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Paul McHugh on transsexualism Paul Rodney McHugh (born 1931) is an American psychiatrist who is a key historical figure in the academic pathologization of sex and gender minorities. A noted Catholic conservative, McHugh famously shut down the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1979, based on a follow-up study by Jon Meyer that claimed there was no real benefit to these services.[1] McHugh argues that gender variance is essentially a lifestyle choice or an ideology, and that offering trans health services is effectively collaborating in a patient's delusion. He has described it as akin to giving liposuction to an anorexic person.
Background Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he is the son of a high school teacher and a housewife. "McHugh describes himself as religiously orthodox, politically liberal (he is a Democrat) and culturally conservative -- a believer in marriage and the Marines, a supporter of institutions and family values." [2] McHugh received his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1952 and his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1956. He served as head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Oregon Medical School in the early 1970s. In 1975 he was appointed Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Psychiatrist-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, McHugh is currently co-chairman of the Ethics Committee at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He has also served on the board of The American Scholar until resigning in objection to an article. In the 1992 article "Psychiatric Misadventures," McHugh outlines his distaste for three "fashions" -- the anti-psychiatry movement, sex-change surgery and the theory of multiple-personality disorder. None, in his view, addresses what really ails patients; the result has been prolonged treatment with dubious results. McHugh is a proponent of the concept of "autogynephilia," a paraphilia created by Ray Blanchard in 1989:
McHugh has been equally sure that the concept of schizophrenia is legitimate since the 1970s. He has been involved in work seeking genetic markers for the behavior. In this work, he has publihed with Malgorzata Lamacz, a former John Money collaborator on paraphilia at Johns Hopkins. McHugh attacks anything he dislikes with the zeal of a fanatic. In 2007 he was ordered by Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison to stop making public statements about physician George Tiller's work. McHugh disapproved of Tiller's work providing abortion services. Tiller was later murdered by a fanatic who was influenced by public statements made about Tiller. McHugh is also known for his work defending Catholic priests against sex abuse charges. He was a founder and board member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and he was named to a lay panel assembled by the Roman Catholic Church in 2002 to look into sexual abuse by priests, which led to protests from victims' rights groups.
McHugh added:
It's worth noting that in his defense of obscene phone calls made by American University President Richard Berendzen in 1992, McHugh oversaw recovering memories with the use of sodium amytal, and said that Berendzen suffered from "a kind of post-traumatic disorder," [6] two concepts McHugh has questioned in other cases.
McHugh attacking physician George Tiller in 2007 before McHugh was threatened with legal action by the Kansas Attorney General. Tiller was later murdered. McHugh has spent his career imposing his religious beliefs on the bodies of others and on the practices of peers. One Tiller patient was a 10-year-old girl, 28 weeks pregnant, who had been raped by an adult relative. McHugh said that while the girl’s case was “terrible,” it did not change his assessment: “She did not have something irreversible that abortion could correct.” [7] In this section
References 1. Staff report (August 27, 1979). Sexes: Role Reversal. Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920579,00.html 2. Goode, Erica (August 5, 2002). Psychiatrist Says He Was Surprised by Furor Over His Role on Abuse Panel. New York Times 3. McHugh, Paul (). The Mind Has Mountains, p. 227. 4. Math, Mara J. (September 20, 2002). Dubious choice for resolving church scandal. San Francisco Chronicle 5. Barry, Dan and Robin Toner (March 24, 2002). U.S. Catholics, Sad and Angry, Still Keeping Faith. New York Times 6. Simon RI, Shuman DW, eds. (2002). Retrospective Assessment of Mental States in Litigation: Predicting the Past 7. Barstow, David (July 25, 2009). An abortion battle, fought to the death. New York Times |
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. American Psychiatric Pub, ISBN 9781585620012