David Rayside is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. He has served on the governing boards of both the Canadian and the American Political Science associations, and within the University he has occupied administrative positions at University College and in his department.

He has an academic interest in sexual diversity issues, having written on such topics as anti-discrimination legislation in Ontario, public opinion and gay rights, AIDS politics in Canada, labour movement uptake of such issues, and LGBT engagement with mainstream political milieux in Canada, Britain, and the U.S. Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions, just being completed, is a comparative analysis of Canadian and American developments in the political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples, and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. These research pursuits have been matched by an activist engagement with issues related to gender and sexual orientation. In the 1980s he was active in the Right to Privacy Committee (responding to police raids on gay bathhouses), The Body Politic (a national gay magazine), the Citizens' Independent Review of Police Activities, and the campaign to add sexual orientation to the Ontario Human Rights Code. In the late 1980s and since, he helped found the University of Toronto Men's Forum (a pro-feminist group, 1989-94), the U of T Committee on Homophobia (1989), the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association (1994-95), the U of T Positive Space campaign (1995) the Sexual Diversity Studies undergraduate program (1998), and the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (2004-05).