38. http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/Blanchard’s%20Paris%20Talk.ppt
“The foregoing studies indicate that there are only two fundamentally different types of transsexualism in males: homosexual and nonhomosexual. This finding points to the next question: What do the three nonhomosexual types have in common? I have suggested that the common characteristic is an erotic orientation that I have labeled autogynephilia. Autogynephilia may be defined as a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.”
4. Rodkin D. Sex and Transsexuals. Chicago Reader December 12, 2003
‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’ Controversy Continues: Professor Blanchard Quits HBIGDA NTAC press release 10 November 2003 http://www.ntac.org/pr/release.asp?did=81
Magnus Hirschfeld and Max Tilke, Die Tranvestiten. Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb mit umfangreichen casuistichem und historischem Material
These are URLs from the original version of this site.
Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-motivations.html
“Male gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishists:” How Ray Blanchard sees us
Clarke Institute Clearinghouse: documenting the words and actions of CAMH staff
Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-hypotheses.html
Ray Blanchard’s place in history: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-history.html
Notes, updates, further reading: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-notes.html
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
John Michael “Mike” Bailey (born 1951) is an American psychologist, considered one of the most unethical sexologists in history. Bailey’s checkered career is a series of ethics scandals and controversies.
Since 2003 this site has documented Bailey’s central role in the academic exploitation of sex and gender minorities. One history book says my work coordinating the community response to anti-trans academics “represented one of the most organized and unified examples of transgender activism seen to date.” In 2021 the United States Library of Congress selected this site for archiving because it is “an important part of this collection and the historical record.”
Bailey’s notable ethical scandals
Children and sex
supporting “many offending pedophiles who are usually punished far more harshly than research suggests is warranted by the harm they cause.”
supporting leniency for a rapist whose victims are infants and young children: “if he didn’t physically hurt them, and if they didn’t remember traumatically, his actions should be penalized less than had he physically hurt them and they did remember.”
promulgating the concept of “pre-homosexual” children: “pre-homosexual children tend to be relatively gender nonconforming.”
claiming to know the sexual orientation of children
supporting fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker, whose “therapy” of gender diverse children has been widely outlawed and described as “child abuse”
supporting penile plethysmography, a controversial device for measuring genital arousal; some sexologists have attached plethysmographs to the penises of children to measure their erections for “research”
Supporting convicted serial child rapist Jerry Sandusky: “In an exchange with Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, Bailey affirmed his belief that Sandusky’s accusers had lied. ‘You believe the people testifying against Jerry Sandusky are lying?’ Carter asked. Bailey responded, ‘I can see that if you are not familiar with the evidence that I am familiar with, you would be shocked.'”
Eugenics
dissertation advisor and mentor Lee Willerman was a member of the American Eugenics Society
stating it is “morally acceptable” to screen for and abort gay fetuses: “selection for heterosexuality may benefit parents and children and is unlikely to cause significant harm.”
arguing that “offering sex offenders the opportunity to be castrated in return for a reduced sentence is not ethically problematic coercion.”
Signing a 2018 letter from hate group American College of Pediatricians to the Trump Administration. Bailey demanded “upholding the scientific definition of sex in law and policy,” adding “an individual who identifies as transgender remains either a biological male or female.”
