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Norman Spack

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Norman Spack


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Norman spack how i help transgender teens become who they want to be


Dr. Norman P. Spack is an American pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital, where he co-founded the hospital's Gender Management Service (GeMS) clinic in February 2007; it is America's first clinic to treat transgender children. He is an internationally known specialist in treatment for intersexed and transgender youth, and is one of the first doctors in the United States who advocates prescribing hormone replacement therapy to minors.

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Norman Spack Norman Spack How I help transgender teens become who they want to

Spack has been consulted to discuss trans medical issues, often specifically pediatric in focus, in media outlets such as 20/20, Time, The Atlantic, and National Public Radio. He wrote the foreword of the 2008 book The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals.

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Medical view on transsexuality

Pediatric endocrinologist Norman P. Spack works with and supports transgender youth. He argues that instead of being a mental disorder, it is a medical condition,and has been quoted as saying that "looking at transgenderism from a medical perspective will change the public perception that it is a psychological problem". Spack is also the senior associate in the endocrine division at Boston Children's Hospital. He helped co-found a treatment plan at the clinic called Gender Services Program (GEMs) that aims to slow puberty down for children questioning their gender. According to Spack, "the primary goal of the GeMS clinic is to provide medical treatment to appropriately screen gender-dysphoric adolescents, along with the comprehensive psychological evaluation recommended by the Adolescent Gender Identity Research Group (AGIR) and the Endocrine Society for making this clinical decision. The clinic does not currently provide ongoing mental health services to patients and families, but assists families in finding appropriate mental health therapists in their communities. In addition, a Children's Hospital Boston staff psychiatrist, who specializes in gender identity and sexuality issues, is available to provide both psychotherapy and psychopharmacological treatment where needed". By stalling a person's puberty, it delays the physical changes of one's body that have nothing to do with that persons psychological perspective. One of Spack's assistants in the clinic says: "Dr. Spack’s help has made such a huge difference in the patients’ lives". Spack states that 35 percent of his patients served by the clinic have tried to physically harm themselves or have thought about suicide prior to seeking medical help. "Post-medication, the patients give testimonies of better interactions in school, a better environment at home, and functioning a whole lot better", said Stanley R. Vance, a student at Harvard Medical School who also works in Spack's clinic. "Dr. Spack is a trailblazer in an area of medicine that hasn’t gotten adequate attention. Spack realizes that it is known as a mental disorder, but he and other members of the medical community want to push back and frame it instead as a medical condition rather than a disorder.

References

Norman Spack Wikipedia


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