EXCLUSIVE: Norwegian Sexologist Linked to Leading Transgender Health Authority Previously Worked With Pro-Pedophilia Lobby Group

A prominent Norwegian psychologist with connections to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) was previously associated with multinational pro-pedophile groups which lobbied for lowering the age of consent. Thore Langfeldt assisted in the organizing of a 2009 WPATH conference in Oslo that focused on gender identity and children.

Reduxx can reveal that during the 1970s and 80’s, Langfeldt wrote extensively about “child sexuality” and positively conveyed case studies of pedophilic relationships. His attempts sought to portray adult-child sexual contact as normal and non-pathological.

The psychologist and sex researcher repeatedly worked alongside pro-pedophilia academics who similarly advanced the view that children are sexual from an early age, and claimed that stigmatizing child sexuality could be detrimental to their development.

Thore Langfeldt pictured in a Norwegian pro-pedophilia newsletter, attending a conference hosted by the NAFP in June 1978.

In 1977, Langfeldt reportedly attended a symposium which included the topic of pedophilia held in Swansea, Wales. The event, titled The International Conference on Love and Attraction, which covered a range of subjects related to sexuality, was hosted by the British Psychological Society and took place from September 5th to 9th that year.

Prominent academics from the Americas and various European countries turned up at the Love and Attraction symposium. Among the attendees were several men involved in pro-pedophilia activism in the United States, England, and the Netherlands. One such academic was Tom O’Carroll, founder of England’s notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which operated publicly for a decade before being discredited and disbanded.

Two years later, in 1979, a book was published that contained a compilation of writings from speakers who had presented at the Swansea sexuality conference.

Love and Attraction is a collection of papers presented at the International Conference on Love and Attraction… parts are devoted to… sex therapy, erotica, arousal, child sexuality, and pedophilia. This book will prove useful to psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and other academic and clinical workers,” reads the book’s description.

Langfeldt’s contribution, “Processes in Sexual Development,” examined “the importance” of childhood sexuality.

The cover of Langfeldt’s 1986 book, “If You Want, You Are Allowed: About Child Sexuality”

“The recent emphasis on childhood sexuality can be seen in education, films and literature, as well as in pornography,” Langfeldt writes. The article continues to discuss in detail sexual research conducted on children, who are said to have “a high degree of spontaneous sexual arousal,” and concludes by asserting that, “If we are going to pay respect to the children’s feelings and emotions, we cannot consider sexual interactions involving children as a crime.”

Though PIE leader O’Carroll was prohibited from speaking at the conference due to backlash incited by a group of furious mothers, he cited Langfeldt’s paper in his 1980 publication, “Paedophilia: The Radical Case,” wherein he advocates for the normalization of adult-child sexual relationships.

Significantly, at the time of his attendance at the conference, Langfeldt had already been working with the Norwegian pro-pedophile organization called the Pedophile Working Group (Pedofil Arbeidsgruppe – NAFP).

NAFP was established at the University of Oslo in 1975, where the group had registered a post office box – and where Langfeldt was specializing in psychology. The mysterious president of the NAFP, a man identified in the press only as “Lecturer E,” in collaboration with Langfeldt, wrote to the Ministry of Justice in 1975 requesting an alteration to the criminal code which would lower the legal age of consent from 16 to 14 years old, and argued that sex offender sentencing ought to be based on the degree of abusive violence rather than on age differences.

In 1978, the NAFP would host its first major conference, and Langfeldt was among the presenters.

[R] The 1975 letter by the president of the NAFP, co-authored by Langfeldt, calling for the age of consent to be reduced..

While it is unclear whether Langfeldt and O’Carroll interacted at the Swansea Love and Attraction conference, the PIE founder would be invited to speak at a much smaller panel event in Oslo two years later, when the NAFP invited O’Carroll to present at the Amnesty for Love and Affection conference at the Hotel Viking in June of 1979.

During this period Langfeldt continued to positively portray pedophilia.

In October of 1978, Kontakt magazine published an article by Langfeldt which defended adult-child sex relationships and presented case studies from self-described pedophiles as evidence that these incidents were “often filled with mutual love and affection.”

Excerpt from pro-pedophile publication PAN (Paedo Alert News)

Langfeldt wrote: “It is not unusual for children to experience erotic relationships with adults … From the time children are 2 – 3 years old, they start to become sexually active.”

He continued: “Many people believe that pedophiles are scary and dangerous people who lure children into dark corners and then force them to touch their genitals, but this is not right. Pedophiles are [similar to] homosexuals and heterosexuals.”

In his role as a psychologist, sex offender therapist, and recognized academic, Langfeldt has defended men accused of pedophilic desires and acts on at least two occasions.

During a widely-publicized trial involving a man charged in over 60 cases of sexually abusing young boys, Langfeldt was called to testify as an expert witness in his defense.

Police arrested Erik Andersen in 2008 after a long-term investigation into his abuses. In total, it is believed he sexually molested approximately 160 young boys between the ages of 6 and 12 across Norway over the course of nearly three decades. Charges against Andersen included 68 assaults ranging from rape to attempted molestation. Andersen was referred to in Norwegian media as The Pocket Man due to his tendency to lure unsuspecting children to touch his genitals by inviting them to search for a key in his pocket.

Acting as his therapist, Langfeldt called for leniency and defended Andersen, telling the court that he believed the serial offender would soon make a complete recovery.

But this was not the only time Langfeldt came to the defense of a pedophile.

Kontakt magazine, Oct/Nov 1978 issue

In 2018, a massive scandal erupted in Norway after a prominent figure in the nation’s child protection services, the Expert Commission for Children (ECC), was sentenced to less than two years for possessing over 200,000 pieces of child sexual abuse material. Child psychiatrist Jo Erik BrĆøyn was also found hoarding over 4,000 hours of video depicting children being subjected to brutal sexual abuse.

The indictment against Jo Erik BrĆøyn read: ā€œPictures and videos show sexual abuse committed by adults against children, sexual acts between children, and children performing sexual acts on themselves.ā€

Due to his influential position within the ECC, BrĆøyn was involved in evaluating reports that resulted in the removal of children from their families. The children were then placed into ā€œemergencyā€ care for what critics emphasize were spurious reasons, then were subsequently relocated to foster homes ā€“ the locations of which were kept secret from their parents.

Prior to landing his role on the Expert Commission for Children, BrĆøyn consulted vulnerable children with ā€œserious mental illnessesā€ as a senior physician at the University of Oslo, where he worked from 2005 to 2012.

As an expert witness who testified in favor of BrĆøyn during his trial, the BBC approached Langfeldt for comments during the filming of a brief documentary on the case. Reporter Tim Whewell states that Langfeldt cautioned against a moral panic.

“We have lots of data showing that only a little part of those who are downloading pictures of children are really offending children. We can’t generalize,” Langfeldt said. “It’s better to sometimes say, ‘Let the sleeping dog sleep.'”

Following his campaigning for relaxed attitudes to pedophilia, Langfeldt began to show an interest in the issue of “gender identity.”

In 1982, Langfeldt co-founded the Norwegian Association for Clinical Sexology (NFKS – Norsk forening for klinisk sexologi) alongside Elsa AlmĆ„s, the wife of Esben ‘Esther Pirelli’ Benestad, the nation’s most prominent trans activist. Benestad was listed as a WPATH gender clinician on the organization’s website until just recently, after his medical license was suspended by the Norwegian Health Authority (NHA) over concerns that he was privately dispensing puberty-blocking drugs and hormones to minors.

Langfeldt has acted as the president of The Harry Benjamin Resource Centre Europe (Harry Benjamin Resursseter – HBRS), a German-American sexologist after whom WPATH was originally named. According to its website, the HBRS was founded in the year 2000 when Norway’s only “gender identity” clinic, located at Rikshospitalet, was set to be closed.

“By standing up, we managed to get Rikshospitalet and the government to turn around after an active political fight. This shows what can happen when people who belong to a stigmatized and discriminated minority rise up, make themselves visible and take up the fight for liberation for the group they belong to,” reads the HBRS website.

In 2009, Langfeldt, along with other leading figures involved in the HBRS, organized a WPATH conference in Oslo.

On June 18 of that year, he presented on the topic of “The Child in the Discourse of Transsexualism.” According to the abstract, Langfeldt’s lecture used “cases from the shemale movements and pornography to question the medical discourse and its power in forming the child into a suitable medical diagnosis.”

Also in attendance at the Oslo conference were academics involved in a pedophilic child castration fetish forum known as the Eunuch Archive, which hosts stories sexualizing the genital removal or mutilation of minors that are submitted by anonymous participants.

The most popular stories in the Eunuch Archive depict the forcible castration of children, and, as previously revealed by Reduxx, of the approximately 10,000 pornographic stories on the site, over one-third involved minors.

Academics who had for over a decade been sourcing the opinions of anonymous site members were “personally invited” by WPATH leaders to participate in conferences organized by the transgender advocacy group. Protocols published by WPATH recommending the medical “transitioning” of children through the use of drugs which halt puberty have since been implemented internationally, and last year, the transgender health authority removed all objective age restrictions on the practice.


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Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

Genevieve Gluck
Genevieve Gluck
Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.
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