Q&A: Concepts, language surrounding gender care shift over past 20 years
Joshua Safer, MD, discusses concepts and language surrounding the gender care shift over the past 20 years. He said, “A major change relating to our care for transgender and gender diverse people is our growing recognition that there must be a biological component underlying gender identity. Thus, there are people for whom gender identity may be coded differently than other elements of their biology. Further, there is greater recognition of how personal decisions are regarding what to do about being transgender. Gender-affirming treatment that might have been more protocol driven in the past is now more customized—allowing for essentially the entire range of hormone profiles that would otherwise be considered healthy and for multiple choices regarding gender-affirming surgical options.