Norman P. Spack is an American

pediatric endocrinologist Pediatric endocrinology (British: Paediatric) is a medical subspecialty dealing with disorders of the endocrine glands, such as variations of physical growth and sexual development in childhood, diabetes and many more. By age, pediatric endocrinol ...

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...

, where he co-founded the hospital's Gender Management Service (GeMS) clinic in February 2007. It is America's first clinic to treat transgender children. He is an internationally known specialist in treatment for

intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...

and

transgender youth Transgender youth are children or adolescents who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Because transgender youth are usually dependent on their parents for care, shelter, financial support, and other needs, transgender yo ...

, and is one of the first doctors in the United States who advocate prescribing

hormone replacement therapy Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal ...

to minors. Spack, who is Jewish, has been an advocate for transgender resources and support groups for the Jewish community. Spack has been consulted to discuss trans medical issues, often specifically pediatric, in media outlets such as

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Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

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The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

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National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

.Going Female , WBUR and NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook
/ref> He wrote the foreword of the 2008 book ''The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals''.

Work with transgender children

A pediatric endocrinologist, Spack works with and supports transgender youth. He argues that instead of being a mental disorder, it is a medical condition, and has been quoted as saying that "looking at transgenderism from a medical perspective will change the public perception that it is a psychological problem".Underwood, Alice E. M. "Doctor Promotes Medical View of Transgenderism , News , The Harvard Crimson." Doctor Promotes Medical View of Transgenderism , News , The Harvard Crimson. N.p., 24 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Mar. 2016. Spack is also the senior associate in the endocrine division a
Boston Children's Hospital
He helped co-found a treatment plan at the clinic called Gender Services Program (GEMs) that aims to slow puberty down for children questioning their gender. According to Spack, "the primary goal of the GeMS clinic is to provide medical treatment to appropriately screen gender-dysphoric adolescents, along with the comprehensive psychological evaluation recommended by the Adolescent Gender Identity Research Group (AGIR) and the Endocrine Society for making this clinical decision. The clinic does not currently provide ongoing mental health services to patients and families, but assists families in finding appropriate mental health therapists in their communities. The current clinic director is Dr. Jeremi Carswell.

References

External links

Norman P. Spack, MD, Boston Children's HospitalNorman Spack: How I help transgender teens become who they want to be, Talk Video, TED.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spack, Norman American pediatric endocrinologists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Williams College alumni Transgender and medicine American Jews