John Hoenig was a Czech-Canadian psychiatrist and anti-transgender activist. Hoenig was associated with the notoriously anti-trans Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and published research that vastly undercounted the number of trans people.
Background
Julius “John” Hoenig was born on April 11, 1916 in Falkinow, a town near Prague. Hoenig attended Kraslice School and then enrolled in medicine at Charles University but fled to Glasgow when Hitler invaded. During World War II, Hoenig qualified in Glasgow in 1942, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was stationed in India, Rangoon in Burma, and Singapore.
From 1944 to 1947, Hoenig served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, then trained at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Hoenig was appointed consulting psychiatrist at St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath in 1953. In 1955, the World Health Organization asked Hoenig to found a psychiatric famility in India, and Hoenig was a visiting professor at theAll India Institute of Mental Health in Bangalore from 1955 to 1956. Hoenig served on the faculty at Manchester University from 1956 to 1968, While there Hoenig began publishing about transgender topics.
In 1968 Hoenig was named professor and chair of the department of psychiatry at Memorial University in St John’s, Newfoundland. Hoenig then moved to Toronto and joined the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. Hoenig retired in 1992 following a stroke and died February 19, 2009.
Hoenig married Inga (Greve) Hoenig in 1942. They had two children.
Anti-trans activism
In 1974, Hoenig published what became one of the most pernicious statistics about trans people, which was then repeated uncritically for decades. Hoenig claimed the prevalence of “transsexualism” in England and Wales was:
- Male-to-female (MtF): about 1 in 37,000
- Female-to-male (FtM): about 1 in 107,000
Hoenig also contributed to a 1985 anti-trans book edited by Betty Steiner and featuring other anti-trans Clarke Institute employees: Ray Blanchard, Susan Bradley, Kurt Freund, and Kenneth Zucker.
References
Fernando, M. L. D., & Sirinivasan, U. (2009). Julius Hoenig. BMJ, 339(sep11 1), b3715–b3715. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b3715
Selected writing by Hoenig
Hoenig, J. (1985). Etiology of Transsexualism. In: Steiner, B.W. (eds) Gender Dysphoria. Perspectives in Sexuality. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4784-2_3
Hoenig, J. (1985). The Origin of Gender Identity. In: Steiner, B.W. (eds) Gender Dysphoria. Perspectives in Sexuality. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4784-2_2
Hoenig J. (1977). The legal position of the transsexual: mostly unsatisfactory outside Sweden. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1977 Feb 5;116(3):319-23. PMID: 837305; PMCID: PMC1878949.
Hoenig, J., & Duggan, E. (1974). Sexual and Other Abnormalities in the Family of a Transsexual. Psychopathology, 7(6), 334–346. https://doi.org/10.1159/000283599
Hoenig, J., Kenna, J.C. (1974). The nosological position of transsexualism. Archives of Sexual Behavior 3, 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541490
Hoenig, J., & Kenna, J. C. (1974). The Prevalence of Transsexualism in England and Wales. British Journal of Psychiatry, 124(579), 181–190. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.124.2.181
Hoenig J, Kenna JC, Youd A. (1970). Social and Economic Aspects of Transsexualism. British Journal of Psychiatry. 1970;117(537):163-172. https://doi.org/10.1192/S0007125000192852
Resources
Royal College of Physicians (history.rcp.ac.uk)
- Julius Hoenig
- history.rcp.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/julius-hoenig