People index · Last reviewed 2026-05-16

People index

Brief profiles of authors, clinicians, evaluators and legal parties who recur in this documentation. Per profile: role, main publications and dossier links.

Original developers (VUmc / Amsterdam UMC)

Peggy Cohen-Kettenis

Clinical psychologist, first author of the protocol publications of 1998 and co-author of 2006. Head of the VUmc gender clinic until 2015. Key: Cohen-Kettenis 1998, Delemarre 2006.

Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal

Pediatric endocrinologist, co-author of the 2006 protocol description. Responsible for the endocrinological component. See /studies/delemarre-2006/.

Annelou de Vries

Child and adolescent psychiatrist, lead author of the central follow-up studies. First author of the "Amsterdam study" (2014). Published responses to the Cass Review on behalf of AUMC. See /studies/de-vries-2011/, /studies/de-vries-2014/, /debate/response-vumc-amsterdam-umc/.

Thomas Steensma

Clinical psychologist, first author of the central desistance publication (2013). Senior researcher AUMC. See /studies/steensma-2013-desistance/.

Maartje van der Loos

Endocrinologist AUMC, first author of the large follow-up study (2022) on CSH continuation and the bone density study (2023). See /studies/follow-up-studies-overview/.

Louis Gooren

Endocrinologist, founder of the VU adult gender clinic (1972). Not an author of the adolescent protocol, but provided institutional framing. See /protocol/origins/.

International evaluators

Hilary Cass

British paediatrician, chair of the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (Cass Review). Final report April 2024. See /evaluations/cass-review-2024/.

Stephen B. Levine

American psychiatrist, former WPATH board member, author of influential critiques on informed consent and methodology. See /evaluations/levine-critiques/.

Michael Biggs

British sociologist (Oxford), author of a widely cited critical overview of puberty blockers and the UGDS measurement instrument issue. See /evaluations/biggs-puberty-blocker-overview/.

Mia Hughes

Investigative journalist Environmental Progress, author of The WPATH Files (March 2024). See /evaluations/wpath-files-2024/.

Riittakerttu Kaltiala

Finnish psychiatrist, head of the Tampere gender clinic, co-architect of the COHERE guideline 2020. See /international/finland/.

Legal and public debate

Keira Bell

British detransitioner, claimant in Bell v Tavistock (2020/2021). See /debate/legal-cases/.

Lisa Littman

American physician/researcher, author of the first empirical detransition publication (2021) and the ROGD hypothesis (2018). See /debate/detransition-research/.

Erica Anderson, Marci Bowers

Former WPATH board members who in 2022 publicly warned against "fast-track" protocols in the US. Prelude to the WPATH Files.