Kenneth Zucker

Kenneth J. Zucker (; born 1950) is an American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist and the former director of Child Youth and Family Gender Identity Clinic (GIC), in Toronto, one of the most well-known clinics in the world for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. Zucker is known for his controversial approach to care for gender dysphoric youth, preferring to first “help children feel comfortable in their own bodies," arguing gender is quite malleable at a young age and gender dysphoria will likely resolve itself with time; critics who favor an "affirmation" model have labeled Zucker's "wait and see" approach a form of conversion therapy.

He was named editor-in-chief of ''Archives of Sexual Behavior'' in 2001. In 2007, Zucker was chosen to be a member of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions, and in 2008 he was named chair of the American Psychiatric Association workgroup on "Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders" for the 2012 edition of the DSM-5. He previously served on workgroups for the DSM-IV and the DSM-IV-TR.

He was psychologist-in-chief at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and head of its Gender Identity Service until December 2015. Citing a review by two adolescent psychiatrists stating that CAMH was out of step with current practices for transgender youth, CAMH fired Zucker and closed the clinic in 2015. They later apologized to Zucker and paid him a financial settlement after one of the complaints in the review was found to be false.

He was previously affiliated with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine as a status-only professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Zucker collaborated with Susan Bradley, collecting clinical and research data over a period of twenty years and became an international authority on gender dysphoria in children (GDC) and adolescents. Zucker's views and therapeutic approach have attracted criticism from several advocates and mental health professionals. Provided by Wikipedia