Aaron Devor | |
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![]() Portrait of Dr Devor by Blake Little (2020) | |
Born | 1951 |
Occupation | Chair in Transgender Studies |
Employer | University of Victoria |
Website | https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/ahdevor/ |
Aaron H. Devor is a Canadian sociologist and sexologist known for researching transsexuality and transgender communities.[1] Devor has taught at the University of Victoria since 1989 and is the former dean of graduate studies.[2] Devor is the current Chair in Transgender Studies at the University of Victoria, and the founder and subject matter expert of The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria Libraries.[3][4] He is also the founder and host of the Moving Trans History Forward conferences.[5] Maclean's, a Canadian weekly news magazine, described Devor as "an internationally respected expert on gender, sex and sexuality."[6]
Devor earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from York University in 1971, a master's degree in communications from Simon Fraser University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington in 1990. A trans man, Devor transitioned in 2002 at age 51.[7]
Devor was a member of the HBIGDA task force which created the sixth and seventh edition of The Standards of Care. Currently, he sits as a committee member for the eighth edition and is the Chairperson of the Archives Committee. He has collected first-person narratives of transsexual experiences and has done extensive biographical research on trans man Reed Erickson.
Devor's book, The Transgender Archives: Foundations for the Future, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the non-fiction category in 2015.[8]
In 2016, through the Tawani Foundation, Jennifer Pritzker gave a $2 million donation to create the world's first academic chair of transgender studies, at the University of Victoria in British Columbia;[9] Devor was chosen as the inaugural chair.[10]