Skip to content

Peter I. Collins vs. transgender people

Peter Ian Collins (born 1953) is a Canadian forensic psychiatrist best known for creating the disease “gynandromorphophilia” with Ray Blanchard. Collins and Blanchard consider attraction to transgender people to be a mental disorder. They describe their disease as having “sexual interest in cross-dressed or anatomically feminized men.”

Background

In 1989 Collins took a position at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, now part of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In 1993, Collins and co-worker Blanchard published “Men with Sexual Interest in Transvestites, Transsexuals, and She-Males” in the Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. The study described 51 “gynandromorphophiles” who had created voicemail personal ads seeking what Collins and Blanchard describe as “cross-dressers, transvestites, transsexuals, or she-males.”

Collins’ disease model was not widely adopted and remains obscure. Since 1993, the only people who have used the term uncritically are others with similarly harmful opinions about attraction to transgender people.

Collins is also known for being banned from Wikipedia. Collins was caught trying to remove facts from the Peter Collins biography that discussed “gynandromorphophila” and other biased research. The Peter Collins biography was later deleted as unworthy of inclusion.

References

Blanchard R, Collins PI (1993). Men with Sexual Interest in Transvestites, Transsexuals, and She-Males. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 181(9):570-5 doi: 10.1097/00005053-199309000-00008

Resources

University of Toronto Psychiatry (psychiatry.utoronto.ca)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Hennes Communications (crisiscommunications.com)

Wikipedia

  • Deleted entry for Peter Collins (psychiatrist) [PDF)]
  • Protected 9 May 2016 due to “disruptive editing” by Collins [archive] under the usernames Lamplighter98 and Lamplighter99 (both since banned)
  • Biography deleted 29 April 2017 as not worthy of inclusion