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2018 Gender Odyssey

June 21–24, 2018

Los Angeles, California

Puberty Blockers and Cross Hormones (Double Session)

Friday, June 22, 2018 at 9:30 AM–10:50 AM PDT
J East
Workshop Description

Transgender tweens and teens and their families often struggle to find appropriate, thorough, and sensitive health care services. Up-to-date, informed medical care can greatly increase the positive effects of physical gender transition and overall mental well-being for youth. This workshop focuses primarily on medical intervention for transgender youth and will cover the use of puberty-blocking agents such as Lupron as well as cross-sex hormones. For gender-questioning tweens who are showing the earliest physical changes of adolescence, puberty blockers can delay the development of physical changes to allow a young teen time to consolidate their gender identity, or avoid them altogether, often obviating the need for expensive surgeries or electrolysis down the road. Puberty blockers—when correctly used—have been demonstrated to improve psychosocial outcomes in transgender youth. Cross hormones may be introduced independently to transitioning teens who have already experienced puberty, or used in conjunction with blockers as tweens head into adolescence.

Conference Track
Professional
Family

Primary Contact

Workshop Presenters

Johanna Olson-Kennedy, MD
Presenter Bio

Johanna Olson-Kennedy, MD, specializes in the care of gender-nonconforming children and transgender youth. Board certified in pediatrics and adolescent medicine, Dr. Olson-Kennedy has been providing medical intervention for transgender youth and young for the past 11 years, and is considered a national expert in this area. The medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States, she also spearheads a rigorous research program that seeks to understand the trans experience from childhood through early adulthood. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has appeared frequently on national television, and spoken all over the country to educate providers, parents, and other communities about the needs of transgender youth.

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