Board of directors

Sophie Dechêne – President

Child psychiatrist

After a master in medicine in UCLouvain, she trained as a child psychiatrist in the UK and in UCLouvain. She is a qualified family therapist. She decided to promote the right medical management for children and adolescents who claim to suffer from gender dysphoria when she realised the care they were receiving was sometimes not appropriate at all. Her other interests include raising awareness, prevention, and treatment of the damage caused by overexposure to screens in children and adolescents, the re-establishment of a healthy adult-child relationship, and the care of children who are victims of conflicting parental separations. Among other things, she contributed to the Dutch-language books ‘The Gender Experiment’ by Martin Harlaar and ‘Gender Rebels’ by Sybilla Claus and she is the author of several articles on these subjects.

Luc Vandecasteele – Secretary

Retired general practitioner

From 1980 to 2019, he collaborated in a group practice. His interest is in advising a health-promoting lifestyle and autonomy in the field of one’s own health. Part of this is, staying independent of medicines when there is another way. Within this framework falls his interest in the growing phenomenon of gender dysphoria, its possible causes, and an approach that does not needlessly subject (young) people to hormonal and surgical treatment.

Georges van der Straten Waillet – treasurer

Expert by experience

I’m retired after a 40-year career in therapeutic communities for drug addicts. Having lived with gender dysphoria for 15 years between the ages of 12 and 26, and having been able to resolve this problem in 1976 thanks to a competent psychiatrist-sexologist. My story was published in the newspaper La Libre: Gender dysphoria, the third way
I want to act with Isomer to make as many serious resources as possible available to people with gender dysphoria.

Hannah Demaerel

General practitioner

When she discovered that children and adolescents with gender dysphoria were being prescribed hormonal therapy and receive surgical interventions, she decided to do further research on the topic.
Her hope is that the current health care in Belgium will become more open to the evidence based international research which shows very clearly that medical transition can cause a lot of damage. It’s ethically not acceptable to submit children to this kind of experimental therapy which impacts their future in a very important way.
She hopes that kids, adolescents (and their parents) will receive the proper therapy and treatment they need in order to develop and function well als they mature into adults.
Her other interests are education, ethics, mental health, pediatrics and geriatrics (the beginning and end of life).

Scientific advisory board

Patrik Vankrunkelsven – President

• General practitioner
• PhD MD Prof Emeritus KU Leuven (former lecturer at the Centre for General Practice, KU Leuven)
• Director of Cebam (Belgian Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) since 2013
• LEIFarts; member of the Board of Directors of LEIF (2012 – ) (LEIF: End-of-Life Information Forum)
• Member of the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee on Euthanasia
• Former Mayor of Laakdal 1995-2006
• Former Chairman of the Volksunie 1998-2000
• Senator 1999-2010. Among other responsabilities , he was chair of the Bioethics Working Group, chair of the Justice Committee and member of the Special Committee on Bioethical Issues
• Honorary Senator since 2011

Robert Naeije

Robert Naeije, MD, PhD, born in 1948 is Professor Emeritus at the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB), Brussels, Belgium.

Dr Naeije got his MD in 1973 and specialized in Internal Medicine. From 1978 to 1996 Dr Naeije was active as a critical care physician. From 1983to 1996 he was first Attending then Clinical Director at the Department of Intensive Care of the Erasme University Hospital, Brussels. He was intern at the St Margareths Hospital in Hammond Indiana (Chicago) in 1971, and visiting professor at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 1986. In 1996, he took the Chair of Pathophysiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the ULB and founded a Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic at the Erasme University Hospital in Brussels. He served on the institutional review board and on variety of other university committees.

Dr Naeije has published extensively about the pulmonary circulation, gas exchange, right ventricular function and exercise, with a total of 54 chapters in books and over 500 papers covering a range of topics, from cell and molecular biological aspects, mathematical modeling, integrative physiology, high altitude and clinical studies. He has authored or co-authored papers about societal issues and ethical problems in biomedical research.

Rob Poole

Rob Poole is Professor of Social Psychiatry at Bangor University, Wales, where he co-directs the Centre for Mental Health and Society. He trained at St Georges Hospital, London and in Oxford. He took up his current academic role after working as a community psychiatrist for many years, mainly in inner-city Liverpool. His clinical and research interests centre on people who are marginalised, on the social aspects of mental ill-health and on suicide prevention. He has written extensively, including scientific papers, book chapters and several books. He has co-edited a book on suicide prevention that will be published November 2025. He is a former chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales. He received the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

Jean-Yves Hayez

Jean-Yves Hayez, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with a doctorate in psychology, is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). He is the founding head of the child and adolescent psychiatry department at Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels. He is an eclectic clinician, as he explains in his book Psychothérapies d’enfants et d’adolescents , coll. Le Fil Rouge, PUF, 2014. He has devoted the 45 years of his professional life to clinical research, general consultation, liaison psychiatry, social child psychiatry and legal expertise. The creator of the www.jeanyveshayez.net website (with numerous articles for parents and professionals), he is the author of several books, including La destructivité chez l’enfant et chez l’adolescent : clinique et accompagnement, Enfances, Dunod, 2nd ed 2007, and La sexualité des enfants, Odile Jacob, 2004. With E. de Becker, he wrote La parole de l’enfant en souffrance, Enfances, Dunod, 2010 and La pédophilie, Editions Fidélité, 2018.

This curriculum can be read in detail on the website www.jeanyveshayez.net via the link “Mon itinéraire professionnel“. The most important publications of Jean-Yves Hayez can be read via the link “Principales publications“.

Ann d’Alcantara

• Doctor who graduated from KUL Leuven and specialised in child and adolescent psychiatry. She is professor emeritus at the Faculty of Medicine at UCL Woluwé.
• She developed and directed the institutional therapy project at the Hospital Therapy Centre for Adolescents and Young Adults, which takes in young people aged 14 to 21 for 6 to 9 months of community living. She headed the DAJA, the Department for Adolescents and Young Adults at the SSM Chapelle aux Champs UCL Brussels.
• She was responsible for several years for Adolescent Coordination at the LBFSM, Ligue bruxelloise, and has extensive experience in training and supervision in family planning in Brussels as well as in youth support institutions, SRJ, AMO, etc.
• Trained in systemic therapy, drama, psychoanalysis, group facilitation and somatic therapy. She has published in various group works, articles and prefaces.
• She still collaborates on various training courses in Belgium and France, including the FPAJ, training for professionals working with adolescents at the DAJA.
• She has been involved in setting up numerous non-profit organisations, including Onderweg, Adoptiewerk Vlaanderen, l’Entretemps and Exil, where she chaired the board of directors.
• At the King Baudouin Foundation, she chaired the Queen Fabiola and Julie Renson Fund for Mental Health.
• She chairs the FRB, the Queen Mathilde Fund, whose guiding principle is ‘By young people, for young people’.

Legal advisory board

Xavier Dijon

• Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy (S. Albert College, Leuven)
• Doctorate in Law (ULiège)
• Higher Education Teaching Certificate (UCLouvain)
• Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Law, Unamur
• Founder of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Fundamental Rights and Social Cohesion (Unamur)
• Former member of the Belgian Bioethics Advisory Committee

Ian S Forrester, KC, LLD

• King’s Counsel at Scots Bar
• Judge of the General Court of the European Union 2015-2020
• Member, Competition Appeal Tribunal, London

Ian Forrester is a jurist who has conducted cases around the world on behalf of public authorities, political parties, large and small companies and individuals.  He has argued cases before arbitral bodies, and courts as well lecturing in at least thirty countries, from Finland to Brazil, Canada to Hong Kong.  His particular specialty has been EU and ECHR law, especially due process in the field of competition law.  He was appointed as the judge from the United Kingdom on the General Court of the European Union in 2015 until his mandate was ended by Brexit.  Mr Forrester has received a number of honours in the course of his career.  He lives in Belgium and has been a member of the Brussels Bar as well as the English, Scots and New York bars.