Kathrin Sevecke and transgender people

Kathrin Sevecke is a German child and adolescent psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Since 2013, Sevecke has been professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria, directing the university clinic for child and adolescent psychiatry.

Sevecke has coauthored several papers on gender incongruence, some of which are controversial.

Background

Kathrin Sevecke was born in 1972 and grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Sevecke earned a medical degree from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1999. In 2009, Sevecke received the venia legendi (habilitation) in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy.

In 1999 Sevecke started as a resident in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Cologne, and in 2006 became a senior physician with a leading role at the Cologne clinic. That role first involved heading the children’s ward and day clinic, and from 2009 also leading the specialist eating-disorders ward and an adolescent psychotherapy ward focused on anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Sevecke has taught the subject since 2002 and spent research stays at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, Stanford University, and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago.

On November 1, 2013 the Medical University of Innsbruck appointed Sevecke to its chair of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, heading a newly founded university clinic. At the time, the university and the hospital operator TILAK had begun in 2012 to consolidate the region’s scattered child-psychiatry services under one roof, and the Innsbruck chair was then the only filled professorship in the field in Austria. Sevecke went on to head the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics of the Tirol Kliniken in both Innsbruck and Hall.

Sevecke has served as president of the Austrian Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is co-editor of the journal Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie. Sevecke is also trained as a systemic family therapist.

Sevecke is the parent of two children.

Trans and gender diverse research

Sevecke’s clinic is running a research project on psychopathological symptoms, body experience, identity development and quality of life in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. That project is led by Martin Fuchs. Fuchs also sat on the steering group of the German-language S2k guideline as the delegate from Österreichische Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie [Austrian Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy] (ÖGKJP). That 2025 guideline permits puberty blockers and hormones for adolescents after careful assessment. 

Sevecke has published on trans healthcare from a psychiatric perspective since 2017. Sevecke has published several papers with André Leonhardt, who spoke at a conference held by anti-trans hate group Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM). They have discussed the merits and criticisms of anti-trans disease “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” which is promoted by SEGM, and they have cited research commissioned via the SEGM-McMaster funding scandal, later ended by lead researcher Gordon Guyatt. Sevecke’s discussion of Lisa Littman and citation of SEGM-funded work is an example of how anti-trans knowledge production gets laundered into mainstream academia by otherwise reputable clinicians.

References

Staff report (January 29, 2021). Expertin sieht Ausnahmezustand bei Kindern [Expert sees state of emergency among children]. Salzburg24 https://www.salzburg24.at/news/oesterreich/expertin-sieht-ausnahmezustand-bei-kindern-art-237583

Hartmann, Sarah (July 2, 2019). ESCAP 2019: Trauma plays a major role in the development of antisocial behavior. Medonline https://medonline.at/news/uncategorized/10032402/escap-2019-antisoziales-verhalten/

Press release (January 28, 2014). Univ.-Prof.in Kathrin Sevecke leitet neue Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie [Univ.-Prof. Kathrin Sevecke heads the new University Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry]. https://www.i-med.ac.at/pr/presse/2014/final_presse_sevecke.pdf

Selected writing by Sevecke

Leonhardt A, Fuchs M, Sevecke K. (2025). Geschlechtsdysphorie in der Adoleszenz: Klinische Orientierung in einem komplexen Feld [Gender dysphoria in adolescence: clinical orientation in a complex field]. Paediatr. Paedolog. 2026;61:24-27. Epub 2025 Dec 2. German. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00608-025-01342-5

Leonhardt A, Fuchs M, Kohlboeck G, Bachler-Ortner N, Haid-Stecher N, Gander M, Sevecke K. (2025). Distress Profiles of Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: A Cluster Analysis Approach. Arch Sex Behav. 2025;54:3095-3109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03221-3

Leonhardt A, Fuchs M, Sevecke K. (2024). Das Unbehagen am eigenen Geschlecht – Geschlechtsinkongruenz in der ICD-11 [The discomfort with one’s own gender – gender incongruence in ICD-11]. Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr. 2024;73(8):737-752. German. https://doi.org/10.13109/prkk.2024.73.8.737

Leonhardt A, Fuchs M, Gander M, Sevecke K. (2024). Gender dysphoria in adolescence: examining the rapid-onset hypothesis. Neuropsychiatr. 2025;39(1):1-10. Epub 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40211-024-00500-8

Haid-Stecher N, Fuchs M, Ortner N, Sevecke K. (2020). TransIdentität – Die Entwicklung der Identität bei transidenten Jugendlichen [Trans identity – identity development in trans* adolescents]. Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr. 2020 Sep;69(6):541-553. https://doi.org/10.13109/prkk.2020.69.6.541

Fuchs M, Ortner N, Haid-Stecher N, Thun-Hohenstein L, Sevecke K. (2020). Versorgungsmodelle für Kinder und Jugendliche mit Geschlechtsdysphorie: Überblick unter Berücksichtigung der österreichischen Behandlungsrealität [Care models for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Overview considering the Austrian treatment reality]. Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr. 2020 Sep;69(6):590-602. https://doi.org/10.13109/prkk.2020.69.6.590

Feulner J, Haid-Stecher N, Fleischmann S, Fuchs M, Sevecke K. (2018). Zur Diagnostik und Therapie der Identitätsdiffusion im Kindes- und Jugendalter [Assessment and Therapy of Adolescent Identity Diffusion in Childhood and Adolescence]. Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr. 2018 Nov;67(7):624-638. https://doi.org/10.13109/prkk.2018.67.7.624

Fuchs M, Praxmarer K., Sevecke K. (2017). Transidentität in der Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie [Transgender identity in child and adolescent psychiatry]. Gynecological Endocrinology 2017;15:30-38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10304-016-0112-0

Resources

Tirol Kliniken (tirol-kliniken.at)

• Prof.in Dr.in Kathrin Sevecke
• tirol-kliniken.at/page.cfm?vpath=standorte/landeskrankenhaus-hall/medizinisches-angebot/kinder–und-jugendpsychiatrie-psychotherapie-und-psychosomatik/wissenschaft-und-forschung/team/profin-drin-kathrin-sevecke

ResearchGate (researchgate.net)

• Kathrin Sevecke
• researchgate.net/profile/Kathrin_Sevecke