Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine

Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT. Alex’s most recent book is Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions (Polity, 2024). Byrne was one of the contributors to the Health and Human Services (HHS) report "Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices" released in May 2025.

Clinical psychologist with 25 years of frontline experience, specialising in adolescent mental health and physical health. She serves as the Clinical Director at the Integrated Psychology Clinic in London. From 2013 to 2017, Anna worked at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at The Tavistock Clinic. Since leaving GIDS, Anna has been working to raise awareness of the complex needs faced by young people experiencing gender-related distress. She continues to educate and write on the subject, having recently co-led the induction training for the new NHS Children and Young People Gender Hubs in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in the UK. She is currently co-authoring a book on developmentally-informed therapy for gender-related distress in children.

Moti Gorin, PhD, MBE is a philosopher and bioethicist. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University.

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. Finland was the first country to revise the standard of care to prioritize noninvasive approaches, sharply restricting eligibility for hormonal interventions. Dr. Kaltiala is currently involved in two major international evidence review projects in the field of gender medicine.

Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and the Lead Consultant Neuropsychologist for the epilepsy surgery program at the National Hospital for Neurology, Queen Square. She has over 200 academic publications in neuropsychology, including books, book chapters and original research studies and was awarded the International Neuropsychological Society Arthur Benton Prize in 2018 in recognition of her outstanding scientific contributions to the field of neuropsychology and received the Distinguished Contribution Award from the British Psychological Society in 2023. She is a passionate advocate for the application of neuropsychological principles and knowledge in public policy and discourse. Her research and clinical interests focus on understanding the multifactorial nature of cognitive impairments in clinical populations. Her review of the impact of puberty blockers on neurodevelopment featured in the Cass Review.

Past president of the Plastic Surgery Foundation and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The ASPS recently changed its policy and now recommends against gender surgery for children and young people under age 19. Scot will talk about the lack of evidence for the safety and effectiveness of ‘gender-affirming’ surgeries in young people.

Psychiatrist who started one of the first gender clinics for gender patients in 1974 and has continuously been active seeing patients and writing about his and his colleagues’ observations since. Most of his recent experience has been with transgender youth. Six of his recent co-authored or sole authored papers have been downloaded over 325,000 times. Long interested in psychotherapy as an investigative and therapeutic tool, he posits the hypothesis that a new trans identity is a creative unconscious solution to existential woes that must be understood in terms of the youthful sensibilities of the minor.

We have over 30 speakers presenting on the topic of youth gender medicine. Please stay tuned for the names, bios, and the full conference agenda soon.