The Endocrine Society is an advocate for transgender patients and ensuring their access to gender-affirming, evidence-based healthcare.
During the Fall, the Society’s Transgender Special Interest Group and members of the Pediatric Endocrine Society formed a working group to update Society documents and develop new material on care for transgender individuals to be used in advocacy activities. The group updated the Society’s Transgender Health Position Statement to provide further background and support on the treatment of transgender minors and developed a new fact sheet focused on ways to improve pediatric care for transgender minors.
The Endocrine Society is an advocate for transgender patients and ensuring their access to gender-affirming, evidence-based healthcare.
In addition, the Endocrine Society’s Special Interest Group also published a policy perspective in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in December, which reaffirms the Society’s support for its members that provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients and the Society’s overall positions that:
- There is a durable biological underpinning to gender identity that should be considered in policy determinations;
- Medical intervention for transgender individuals (including both hormone therapy and medically indicated surgery) is effective, relatively safe (when appropriately monitored), and has been established as the standard of care;
- Federal and private insurers should cover such interventions as prescribed by a physician as well as the appropriate medical screenings that are recommended for all body tissues that a person may have; and
- Increased funding for national research programs is needed to close the gaps in knowledge regarding transgender medical care and should be made a priority.
Special thanks to Caroline Davidge-Pitts, MBBCH, and Sean Iwamoto, MD, co-chairs of the Endocrine Society Transgender Special Interest Group, as well as Kara Connelly, MD, Ximena Lopez, MD, Stephanie Roberts, MD, Stephen Rosenthal, MD, Joshua Safer, MD, Vin Tangpricha, MD, PhD, and Abby Walch, MD, all of whom participated in the development of these documents.
Federal and private insurers should cover such interventions as prescribed by a physician as well as the appropriate medical screenings that are recommended for all body tissues that a person may have.
The Endocrine Society’s advocacy team will use these new and updated documents to educate lawmakers on the importance of evidence-based policies for transgender patients, protecting their access to care, and providing better funding and research to address transgender health gaps.
More information on our work, including the amended Transgender Health Position Statement, fact sheet, and link to the Transgender Special Interest Group’s published policy perspective can be found at: endocrine.org/transgenderadvocacy.
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