More transgender people will begin their transitions as young teens and more health-care companies will cover their medical needs in 2016, according to a list of transgender trends created by Dr. Sherman Leis, a surgeon who operates a clinic called The Transgender Center in Lower Merion Township.
He’s released the trends list every year since 2010. Leis said he bases the list on requests he receives at his practice and what he observes as a speaker at transgender health conferences around the country.
The 2016 trends include:
1) The U.S. government will enhance its leadership in “normalizing” life for transgender people in America through its policies and programs.
2) Health care will evolve from paying lip service in covering transgender care to providing realistic support and care for transgender people.
3) The business world, both private companies and public corporations, will expand its support of transgender people working for them.
4) More hospitals will dedicate care and services to transgender people and their unique needs, from transgender minors to senior citizens.
5) The health-care community will recognize the transgender needs of children and begin providing support and care earlier in life.
6) Public amenities for transgender people, such as gender-neutral bathrooms, will become more commonplace.
7) More celebrities will come out as being transgender, leading (to) public acceptance.
8) The exceptionally high suicide rate among transgender people will come down as…supportive institutions … become more widely available.
9) More mental-health specialists, physicians and surgeons will become trained and practice transgender medicine.
10) Global standards will be enhanced, leading to an increase in quality of care and acceptance.
Leis performed his first female-to-male transgender surgery 35 years ago. He almost didn’t take the patient because he didn’t know if he could do it, he told PGN this week.
“There was not too much in the literature at that time,” Leis said. “I found a couple techniques that relied on the basic tenants of plastic and reconstructive surgery.”
It was 25 years before he would work again with transgender patients. Leis said he received word that a woman wanted to serve as a plastic-surgery resident with him. She was transgender and told him he should get plugged into transgender health care because he had a strong reputation as a surgeon.
“Over the last decade, it has taken over my practice,” Leis said, noting 95 percent of his patients are transgender and requesting procedures from chest reconstruction and facial feminization to vaginoplasty and female-to-male genital surgery.
In a Dec. 13 New York Times article, Dr. Loren Schechter, a surgical specialist in Illinois, estimated that no more than 10 surgeons nationwide perform vaginoplasties, and that fewer than six perform both male-to-female and female-to-male genital surgery.
The same article quoted $25,000 as the average cost for male-to-female vaginoplasty, while the more complex female-to-male surgery can cost four times that amount.
Out of all the trends Leis anticipates in the new year, he said he most looks forward to helping more young people transition.
“It causes a lot of damage the farther they go along without transitioning,” he said. “It’s much better psychologically for a child to transition in their mid- to late teens. I see, myself, that these kids who transition early, they develop physically and mentally very well, better than if doctors waited until they were 18.”
Leis also extolled the virtues of the Mazzoni Center. Calling it a great resource for people of all income levels, he said the center maintains a list of surgeons in the Philadelphia area who work with transgender people.
Leis said Pennsylvania hospitals are expanding their transgender care as well. Following the lead of Boston Children’s Hospital, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh both have recently established pediatric gender development clinics. University hospitals are the next big players to start offering transgender health care, Leis said.
For more information, visit www.thetransgendercenter.com.