Dr. Leah Cahan Schaefer (1920-2013) was a therapist who made exceptional contributions to the fields of transgender health and women's sexuality. Dr. Schaefer received an MA in developmental psychology and a doctorate in marriage and family education from the Columbia University Teachers College. She studied under Dr. Ernest G. Osborne and completed her dissertation in 1964. Her dissertation would later be revised into a book and published by Pantheon in 1973 under the title Women and Sex: Sexual Experiences and Reactions of a Group of Thirty Women as Told to a Female Psychotherapist.

Dr. Schaefer was a founding member of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), now the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and served as President from 1991 to 1995. She also served as the first female President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) from 1978 to 1979. Dr. Schaefer co-authored the first five versions of Standards of Care.

Dr. Schaefer had a private practice in New York where she worked with people who had gender dysphoria (then gender identity disorder). She was entrusted with Harry Benjamin's personal archives and donated them to the Kinsey Institute in 2007.