U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health

Please do not take this as shameless self-promotion but I have been elected to the Board of Directors of USPATH by the membership of WPATH in the United States. As far as I know, I am the only trans person on the board, the only non-provider, and the only pure scientist. For us it is a chance to shape the future.

The reason I am writing this is that I will need your help. Transgender people know a lot about being transgender and, in the past, some 55% of transgender people reported that they had to educate their providers. Today, knowledge of being transgender is more widespread in provider communities but is far from complete.

WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health which publishes the Standards of Care (SOC) document for transgender health and treatment. USPATH (US Professional Association for Transgender Health) is the newly formed subsidiary organization of WPATH. Its sister organization, EPATH has been up and running for since 2013 and represents all of Europe. The SOC for providers (e.g. doctors, mental health professionals) is the international standard for how transgender people are supposed to be treated. Us older folks will remember it as the Harry Benjamin Association Gender Dysphoria Association.

I expect that USPATH will be involved in several activities to help transgender people. First, we will be able to make recommendations to WPATH for the SOC and to the American Psychiatric Association for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It is a chance to further depathologization of transgender people. WPATH has been doing that for years and depathology efforts apply to the broad spectrum of people under the transgender umbrella including gender non-conforming, genderqueer and gender fluid folks. It also affects those who crossdress for recreation and who disclaim being transgender. I happened to have dinner last night with some Tri-Ess members who insisted that they were not under the transgender umbrella. However, even those folks should be concerned about the stigma that transgender pathologization creates.

Second, it is a chance to provide education to the medical and mental health communities about transgender people. WPATH has started doing Continuing Education Courses, primarily for those providers who are directly involved in such work as transition, affirmative childhood treatment and endocrinology. I attend one of the first courses as a proctor for American Psychological Association members who attended that course. It was notable because the audience included military providers, some in uniform and some in civilian clothes. WPATH is now providing a “certification” for providers that includes 50 hours coursework including the WPATH course, some supervised clinical exposure to transgender people and an exam.

Third, it is not enough just to educate the providers of transition and other services, we need to help professional schools like medical and nursing schools develop courseware that educate those providers that will come into clinical contact with transgender people with regard to non-transgender issues. That is just about all of them because transgender people are everywhere. For example, the professionals in emergency rooms that treat trauma from car accidents or those who treat the broader spectrum of internal medicine ailments. They need to know something about being transgender as well. In particular, they need to understand transgender etiquette in order to develop rapport with patients who happen to be transgender. Modern medicine depends on this provider-patient relationship and poor etiquette interferes with it. Another example I recently learned about comes from dermatology. In order to get certain drugs for acne and other skin conditions including certain skin cancers, the FDA requires special conditions be met to avoid prenatal exposure to the drug which causes neurocognitive deficits. According to some trans people I have talked with, it appears that these conditions do not take being transgender into consideration. So even dermatologists will need to understand about transgender people to understand how to prescribe these drugs and advise the FDA.

Fourth, professional schools have made some progress in transgender education. Until recently, most medical schools only had one very short block of instruction on all of LGBT issues, if any at all. Professional schools have augmented their offerings with more instruction time and they are experimenting with whether being transgender should be a special topic or whether it should be integrated with all topics. Currently there is no standardized curriculum. USPATH and WPATH can help address these education issues.

Finally, USPATH will conduct science meetings and symposia. I attended the first one in February 2017. That is where I got some good information on current transgender science that I passed along through this blog. Since I am the “science guy” on the USPATH board I expect to be involved in those meetings and the dissemination of results.

As many of you know, unrelated to my USPATH duties, I am currently writing a handbook for providers that address all of the above issues. What I learn from USPATH and you all should help me with this effort.

As I said at the outset, I can use your help. I need your suggestions in all of these areas and more:

• How should we pursue depathologization without losing financial coverage for needed provider services?
• What provider help do non-transitioning transgender people need?
• What should providers of transgender services know about being transgender?
• What should providers in non-transgender specialties know about being transgender?
• What etiquette rules should providers know about?
• What science topics are important to transgender people?

You can leave messages for me here in TGForum or you can tweet me @danajbevan https://twitter.com/danajbevan

Please do not send me any confidential information or ask for treatment because I am not a provider. Thank you.

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Tags: featured, Transgender, USPATH, WPATH

Category: Transgender Body & Soul