Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine

Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine: Charting a Path Forward

November 5-7 in Washington, DC

Registration is now Open!

The ground has shifted underneath the field of youth gender medicine. There is no longer any serious scientific debate about the state of the evidence. The prior claims of ‘proven benefits” have been invalidated through multiple systematic evidence reviews, while concerns about the harms have only increased. In response, a number of progressive European countries–and about half of US states–have sharply restricted access to gender transition for minors.   

But the new evidence has not settled the societal debate over whether these life-changing interventions should continue to be offered to children and young people. North American advocates for continued access now argue that “very low quality” is common in pediatrics and do not disqualify these interventions. Their counterparts in the Netherlands—the birthplace of the practice—have adjusted their rationale differently, asserting that transition should be offered out of respect for adolescent autonomy.

Although the majority of the stakeholders working in this contested area of medicine wish to do what’s best for the children, there is sharp disagreement about how to proceed. Against this shifting rationale and fast-changing landscape in our understanding of the evidentiary and ethical dilemmas—clinicians, researchers, patients, and families are asking the same question: Where do we go from here? 

This November 5-7 in Washington, DC, the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM)  will bring together leading researchers and clinicians with diverging viewpoints—along with patients, parents, and others whose lives have been shaped by gender medicine—for three days of thoughtful discussion of what the evidence show, where genuine uncertainty remains, and what ethical and responsible care looks like from here. 

This three-day conference will cover the following topics—with ample time for networking and engagement with speakers:    

• Day One: Where the field stands. We take stock of the present: reviewing the strongest evidence on benefits and harms, weighing the ethical questions, and hearing directly from patients and their loved ones caught in the middle.
• Day Two: What to do now. We turn to pragmatic solutions for the current dilemmas, set against a bifurcated policy landscape—one where pediatric gender transition is no longer available in some states and countries, while in others these interventions remain widely available with minimal oversight.
• Day Three: Where we go from here. We look ahead to emerging research, unresolved questions, and the practical and ethical challenges investigators face in conducting rigorous studies in so polarized a field.

This conference embraces the principle of adversarial collaboration: the idea that the most reliable route to trustworthy answers is not consensus-seeking, but rigorous, good-faith engagement between people who disagree.  We invite you to advance a shared mission—safe, compassionate, ethical, and evidence-informed care for this vulnerable group of young people—through open scientific inquiry and respectful dialogue across differences of perspective.

Registration is now open. We encourage you to reserve your place early. Space is limited, and the $100 early-bird discount is available through September 15. Enter the code EARLYBIRD at checkout.