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Michael Seto vs. transgender people

Michael Seto is a Canadian evolutionary psychologist whose work focuses on sex and gender minorities. In 2025, Seto was named incoming editor of anti-trans journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Seto has used disease models to describe trans people, including misusing the scientific term “gynandromorph.” No reputable scientist uses this term for humans. It is only used by anti-trans activists in the context of attraction to transgender people. The disease “gynandromorphophilia” was created by Peter Collins and Ray Blanchard, two anti-trans colleagues of Seto’s. Blanchard has published articles with Seto. Collins has quoted research by Seto in testimony about the use of child-sized sex dolls as a possible way to prevent sex offenses against children.

Background

Michael Chikong Seto was born in 1967. Seto earned a bachelor’s degree from University of British Columbia in 1989, then earned a master’s degree from Queen’s University in 1992, followed by a doctorate in 1997.

Seto worked at notorious anti-transgender facility The Clarke Institute (later renamed CAMH) from 1998 to 2008. Much of Seto’s research focuses on adolescent sex offenders, minor attracted persons, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Seto was named a consulting editor of Journal of Sex Research in 2014 and editor of Sexual Abuse in 2015.

Seto is married to sexologist Meredith Chivers. In 2003, Chivers and Seto sat on a panel at the Kinsey Institute with anti-trans extremist J. Michael Bailey as part of a multidisciplinary group of researchers in sexual psychophysiology.

Seto joined the International Academy of Sex Research and the editorial board at the journal they control, Archives of Sexual Behavior. Seto is a senior scientist and Director of the Forensic Mental Health Research, IMHR.

Seto’s Wikipedia biography was written by anti-transgender troll James Cantor, who is now banned. Seto has personally made additional edits to it.

“Gynandromorphs”

In science, a gynandromorph is an animal with bilateral intersex traits and sex mosaics. Gynandromorph has never been used by scientists to describe mammals, let alone primates like humans. No human has ever been observed with bilateral intersex traits.

Seto’s beliefs and unscientific use of this terminology have made their way into articles in anti-trans publications like Reason:

Even the gender dimension is more complex than most realize, writes Seto, with some people “attracted to gynandromorphs, that is… individuals with physical features of both sexes … other individuals who are attracted specifically to transgender people, and those who would describe themselves as more pansexual with regard to gender, for example, being attracted to both cis- and trans-gender women or men.”

References

Canadian Press (March 21, 2017). Child sex doll trial raises issue of what constitutes child porn. Hamilton Spectator https://www.thespec.com/news/canada/child-sex-doll-trial-raises-issue-of-what-constitutes-child-porn/article_6ada4f18-c464-5106-b045-f6892a0d07ff.html original url https://www.hamiltonnews.com/news-story/7201493-child-sex-doll-trial-raises-issue-of-what-constitutes-child-porn/

Uzielli, Julian (May 31, 2012). Expert provides snapshot of a child pornographer. Metro. http://metronews.ca/news/london/245302/expert-provides-snapshot-of-a-child-pornographer/ [archive]

Leger, Donna Leinwand (November 15, 2011). Misconceptions make pedophiles hard to detect. USA Today PDF https://www.stopitnow.org/sites/default/files/documents/files/misconceptions_make_pedophiles_hard_to_detect_-_usatoday.pdf original url https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-11-15/sexual-predators-penn-state/51225988/1 [archive]

Sullum, Jacob (July 2011). Perverted Justice: Sex offender laws represent the triumph of outrage over reason. Reason https://reason.com/2011/06/14/perverted-justice-2/

(March 30, 2010). Ontario police arrest 31 in massive child-porn bust. National Post https://nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=1256779 [excluded from archives] 2010-03-30.

McIlroy, Anne (February 27, 2009). Hot and bothered. The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/hot-and-bothered/article714183/

Staff report (May 4, 2007). Ont. won’t fund pedophile study. CTVNews http://www.ctvnews.ca/ontario-won-t-fund-study-that-pays-sex-offenders-1.239954 [archive]

Staff report (May 4, 2007). Group objects to study that will pay sex offenders. CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/05/04/pedophilia-study.html

CAMH (2004). Psychobiology of Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour across the Lifespan. http://www.camh.net/research/research_psychobiology.html [archive]

Kinsey Institute (2003). Methodological Approaches In Reproductive Psychophysiology Saturday July 12 – Tuesday July 15, 2003 http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/services/psychophys.html [archive]

Anti-trans coverage

Editors (July 2025). Announcement: Introducing Michael C. Seto, Incoming Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior https://link.springer.com/journal/10508/updates/27789902

Singal, Jesse (November 17, 2025). Is It Okay To Call Jeffrey Epstein An Ephebophile? Singal-Minded https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/is-it-okay-to-call-jeffrey-epstein

Brown, Elizabeth Nolan (August 24, 2016). Beyond Gay and Straight: New Paper Says Sexual Orientation Is Much More Complicated. Reason https://reason.com/2016/08/24/beyond-gay-straight-sexual-orientation/

Singal, Jesse (August 23, 2016). Being Into Middle-Aged People Is Probably a Sexual Orientation. The Cut https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/liking-middle-aged-people-is-probably-a-sexual-orientation.html

Selected writing by Seto

This list is limited to Seto’s writing in relation to trans and gender diverse people.

Seto, M.C. (2025). A Vision for Archives of Sexual Behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior 54, 2387–2388 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03257-5

Seto, M. C., Leroux, E. J., Kane, L., Ashbaugh, A. R., Lalumière, M. L., Curry, S., Stephens, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2024). Does the Paraphilia Scale Work for Everyone? Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Measurement Invariance Across Gender and Sexual Orientation Groups. The Journal of Sex Research, 62(3), 411–420. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2353303

Seto, M. C., Curry, S., Dawson, S. J., Bradford, J. M. W., & Chivers, M. L. (2020). Concordance of Paraphilic Interests and Behaviors. The Journal of Sex Research, 58(4), 424–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1830018

Seto, M. C. (2016). The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0799-y

Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., Lalumière, M. L., Laan, E., & Grimbos, T. (2010). Agreement of self-reported and genital measures of sexual arousal among men and women: A meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 5-56. 10.1007/s10508-009-9556-9

Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., & Blanchard, R. (2007). Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(6), 1108–1121. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.6.1108

Seto, M. C. (2001). Book review: Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences. Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 30, Iss. 1,  (Feb 2001): 83-85. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026472808270

Seto, M. C., Khattar, N. A., Lalumière, M. L. & Quinsey, V. L. (1997). Deception and sexual strategy in psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 22 (3), 301-307.

Freund, K., Seto, M. C., & Kuban, M. (1996). Two types of fetishism. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 34(9), 687–694. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(96)00047-2

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

University of Ottawa (uottawa.ca)

University of Toronto (utoronto.ca)

The Royal (theroyal.ca)

Safer Society (safersociety.org)

X/Twitter (x.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)