Richard Pillard

Richard C. Pillard (born circa 1933) is a professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine best known for his work on biology and sexual orientation.

Early life and family
Pillard briefly attended Swarthmore College before transferring to Antioch College, where his father Basil H. Pillard was an English Professor. Pillard received his B.A. from Antioch. He then earned his M.D. from University of Rochester, with his internship at Boston City Hospital.

Pillard married a Vassar student in 1958, while he was in medical school. They later divorced when he was in his thirties, and Pillard now identifies as gay. He has three daughters. The middle one, Nina Pillard, is a Georgetown University Law Center professor.

Chandler Burr reported that Pillard jokes "he is uniquely equipped to investigate whether homosexuality has a biological basis: he, his brother, and his sister are gay, and Pillard believes that his father may have been gay. One of Pillard's three daughters from a marriage early in life is bisexual. This family history seems to invite a biological explanation, and it made Pillard start thinking about the origins of sexual orientation."

Heritability of sexual orientation
Pillard is well-known for a series of studies he coauthored with J. Michael Bailey, which examined the rate of concordance of sexual identity among monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins of the same sex, non-twin siblings of the same sex, and adoptive siblings of the same sex. In all studies they found rates of concordance variantly consistent with the hypothesis that homosexuality has a significant genetic component. The Council for Responsible Genetics and other researchers have criticized this work for using a self-selected sample, a problem which later studies have attempted to remedy.

Pillard feels that some of his most significant work deals with the incidence of homosexuality running in families.

Publications

 * Pillard RC, Rose RM, Sherwood M. Plasma testosterone levels in homosexual men. Arch Sex Behav. 1974 Sep;3(5):453-8. PMID: 4415098
 * Bailey JM, Pillard RC. A genetic study of male sexual orientation. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1991 Dec;48(12):1089-96. PMID: 1845227
 * Tuttle GE, Pillard RC. Sexual orientation and cognitive abilities. Arch Sex Behav. 1991 Jun;20(3):307-18. PMID: 2059149
 * Pillard RC, Weinrich JD. Evidence of familial nature of male homosexuality. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1986 Aug;43(8):808-12. PMID: 3729676
 * Pillard RC, Poumadere J, Carretta RA. A family study of sexual orientation. Arch Sex Behav. 1982 Dec;11(6):511-20. PMID: 6760832
 * Pillard RC, Poumadere J, Carretta RA. Is homosexuality familial? A review, some data, and a suggestion. Arch Sex Behav. 1981 Oct;10(5):465-75. PMID: 7032464
 * Dawood K, Pillard RC, Horvath C, Revelle W, Bailey JM. Familial aspects of male homosexuality. Arch Sex Behav. 2000 Apr;29(2):155-63. PMID: 10842723
 * Bailey JM, Pillard RC, Dawood K, Miller MB, Farrer LA, Trivedi S, Murphy RL. A family history study of male sexual orientation using three independent samples. Behav Genet. 1999 Mar;29(2):79-86. PMID: 10405456
 * Pillard RC, Bailey JM. Human sexual orientation has a heritable component. Hum Biol. 1998 Apr;70(2):347-65. PMID: 9549243
 * Pillard RC, Bailey JM. A biologic perspective on sexual orientation. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 1995 Mar;18(1):71-84. PMID: 7761309
 * Snyder PJ, Weinrich JD, Pillard RC. Personality and lipid level differences associated with homosexual and bisexual identity in men. Arch Sex Behav. 1994 Aug;23(4):433-51. PMID: 7993184
 * Pillard RC, Rosen LR, Meyer-Bahlburg H, Weinrich JD, Feldman JF, Gruen R, Ehrhardt AA. Psychopathology and social functioning in men prenatally exposed to diethylstilbestrol (DES). Psychosom Med. 1993 Nov-Dec;55(6):485-91. PMID: 8310108
 * Weinrich JD, Snyder PJ, Pillard RC, Grant I, Jacobson DL, Robinson SR, McCutchan JA. A factor analysis of the Klein sexual orientation grid in two disparate samples. Arch Sex Behav. 1993 Apr;22(2):157-68. PMID: 8476335
 * Bailey JM, Pillard RC, Neale MC, Agyei Y. Heritable factors influence sexual orientation in women. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1993 Mar;50(3):217-23. PMID: 8439243