Boston doctor finds treating transgender youth a transforming experience

[Shana A]

Boston doctor finds treating transgender youth a transforming experience

By Penny Schwartz · January 19, 2012

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/01/19/3091272/boston-jewish-doctor-is-leader-in-treatment-of-transgendered-youth

As the co-founder of the country's first clinic devoted to treating children with gender disorders, and as a leading authority on transgender youth, Spack has found himself at the forefront of efforts to educate the public about a widely misunderstood condition and to help transgender people secure their fundamental rights.

"If we shun people, we never get the experience of knowing how special they are and understanding how courageous they are," Spack told JTA.

A pediatric endocrinologist with deep roots in Boston's Jewish community, Spack was first exposed to ->-bleeped-<-, a medical condition in which individuals do not identify with the gender into which they were born, in the mid-1970s. Spack at the time was treating street kids as a volunteer on a medical van in Boston. Many of the young people were "throwaway kids," Spack said, having been shunned by their families and schools for gender variant behavior.