What is gender affirming care?

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it encompasses  a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity when it conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), whose guidelines are considered the gold standard and which guide gender-affirming care around the world, provides guidance to health care professionals to assist transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people in accessing safe and effective
pathways to achieving lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves with the aim of optimizing their overall physical health, psychological well-being, and self-fulfillment.

 

What is our goal in providing gender affirming care?

Our practice follows the WPATH standards of care.  Our goal is to be empowering and inclusive and work to reduce stigma and facilitate access to appropriate healthcare to all who seek it. We respect diversity and all patients and all gender identities. We will not pathologize differences in gender identity or expression. We respect universal human rights including the right to bodily and mental integrity, autonomy and self-determination; freedom from discrimination, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. We apply these standards of care in ways that meet the needs of local transgender and gender diverse communities, by providing culturally sensitive care that recognizes the realities of the society in which we presently live.