Roberto D’Angelo
This content was last updated Nov. 15, 2023, 10:17 p.m. UTC
Roberto D’Angelo is an Australian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and, at least as of 2020, the president of the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a fringe group of conservative, anti-trans medical professionals.
D’Angelo has promoted the idea that studies of the benefits of gender affirming care are of poor quality as an answer to the fact that large numbers of studies have consistently shown such benefits.
D’Angelo is a member of several other anti-trans organizations including Genspect and the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA) and has conducted research attempting to call into question the mainstream medical consensus on the efficacy of gender transition as a treatment.
Education and Experience
Dr. D’Angelo received a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from The University of New South Wales in 1990, a Master of Medicine from the University of Sydney, and a Doctorate in Psychoanalysis from the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.
His LinkedIn profile lists him as a Training and Supervising Analyst at The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. He also operates a private practice in psychoanalysis in Byron Bay, Australia, and published a case study of an adult transgender patient. (There is no evidence supporting psychoanalysis as a treatment for gender dysphoria.)
He previously served as the president of the Australian chapter of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
Work for SEGM
As President of SEGM, D’Angelo heads an organization that presents a reasonable, scientific face on anti-trans activism on behalf of a small fringe of medical professionals who oppose gender-affirming care.
D’Angelo contributed a study to the journal Australasian Psychiatry in which he concluded that evidence for gender affirming care is of poor quality due to the difficulties locating patients for follow ups. The difficulty of locating patients many months or years into a longitudinal study is known as attrition and, far from being unique to gender-affirming care, is a well known limitation for all longitudinal research.
Testimony in Re Imogen
In 2020 D’Angelo testified as an expert witness in the Australian case Re Imogen, in which a mother and father disagreed on whether to approve the start of gender affirming care for their transgender daughter, on behalf of the parent who opposed such treatment. The court ruled that starting treatment was in the child’s best interest, allowing the child to medically transition.