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Chester W. Schmidt, Jr. vs. transgender people

Chester William Schmidt, Jr. (born 1934) is an American psychiatrist, one of several people at Johns Hopkins involved in the repression of trans people through psychiatry.

Background

Chester William Schmidt Jr., graduated Johns Hopkins Medical School and did his residencies at Stanford and Johns Hopkins.

His first published work appeared in 1966. Research interests center around car crashes, suicide, sexual dysfunction (much of which was done with Fagan, who directs the JHU program). Much of the work coauthored with Thomas Wise and Fagan cover paraphilia.

He was Chairman of Psychiatry at (now closed) Bayview Medical Center, replaced Paul McHugh as director of the Department of Psychiatry for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Paul McHugh, who served as the Henry Phipps Professor and director of Psychiatry for more than 25 years. He has also been associate dean of the School of Medicine.

The Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit has received an Award for Creativity in Psychiatric Education from the American College of Psychiatrists. The unit is led by Peter J. Fagan, director, and Chester W. Schmidt Jr. and Julia G. Strand, associate directors.

He ran for secretary of the American Psychiatric Association and has a heavy hand in policies related on administration and managed care. He has been chair of the APA Work Group on Codes and Reimbursements

However, in 2004 The Johns Hopkins University and one of its teaching hospitals agreed to pay more than $2.6 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that they overbilled the National Institutes of Health for addiction research and other projects. Robert Brooner and Schmidt were named as defendants in the suit along with the medical school, Bayview and Johns Hopkins Bayview Physicians, a now-defunct corporation that employed doctors.

From “The sex-change charade” an article that appeared in Christian fundamentalist publication WorldNet Dailey in 2003:

“Some people consider it mutilating. And, of course, the scientific side of it is pretty damn weak,” said Chester Schmidt, M.D., one of the founders of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Selected publications

Fagan PJ, Wise TN, Derogatis LR, Schmidt CW. Distressed transvestites. Psychometric characteristics. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1988 Oct;176(10):626-32.

Wise TN, Fagan PJ, Schmidt CW, Ponticas Y, Costa PT. Personality and sexual functioning of transvestitic fetishists and other paraphilics. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1991 Nov;179(11):694-8.

Fagan PJ, Wise TN, Schmidt CW Jr, Ponticas Y, Marshall RD, Costa PT Jr. A comparison of five-factor personality dimensions in males with sexual dysfunction and males with paraphilia.   J Pers Assess. 1991 Dec;57(3):434-48.

Knorr NJ, Clower CG Jr, Schmidt CW Jr. Mixed adult and adolescent group therapy. Am J Psychother.   1966 Apr;20(2):323-31.

Halle E, Schmidt CW Jr, Meyer JK. The role of grandmothers in transsexualism.

Am J Psychiatry. 1980 Apr;137(4):497-8.

Brown GR, Wise TN, Costa PT Jr, Herbst JH, Fagan PJ, Schmidt CW Jr. Personality characteristics and sexual functioning of 188 cross-dressing men. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1996 May;184(5):265-73.

Fagan PJ, Wise TN, Schmidt CW Jr, Berlin FS. Pedophilia. JAMA. 2002 Nov 20;288(19):2458-65.