The guidelines are meant to set a gold standard for the field of transgender health care, and this would be the first update since 2012. It was for all these reasons that Leibowitz was selected, in 2017, to be a leader of a working group of seven clinicians and researchers drafting a chapter on adolescents for a new version of guidelines called the Standards of Care to be issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). “umbrella,” as he put it, aware of the overlap as well as the differences between gay and trans identity. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is gay, he found it felt natural to work under the L.G.B.T. issues for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He has directed or worked at three gender clinics on the East Coast and the Midwest, where he provides gender-affirming care, the approach the medical community has largely adopted for embracing children and teenagers who come out as transgender. Scott Leibowitz is a pioneer in the field of transgender health care. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
