James Cantor vs. transgender people

James Cantor is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender extremist.

Cantor is an online troll best known for promoting fringe and regressive beliefs about sex and gender minorities. Cantor has special contempt for the transgender rights movement. Cantor’s questionable beliefs and practices involve:

Sexual attraction to minors

Child-sized sex dolls: Cantor says “no evidence suggests sex dolls increase any risk of harm to anyone.”
Promotes Virtuous Pedophiles and other pedophilia support organizations
Promotes the controversial disease “hebephilia”
Stating that LGBT should include P for pedophilia

Other sex diseases

Promotes and creates transphobic diseases including “autogynephilia” and “gynandromorphophilia”
Promotes disputed sex concepts like “hypersexuality” and “sex addiction”
Misuses fMRI and plethysmography to promote sex diseases

Gender diverse minors

Promotes non-affirming models of care like “watchful waiting” and gender identity change efforts
Testifies against affirming healthcare for gender diverse youth

Depsite frequently presenting as being an ally to trans people, Cantor is widely considered a major figure in anti-transgender extremism.

Cantor is one of the most vocal supporters of colleague Ray Blanchard and Blanchard’s disease model of trans women and those attracted to us. Cantor is also a major supporter of fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker’s “therapeutic intervention” on gender diverse children that has been widely outlawed.

Cantor was one of the earliest and most tenacious supporters of J. Michael Bailey’s transphobic 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Cantor often appears on conservative outlets to criticize and complain about the transgender community.

Cantor was forced to apologize by former employer CAMH for attacking trans guest lecturer Kyle Scanlon. Cantor has been banned from many online groups for aggressive behavior toward those who disagree about sex and gender.

Cantor is banned from:

The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality forum (2020)
Reddit’s largest psychology forum (2017)
Wikipedia (2021)

In 2019, Cantor criticized the mainstream consensus statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics for rejecting Cantor’s non-affirming model of care for gender diverse youth. Cantor calls this “watchful waiting,” but he AAP calls it “delayed transition” and advises against it.

In 2022, Cantor submitted a report to end state-funded healthcare for transgender residents of Florida. The report was apparently originally funded by conservative Christian organization Alliance Defending Freedom. A rebuttal to Cantor noted:

James Cantor’s document, presented as Attachment D to the June 2 Report, also faces serious questions about bias and lack of expertise. In a 2022 case, a federal court took a skeptical view of Cantor’s purported expertise, noting that “the Court gave [Cantor’s] testimony little weight because he admitted, inter alia, to having no clinical experience in treating gender dysphoria in minors and no experience monitoring patients receiving drug treatments for gender dysphoria.²⁰ Cantor’s document is nearly identical to what appears to be paid testimony in another case, where Cantor’s declaration was used to support legislation barring transgender athletes from sports teams,²¹ Troublingly, Cantor’s appearance in that case seems to have been funded by the Alliance Defending Freedom (“ADF”),²² a religious and political organization that opposes legal protections for transgender people and same-sex marriage²³ and defends the criminalization of sexual activity between partners of the same sex.²⁴ Because Cantor provides no conflicts of interest disclosure, readers cannot ascertain whether Florida AHCA also paid for Cantor’s report and whether Florida officials were aware that the Cantor report reused his work for (apparently) the ADF.
McNamara et. al (2022)

Background

James M. Cantor was born on January 2, 1966 in Manhasset, New York and grew up in nearby Sayville. Parents Henle Cantor (born 1943) and Stuart “Stu” Cantor (born 1940) married in 1965. Cantor’s parents owned a parts-related business serving Pepsi plants outside the United States. Cantor has two younger siblings, David and Leah.

Cantor earned a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s degree from Boston University, and a doctorate from McGill University in 1999. Cantor’s advisors were Irv Binik and James Pfaus. Cantor did postdoctoral training with Ray Blanchard.

Cantor founded the Toronto Sexuality Centre and has worked there with Morag Yule, Marie Faaborg-Andersen, and Ian McPhail.

Cantor is married to psychologist Neil Pilkington.

References

See also archival information

Montpetit, Jonathan; Gilchrist, Sylvène (October 21, 2023). U.S. conservatives are using Canadian research to justify anti-trans laws. CBC https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/james-cantor-gender-affirming-care-bans-1.6979356 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2275449411793

Reed, Erin (September 18, 2023). Anti-Trans Court “Expert” Couldn’t Name A Single Medication For Blocking Puberty. Erin in the Morning https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/anti-trans-court-expert-couldnt-name

Redden, Molly (September 15, 2023). Inside The Cottage Industry Of ‘Experts’ Paid To Defend Anti-Trans Laws. HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paid-experts-defending-anti-trans-law_n_65021a7ee4b01df7c3b6d513?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Cantor JM (2019). Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy. J Sex Marital Ther. 2020;46(4):307-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2019.1698481. Epub 2019 Dec 14.

Yan, Ellen (October 19, 2012). West Sayville home: George Washington rested here. Newsday https://www.newsday.com/classifieds/real-estate/west-sayville-home-george-washington-rested-here-n08463

McNamara M, AbdulLatif H, Boulware SD, Kamody R, Kuper L, Olezeski C, Szilagyi N, Alstott AL (July 8, 2022). A Critical Review of the June 2022 Florida Medicaid Report on the Medical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria. https://medicine.yale.edu/lgbtqi/research/gaender-affirming-care/florida%20report%20final%20july%208%202022%20accessible_443048_284_55174_v3.pdf [archive]

Grossman, Hannah (June 2, 2022). Florida Medicaid moves against transgender therapies coverage, calls it ‘experimental’ FOX News https://www.foxnews.com/media/florida-health-agency-transgender-treatment-youth-experimental [archive]