McHugh, Paul R. 1931-

Paul Rodney McHugh (born May 21, 1931) is an American psychiatrist, researcher, and educator. He is currently the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was previously the Henry Phipps Professor and director from 1975 to 2001. He served as a co-founder and subsequent board member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which raised skepticism about adults who claimed to have recovered delayed memories of childhood sexual abuse or incest. Throughout the 1990s, McHugh was active in challenging the idea of recovered memory – that is, the idea that people could suddenly and spontaneously remember childhood sexual abuse. McHugh opposes allowing transgender people to receive gender affirming surgery. He has described homosexuality as an "erroneous desire", and supported California's 2008 same-sex marriage ban, claiming sexual orientation is partly a choice. Scientists such as Dean Hamer argue McHugh misrepresents scientific literature on sexual orientation and gender. McHugh was appointed to a lay panel assembled by the Roman Catholic Church to look into sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the United States.