SEGM NYC23 - Panel - Puberty Blockers - Benign Pause, Life-Saving Treatment, or Risky Experiment

Course: Hormonal Interventions for Gender Dysphoria in Minors: International Debate
Panel Discussion: Puberty Blockers - A Benign Pause, a Life-Saving Treatment, or a Risky Experiment

Moderator: Moti Gorin
Panelists: William Malone, Anne Wæhre, Erica Anderson, Laura Edwards-Leeper, Riittakerttu Kaltiala, Mikael Landén

About the Speakers:

Moti Gorin, PhD, MBE is a philosopher and bioethicist. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University. After completing his Ph.D., Gorin spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Advanced Biomedical Ethics in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He specializes in bioethics and in moral and political philosophy. In addition to teaching and conducting research in the Department of Philosophy, Gorin works with CSU's Office of Research Integrity, where he helps develop and implement research ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education across the university. He has published articles in American Philosophical Quarterly, JAMA, The Hastings Center Report, The American Journal of Bioethics, Philosophia, and Public Health Ethics.

William Malone, MD is a board-certified endocrinologist. He is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A., Human Biology) and New York University Medical School. He completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. He’s been in clinical practice since 2008 and holds an appointment as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Endocrinology from the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Anne Wæhre, MD, PhD, is a Norwegian pediatrician and senior consultant at Oslo University Hospital’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Division of Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Trained in pediatrics at Karolinska Hospital and holding a PhD from the University of Oslo, she leads Norway’s National Gender Incongruence Team for children and adolescents. Her clinical and research work focuses on gender incongruence, sexual development, and mental health in youth.

Erica Anderson, PhD is the former President of USPATH and past board member of WPATH, Anderson served as a clinical psychologist at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at the University of California–San Francisco. Dr. Anderson was one of the first gender clinicians to publicly speak out about inadequate evaluation of gender-dysphoric adolescents and young adults in the US.

Laura Edwards-Leeper, PhD is the founding psychologist for the Gender Management Service at Boston’s Children’s Hospital–the first US youth gender clinic. Dr. Edwards-Leeper has been a member of committees focused on gender-diverse youth, including the American Psychological Association and WPATH. She served on the child and adolescent committees that created Standards of Care 8. Dr. Edwards-Leeper’s clinical focus is on working with gender diverse/ transgender young people. She also facilitates trainings in psychological assessment of transgender-identifying adolescents seeking medical interventions, and provides consultation to health care providers working with gender-diverse youth. Dr. Edwards-Leeper is a Professor Emerita in the School of Graduate Psychology at Pacific University in Oregon.

Riittakerttu Kaltiala, MD, Phdis a professor of adolescent psychiatry, leader of one of the two nationally centralized gender identity units for minors in Finland, and committee member for national guidelines for health services related to medical and surgical gender reassignment. Dr. Kaltiala was the first leader of a national pediatric gender clinic to raise concerns regarding the risk-benefit ratio of treating gender dysphoric youth with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Mikael Landén MD, Phd is a professor of psychiatry at University of Gothenburg and researcher at Karolinska Institute. After defending his PhD thesis on ‘Transsexualism’ in 1999, he has published over 330 original and review papers. He was recently among the experts reviewing the evidence for hormone treatment of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria for the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services.

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