Lorne Warneke

Lorne Baird Warneke (November 16, 1942 – August 28, 2020) was an Alberta-based psychiatrist and advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ people in Canada. He founded the first Canadian gender identity clinic at Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. The family moved to Leedale, a hamlet in central Alberta, and settled on a farm there for the duration of Warneke's childhood. Warneke was introduced to psychiatry in his final two years of medical school. Warneke went on to marry John Chan. The two remained partners for 24 years until Warneke's death in 2020.

2SLGBTQ+ activism Throughout his career, Warneke focused on working with and advocating for 2SLGBTQ+, especially transgender, patients. In 1984, Alberta Health Services agreed to cover sex reassignment surgery for three patients after lobbying by Warneke and others. Later, in 1996, Warneke founded a gender identity clinic at Gray Nuns Community Hospital.

Warneke and Dr. Ian T. Kroll, a psychiatrist based in Calgary who also advocated for 2SLGBTQ+ rights, chastised the Alberta government for neglecting to enshrine gay rights in legislation in a 1995 article. Around the same time, Warneke gave testimony as an expert witness for Vriend v Alberta, a landmark legal case for 2SLGBTQ+ rights in Canada.

In 2009, the Alberta government made the decision to stop covering sex reassignment surgery as a cost-saving measure for the province. Warneke lobbied against this decision but this caught the ire of the Covenant Health Board, the governing body of Catholic health institutions in Alberta like the Grey Nuns Hospital where Warneke worked.

On August 28, 2020, Warneke died after complications related to a fall in his home. In honour of Warneke's life and career, John Chan donated a money to memorialize a bench at the Grey Nuns Hospital. The bench was dedicated on October 5, 2022. In July 2023, Chan established the Dr. Lorne Baird Warneke LGBTQ2S+ Resident Endowment to financially support residents in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta "dedicated to continuing Warneke's legacy of care and advocacy".