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As a trans woman, organizer, and researcher, my interests are in the the agency and autonomy of our community. As a trans person who first opened up about her gender in elementary school, I know firsthand the hardships faced by young trans people and seek to improve the well-being of the community as a whole.

Early in training becoming aware of the significant disparities in access to care and support for the transgender/gender diverse community, including those who are physician colleagues.

I first became interested in transgender health when approached to be a lead clinician within an inpatient mental health team that was being developed at VA Boston Healthcare System in 2012. At this time, I received training and education from a set of national leaders at a transgender health conference in Minneapolis, MN and began to collaborate on care initiatives within the VA Boston community. I began to see inpatient psychiatric patients for individual therapy and was a member of our ITTT for 4 years.

I was fortunate enough to have a patient in medical school that truly inspired me to pursue this work. His journey as a transgender male in a community that did not accept him was as heartbreaking as it was compelling -- I wanted to advocate for this underserved population.

I am a historian of medicine, scholar of transgender studies, and a trans woman of color who has advocated in particular for transgender and nonbinary youth.

I am queer/non-binary, and Trans people are My People. I also think this is a problematic question (asked in this way); it's rarely asked about interest in any other health field (e.g "what got you interested in racial equity in healthcare"? we should all be interested in racial equity!

After directing the only national organization led by trans youth for nearly a decade, my interests lie in the self-determination of young transgender people. As a researcher of transgender politics, I am also interested in the questions of agency, power, and history in the questions surrounding transitioning.

Supporting the health of transgender/gender diverse physicians and individuals with serious mental illness.

My specialty interest is in psychological evaluations for treatment and how to reduce barriers for the gender diverse community to have access to care. I want to provide ready access to services in a manner that is trans-affirmative within the academic medical center community, which includes strategies to reduce structural barriers to care.

Gender affirming (hormonal) care; access to care; sexual and reproductive health of Trans/nonbinary people

Patients should be able to begin hormones treatment when they feel comfortable, as soon as the day of evaluation or years in the future depending on their own needs. This is, of course, assuming they are are at least Tanner Stage II. Blockers should be available to children before Stage II at the request of the child, with or without parental consent.

A timeline that can be safe, confidential, covered by third party payors, and determined by those requesting and the healthcare professionals providing the initial evaluation and gender-affirming hormones.

For adults, I think a minimal period of time between initial evaluation and gender affirming hormones is best! If I had to venture a specific time period, I would say that upon confirmation of the person identifying as a genderqueer or trans or another non-binary identification that gender-affirming hormones be made available. In the case of children and adolescents, I do think that there is a need to be more careful with evaluations and initiation of gender affirming treatment.

I think we need to perform comprehensive assessments that are based on the individual's psychology prior to starting gender-affirming medical treatment. This may allow for initiating hormones quite soon -- or it may require a broader discussion. I generally believe the informed consent model for adults works quite well, but it becomes more tricky with children and adolescents.