Child welfare agency cuts ties to professor over pedophile studies

The New York City Administration for Children's Services will no longer work with Theo Sandfort, a professor who headed a separate study on L.G.B.T.Q. youth in foster care.
About five years ago, New York City's child welfare agency began working with a prominent Columbia University professor to study foster children who identify as L.G.B.T.Q. - a significant undertaking because nationwide data on gay and transgender teenagers in foster care is scarce. The groundbreaking study by the professor, Theo Sandfort, was released in November and praised by advocacy groups and academics. They said the findings for the first time demonstrated what had been seen anecdotally: over a third of young people in the city's foster care system identify as L.G.B.T.Q. and struggle to find the support they need. Then came the backlash. Some critics of the child welfare agency circulated what they contended was questionable research and writings by Dr. Sandfort in the 1980s on pedophilia in the Netherlands. [...]

Dr. Sandfort, who is also a social psychologist and a research scientist at the H.I.V. Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, said in a statement last month that his research on pedophilia was based on two studies he did as a graduate student in the 1980s. At the time, he said, the Dutch government was debating lowering the age of consent. One of those past studies included interviews with minors in the Netherlands and described their sexual relationships with adult men as "positive."

source: Article 'Child Welfare Agency Cuts Ties to Professor Over Pedophile Studies' by Amanda Rosa; www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/nyregion/nyc-foster-care-professor-pedophilia.html; The New York Times; 7 January 2021