Richard Green (sexologist) - Education and Career

Education and Career

Green was born in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his B.A. from Syracuse University in 1957, his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1961, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1987.

During his medical studies at Johns Hopkins, Green met John Money, who was an assistant professor there, and started collaborating with him on research, initially on boys displaying substantial cross-gender behavior. In Money's obituary, Green acknowledges Money and Robert Stoller, as well as his father, Leo H. Green, for having set the course for his life and career. In the mid-1960s, Money introduced Green to Harry Benjamin, whom Green acknowledges as having "further honed" his career. In 1969 Green and Money co-edited "Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment", published by Johns Hopkins Press.

Green was founding editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior in 1971, serving as Editor for 30 years. In 1974 Green and the board of the new journal established the International Academy of Sex Research, with Green as the founding president; the Archives became the official publication of the Academy. The new organization had a more selective membership than Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), which published the leading US sexology journal of the time, The Journal of Sex Research. The IASR membership has a more medical and biological emphasis, and only accepts applications from published researchers. The IASR also has a more international approach, alternatively meeting in the US and other countries every year. Eventually, the Archives became a premier journal in its field. Green retired as Editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2001 and Editorship was continued by Kenneth Zucker.

In 1979 Green was a founding committee member of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association and served as president from 1997-1999. He previously directed the human sexuality program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has been Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, Professor of Psychiatry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Professor of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College, London. He was on the faculty of Law at UCLA and Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists since 1994. Green served as President of HBIGDA, now known as World Professional Association for Transgender Health, from 1997 to 1999.

Clinical vignettes from Green's work on gender identity disorder appear in widely used textbooks, such as Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry (10th ed.) The term "gender identity disorder" itself introduced in DSM-III was taken from Green's 1974 work.Sexual Identity Conflict in Children and Adults. New York, Basic Books.He served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. In 2006 he was awarded the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal for Sexual Research.

Green was research director and consultant psychiatrist at the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge and Member of Darwin College, Cambridge. His partner since 1988, Melissa Hines, is a professor of psychology at the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies, University of Cambridge.