1 00:00:00,763 --> 00:00:04,579 I want you all to think 2 00:00:04,603 --> 00:00:10,295 about the third word that was ever said about you -- 3 00:00:11,582 --> 00:00:14,614 or, if you were delivering, 4 00:00:14,638 --> 00:00:18,344 about the person you were delivering. 5 00:00:19,864 --> 00:00:23,705 And you can all mouth it if you want or say it out loud. 6 00:00:23,729 --> 00:00:29,286 It was -- the first two were, "It's a ..." 7 00:00:29,310 --> 00:00:31,331 Audience: (Mixed reply) Girl. Boy. 8 00:00:31,355 --> 00:00:32,356 (Laughter) 9 00:00:32,380 --> 00:00:33,982 Well, it shows you that -- 10 00:00:34,006 --> 00:00:37,085 I also deal with issues where there's not certainty 11 00:00:37,109 --> 00:00:38,684 of whether it's a girl or a boy, 12 00:00:38,708 --> 00:00:41,989 so the mixed answer was very appropriate. 13 00:00:42,336 --> 00:00:46,970 Of course, now the answer often comes not at birth but at the ultrasound, 14 00:00:46,994 --> 00:00:50,948 unless the prospective parents choose to be surprised, 15 00:00:50,972 --> 00:00:52,576 like we all were. 16 00:00:53,835 --> 00:01:00,835 But I want you to think about what it is that leads to that statement 17 00:01:00,859 --> 00:01:02,875 on the third word, 18 00:01:02,899 --> 00:01:05,376 because the third word 19 00:01:05,400 --> 00:01:10,238 is a description of your sex. 20 00:01:13,159 --> 00:01:15,548 And by that I mean, 21 00:01:15,572 --> 00:01:19,071 made by a description of your genitals. 22 00:01:20,436 --> 00:01:23,480 Now, as a pediatric endocrinologist, 23 00:01:23,504 --> 00:01:28,981 I used to be very, very involved and still somewhat am, in cases 24 00:01:29,005 --> 00:01:35,269 in which there are mismatches in the externals 25 00:01:35,293 --> 00:01:39,307 or between the externals and the internals, 26 00:01:39,331 --> 00:01:44,144 and we literally have to figure out 27 00:01:44,168 --> 00:01:47,286 what is the description of your sex. 28 00:01:48,502 --> 00:01:53,784 But there is nothing that is definable at the time of birth 29 00:01:53,808 --> 00:01:57,053 that would define you. 30 00:01:58,101 --> 00:02:00,244 And when I talk about definition, 31 00:02:00,268 --> 00:02:05,029 I'm talking about your sexual orientation. 32 00:02:06,274 --> 00:02:10,143 We don't say, "It's a ... gay boy!" 33 00:02:11,668 --> 00:02:12,957 "A lesbian girl!" 34 00:02:14,449 --> 00:02:17,958 Those situations don't really define themselves 35 00:02:17,982 --> 00:02:20,171 more until the second decade of life. 36 00:02:21,971 --> 00:02:26,928 Nor do they define your gender, 37 00:02:26,952 --> 00:02:30,540 which, as different from your anatomic sex, 38 00:02:30,564 --> 00:02:33,814 describes your self-concept: 39 00:02:33,838 --> 00:02:39,346 Do you see yourself as a male or female, 40 00:02:39,370 --> 00:02:43,326 or somewhere in the spectrum in between? 41 00:02:44,593 --> 00:02:49,872 That sometimes shows up 42 00:02:49,896 --> 00:02:52,856 in the first decade of life, 43 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:56,502 but it can be very confusing for parents, 44 00:02:56,526 --> 00:03:01,233 because it is quite normative for children 45 00:03:01,257 --> 00:03:05,610 to act in a cross-gender play and way, 46 00:03:05,634 --> 00:03:07,944 and, in fact, there are studies that show 47 00:03:07,968 --> 00:03:13,796 that even 80 percent of children who act in that fashion 48 00:03:13,820 --> 00:03:20,738 will not persist in wanting to be the opposite gender 49 00:03:20,762 --> 00:03:23,458 at the time when puberty begins. 50 00:03:24,746 --> 00:03:29,278 But, at the time that puberty begins -- 51 00:03:30,206 --> 00:03:35,835 that means between about age 10 to 12 in girls, 12 to 14 in boys -- 52 00:03:37,239 --> 00:03:38,946 with breast budding, 53 00:03:38,970 --> 00:03:42,843 or two to three times' increase in the gonads 54 00:03:42,867 --> 00:03:45,712 in the case of genetic males, 55 00:03:45,736 --> 00:03:47,362 by that particular point, 56 00:03:47,386 --> 00:03:52,318 the child who says they are in the absolute wrong body 57 00:03:53,504 --> 00:03:56,034 is almost certain to be transgender 58 00:03:57,291 --> 00:04:04,279 and is extremely unlikely to change those feelings, 59 00:04:04,303 --> 00:04:08,838 no matter how anybody tries reparative therapy 60 00:04:08,862 --> 00:04:11,036 or any other noxious things. 61 00:04:12,742 --> 00:04:15,189 Now, this is relatively rare, 62 00:04:15,213 --> 00:04:18,109 so I had relatively little personal experience with this. 63 00:04:18,929 --> 00:04:21,583 And my experience was more typical, 64 00:04:21,607 --> 00:04:23,647 only because I had an adolescent practice. 65 00:04:23,671 --> 00:04:25,339 And I saw someone age 24, 66 00:04:25,363 --> 00:04:29,930 genetically female, went through Harvard with three male roommates 67 00:04:29,954 --> 00:04:31,290 who knew the whole story, 68 00:04:31,314 --> 00:04:37,331 a registrar who always listed his name on course lists as a male name, 69 00:04:37,355 --> 00:04:40,306 and came to me after graduating, 70 00:04:40,330 --> 00:04:44,324 saying, "Help me. I know you know a lot of endocrinology." 71 00:04:44,348 --> 00:04:47,656 And indeed, I've treated a lot of people who were born without gonads. 72 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:49,324 This wasn't rocket science. 73 00:04:49,348 --> 00:04:50,951 But I made a deal with him: 74 00:04:50,975 --> 00:04:52,772 "I'll treat you if you teach me." 75 00:04:53,900 --> 00:04:55,987 And so he did. 76 00:04:57,161 --> 00:04:58,971 And what an education I got 77 00:04:58,995 --> 00:05:01,824 from taking care of all the members of his support group. 78 00:05:03,647 --> 00:05:06,170 And then I got really confused, 79 00:05:06,194 --> 00:05:08,727 because I thought it was relatively easy at that age 80 00:05:08,751 --> 00:05:10,334 to just give people the hormones 81 00:05:10,358 --> 00:05:13,776 of the gender in which they were affirming. 82 00:05:14,595 --> 00:05:17,801 But then my patient married, 83 00:05:17,825 --> 00:05:22,631 and he married a woman who had been born as a male, 84 00:05:22,655 --> 00:05:25,934 had married as a male, had two children, 85 00:05:25,958 --> 00:05:30,229 then went through a transition into female. 86 00:05:31,721 --> 00:05:35,710 And now this delightful female 87 00:05:36,536 --> 00:05:42,202 was attached to my male patient -- in fact, got legally married, 88 00:05:42,226 --> 00:05:45,478 because they showed up as a man and a woman, and who knew, right? 89 00:05:45,502 --> 00:05:47,005 (Laughter) 90 00:05:47,966 --> 00:05:51,003 And I was confused -- 91 00:05:51,501 --> 00:05:53,898 "Does this make so-and-so gay? 92 00:05:53,922 --> 00:05:55,672 Does this make so-and-so straight?" 93 00:05:55,696 --> 00:06:00,522 I was getting sexual orientation confused with gender identity. 94 00:06:01,609 --> 00:06:03,784 And my patient said to me, 95 00:06:03,808 --> 00:06:05,276 "Look, look, look. 96 00:06:05,300 --> 00:06:08,713 If you just think of the following, you'll get it right: 97 00:06:08,737 --> 00:06:11,980 Sexual orientation is who you go to bed with. 98 00:06:12,004 --> 00:06:15,344 Gender identity is who you go to bed as." 99 00:06:15,802 --> 00:06:17,803 (Laughter) 100 00:06:17,827 --> 00:06:20,619 And I subsequently learned from the many adults -- 101 00:06:20,643 --> 00:06:23,165 I took care of about 200 adults -- 102 00:06:23,189 --> 00:06:24,859 I learned from them 103 00:06:24,883 --> 00:06:29,518 that if I didn't peek as to who their partner was in the waiting room, 104 00:06:29,542 --> 00:06:33,217 I would never be able to guess better than chance, 105 00:06:33,241 --> 00:06:37,439 whether they were gay, straight, bi or asexual 106 00:06:37,463 --> 00:06:39,607 in their affirmed gender. 107 00:06:39,631 --> 00:06:40,853 In other words, 108 00:06:40,877 --> 00:06:45,436 one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. 109 00:06:45,460 --> 00:06:48,139 And the data show it. 110 00:06:50,075 --> 00:06:52,224 Now, as I took care of the 200 adults, 111 00:06:52,248 --> 00:06:53,843 I found it extremely painful. 112 00:06:54,814 --> 00:06:57,797 These people -- many of them -- 113 00:06:57,821 --> 00:07:02,098 had to give up so much of their lives. 114 00:07:02,122 --> 00:07:04,553 Sometimes their parents would reject them, 115 00:07:04,577 --> 00:07:06,926 siblings, their own children, 116 00:07:06,950 --> 00:07:08,697 and then their divorcing spouse 117 00:07:08,721 --> 00:07:12,232 would forbid them from seeing their children. 118 00:07:12,724 --> 00:07:14,485 It was so awful, 119 00:07:14,509 --> 00:07:17,765 but why did they do it at 40 and 50? 120 00:07:18,289 --> 00:07:23,034 Because they felt they had to affirm themselves 121 00:07:23,058 --> 00:07:24,840 before they would kill themselves. 122 00:07:25,316 --> 00:07:31,262 And indeed, the rate of suicide among untreated transgendered people 123 00:07:31,286 --> 00:07:33,737 is among the highest in the world. 124 00:07:35,057 --> 00:07:36,210 So, what to do? 125 00:07:37,020 --> 00:07:40,932 I was intrigued, in going to a conference in Holland, 126 00:07:40,956 --> 00:07:43,202 where they are experts in this, 127 00:07:43,226 --> 00:07:45,528 and saw the most remarkable thing. 128 00:07:46,623 --> 00:07:49,845 They were treating young adolescents 129 00:07:49,869 --> 00:07:55,839 after giving them the most intense psychometric testing of gender, 130 00:07:55,863 --> 00:08:00,259 and they were treating them by blocking the puberty that they didn't want. 131 00:08:00,283 --> 00:08:02,845 Because basically, kids look about the same, 132 00:08:02,869 --> 00:08:05,864 each sex, until they go through puberty, 133 00:08:05,888 --> 00:08:08,581 at which point, if you feel you're in the wrong sex, 134 00:08:08,605 --> 00:08:10,794 you feel like Pinocchio becoming a donkey. 135 00:08:11,675 --> 00:08:14,216 The fantasy that you had that your body will change 136 00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:16,891 to be who you want it to be, with puberty, 137 00:08:16,915 --> 00:08:19,636 actually is nullified by the puberty you get. 138 00:08:21,779 --> 00:08:23,796 And they fall apart. 139 00:08:25,328 --> 00:08:28,804 So that's why putting the puberty on hold -- why on hold? 140 00:08:28,828 --> 00:08:31,878 You can't just give them the opposite hormones that young. 141 00:08:31,902 --> 00:08:33,737 They'll end up stunted in growth, 142 00:08:33,761 --> 00:08:36,309 and you think you can have a meaningful conversation 143 00:08:36,333 --> 00:08:38,823 about the fertility effects of such treatment 144 00:08:38,847 --> 00:08:42,242 with a 10-year-old girl, a 12-year-old boy? 145 00:08:42,663 --> 00:08:45,169 So this buys time in the diagnostic process 146 00:08:45,193 --> 00:08:47,021 for four or five years, 147 00:08:47,045 --> 00:08:49,343 so that they can work it out. 148 00:08:49,819 --> 00:08:52,447 They can have more and more testing, 149 00:08:52,471 --> 00:08:56,440 they can live without feeling their bodies are running away from them. 150 00:08:56,464 --> 00:09:00,622 And then, in a program they call 12-16-18, 151 00:09:00,646 --> 00:09:05,495 around age 12 is when they give the blocking hormones, 152 00:09:05,519 --> 00:09:07,959 and then at age 16, with retesting, 153 00:09:07,983 --> 00:09:10,265 they re-qualify to receive -- 154 00:09:10,289 --> 00:09:13,261 now remember, the blocking hormones are reversible, 155 00:09:13,285 --> 00:09:16,166 but when you give the hormones of the opposite sex, 156 00:09:16,190 --> 00:09:19,507 you now start spouting breasts and facial hair and voice change, 157 00:09:19,531 --> 00:09:21,273 depending on what you're using, 158 00:09:21,297 --> 00:09:23,399 and those effects are permanent, 159 00:09:23,423 --> 00:09:25,241 or require surgery to remove, 160 00:09:25,265 --> 00:09:26,496 or electrolysis, 161 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:28,646 and you can never really affect the voice. 162 00:09:29,027 --> 00:09:32,280 So this is serious, and this is 15-, 16-year-old stuff. 163 00:09:33,184 --> 00:09:35,861 And then at 18, they're eligible for surgery. 164 00:09:36,772 --> 00:09:40,864 And while there's no good surgery for females to males genitally, 165 00:09:40,888 --> 00:09:44,188 the male-to-female surgery has fooled gynecologists. 166 00:09:45,381 --> 00:09:46,833 That's how good it can be. 167 00:09:48,087 --> 00:09:52,064 So I looked at how the patients were doing, 168 00:09:52,088 --> 00:09:54,950 and I looked at patients who just looked like everybody else, 169 00:09:54,974 --> 00:09:57,705 except they were pubertally delayed. 170 00:09:57,729 --> 00:09:59,642 But once they gave them the hormones 171 00:09:59,666 --> 00:10:02,275 consistent with the gender they affirm, 172 00:10:02,299 --> 00:10:03,532 they look beautiful. 173 00:10:04,229 --> 00:10:05,515 They look normal. 174 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:07,395 They had normal heights. 175 00:10:07,935 --> 00:10:10,737 You would never be able to pick them out in a crowd. 176 00:10:12,522 --> 00:10:15,079 So at that point, I decided I'm going to do this. 177 00:10:15,103 --> 00:10:19,587 This is really where the pediatric endocrine realm comes in, 178 00:10:19,611 --> 00:10:24,428 because, in fact, if you're going to deal with it in kids aged 10 to 14, 179 00:10:24,452 --> 00:10:26,372 that's pediatric endocrinology. 180 00:10:27,354 --> 00:10:30,741 So I brought some kids in, 181 00:10:31,513 --> 00:10:34,074 and this now became the standard of care, 182 00:10:34,098 --> 00:10:36,903 and the [Boston] Children's Hospital was behind it. 183 00:10:36,927 --> 00:10:41,070 By my showing them the kids before and after, 184 00:10:41,094 --> 00:10:44,915 people who never got treated and people who wished to be treated, 185 00:10:44,939 --> 00:10:46,527 and pictures of the Dutch -- 186 00:10:48,035 --> 00:10:49,256 they came to me and said, 187 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:51,487 "You've got to do something for these kids." 188 00:10:51,511 --> 00:10:53,568 Well, where were these kids before? 189 00:10:54,774 --> 00:10:57,145 They were out there suffering, is where they were. 190 00:10:57,894 --> 00:11:04,038 So we started a program in 2007. 191 00:11:04,062 --> 00:11:06,458 It became the first program of its kind -- 192 00:11:06,482 --> 00:11:08,839 but it's really of the Dutch kind -- 193 00:11:08,863 --> 00:11:10,046 in North America. 194 00:11:10,927 --> 00:11:14,426 And since then, we have 160 patients. 195 00:11:15,180 --> 00:11:17,831 Did they come from Afghanistan? No. 196 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:25,440 75 percent of them came from within 150 miles of Boston. 197 00:11:26,701 --> 00:11:29,456 And some came from England. 198 00:11:30,138 --> 00:11:34,181 Jackie had been abused in the Midlands, in England. 199 00:11:34,205 --> 00:11:36,067 She's 12 years old there, 200 00:11:36,091 --> 00:11:37,404 she was living as a girl, 201 00:11:37,428 --> 00:11:39,586 but she was being beaten up. 202 00:11:39,610 --> 00:11:42,181 It was a horror show, they had to homeschool her. 203 00:11:42,649 --> 00:11:44,993 And the reason the British were coming 204 00:11:45,017 --> 00:11:50,717 was because they would not treat anybody with anything under age 16, 205 00:11:50,741 --> 00:11:54,454 which means they were consigning them to an adult body 206 00:11:54,478 --> 00:11:55,937 no matter what happened, 207 00:11:55,961 --> 00:11:57,537 even if they tested them well. 208 00:11:58,108 --> 00:12:02,786 Jackie, on top of it, was, by virtue of skeletal markings, 209 00:12:02,810 --> 00:12:04,731 destined to be six feet five. 210 00:12:07,138 --> 00:12:10,042 And yet, she had just begun a male puberty. 211 00:12:10,938 --> 00:12:14,513 Well, I did something a little bit innovative, 212 00:12:14,537 --> 00:12:16,635 because I do know hormones, 213 00:12:16,659 --> 00:12:18,597 and that estrogen is much more potent 214 00:12:18,621 --> 00:12:22,411 in closing epiphyses, the growth plates, 215 00:12:22,435 --> 00:12:25,728 and stopping growth, than testosterone is. 216 00:12:25,752 --> 00:12:30,481 So we blocked her testosterone with a blocking hormone, 217 00:12:30,505 --> 00:12:33,964 but we added estrogen, not at 16, but at 13. 218 00:12:34,909 --> 00:12:37,489 And so here she is at 16, on the left. 219 00:12:38,093 --> 00:12:40,371 And on her 16th birthday, she went to Thailand, 220 00:12:40,395 --> 00:12:42,673 where they would do a genital plastic surgery. 221 00:12:42,697 --> 00:12:44,573 They will do it at 18 now. 222 00:12:44,597 --> 00:12:46,637 And she ended up 5'11". 223 00:12:47,312 --> 00:12:50,535 But more than that, she has normal breast size, 224 00:12:50,559 --> 00:12:52,847 because by blocking testosterone, 225 00:12:52,871 --> 00:12:56,225 every one of our patients has normal breast size 226 00:12:56,249 --> 00:12:59,259 if they get to us at the appropriate age, 227 00:12:59,283 --> 00:13:00,434 not too late. 228 00:13:01,057 --> 00:13:02,816 And on the far right, there she is. 229 00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,665 She went public -- semifinalist in the Miss England competition. 230 00:13:09,068 --> 00:13:11,571 The judges debated as to, can they do this? 231 00:13:12,134 --> 00:13:16,285 And one of them quipped, I'm told, 232 00:13:16,309 --> 00:13:20,275 "But she has more natural self than half the other contestants." 233 00:13:20,299 --> 00:13:22,187 (Laughter) 234 00:13:22,211 --> 00:13:26,458 And some of them have been rearranged a little bit, 235 00:13:26,482 --> 00:13:28,566 but it's all her DNA. 236 00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:32,774 And she's become a remarkable spokeswoman. 237 00:13:33,121 --> 00:13:36,982 And she was offered contracts as a model, 238 00:13:37,006 --> 00:13:39,131 at which point she teased me, when she said, 239 00:13:39,155 --> 00:13:41,700 "You know, I might have had a better chance as a model 240 00:13:41,724 --> 00:13:43,432 if you'd made me six feet one." 241 00:13:43,456 --> 00:13:45,436 (Laughter) 242 00:13:45,460 --> 00:13:46,611 Go figure. 243 00:13:48,038 --> 00:13:50,966 So this picture, I think, says it all. 244 00:13:51,740 --> 00:13:53,081 It really says it all. 245 00:13:53,760 --> 00:13:57,384 These are Nicole and brother Jonas, 246 00:13:57,408 --> 00:13:59,347 identical twin boys, 247 00:14:00,427 --> 00:14:01,931 and proven to be identical. 248 00:14:03,978 --> 00:14:07,572 Nicole had affirmed herself as a girl as early as age three. 249 00:14:07,596 --> 00:14:10,103 At age seven, they changed her name, 250 00:14:10,127 --> 00:14:14,571 and came to me at the very beginnings of a male puberty. 251 00:14:14,904 --> 00:14:17,688 Now you can imagine looking at Jonas at only 14, 252 00:14:17,712 --> 00:14:20,499 that male puberty is early in this family, 253 00:14:20,523 --> 00:14:22,562 because he looks more like a 16-year-old. 254 00:14:23,086 --> 00:14:24,896 But it makes the point all the more, 255 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:28,205 of why you have to be conscious of where the patient is. 256 00:14:28,665 --> 00:14:31,371 Nicole is on pubertal blockade in here, 257 00:14:32,451 --> 00:14:35,562 and Jonas is just going -- biologic control. 258 00:14:36,189 --> 00:14:37,886 This is what Nicole would look like 259 00:14:37,910 --> 00:14:39,967 if we weren't doing what we were doing. 260 00:14:39,991 --> 00:14:42,458 He's got a prominent Adam's apple. 261 00:14:42,482 --> 00:14:46,039 He's got angular bones to the face, a mustache, 262 00:14:46,063 --> 00:14:48,126 and you can see there's a height difference, 263 00:14:48,150 --> 00:14:51,029 because he's gone through a growth spurt that she won't get. 264 00:14:51,053 --> 00:14:52,570 Now Nicole is on estrogen. 265 00:14:52,594 --> 00:14:55,061 She has a bit of a form to her. 266 00:14:55,887 --> 00:14:59,502 This family went to the White House last spring, 267 00:14:59,526 --> 00:15:05,265 because of their work in overturning an anti-discrimination -- 268 00:15:05,289 --> 00:15:07,671 there was a bill that would block 269 00:15:07,695 --> 00:15:12,298 the right of transgender people in Maine to use public bathrooms, 270 00:15:12,322 --> 00:15:15,067 and it looked like the bill was going to pass, 271 00:15:15,091 --> 00:15:16,798 and that would have been a problem, 272 00:15:16,822 --> 00:15:20,299 but Nicole went personally to every legislator in Maine 273 00:15:20,323 --> 00:15:22,311 and said, "I can do this. 274 00:15:22,335 --> 00:15:24,327 If they see me, they'll understand 275 00:15:24,351 --> 00:15:26,497 why I'm no threat in the ladies' room, 276 00:15:26,521 --> 00:15:28,603 but I can be threatened in the men's room." 277 00:15:28,627 --> 00:15:30,126 And then they finally got it. 278 00:15:32,038 --> 00:15:33,713 So where do we go from here? 279 00:15:35,022 --> 00:15:39,091 Well, we still have a ways to go in terms of anti-discrimination. 280 00:15:39,115 --> 00:15:42,782 There are only 17 states that have an anti-discrimination law 281 00:15:42,806 --> 00:15:45,382 against discrimination in housing, 282 00:15:45,406 --> 00:15:48,498 employment, public accommodation -- 283 00:15:48,522 --> 00:15:51,510 only 17 states, and five of them are in New England. 284 00:15:51,534 --> 00:15:53,435 We need less expensive drugs. 285 00:15:53,459 --> 00:15:54,846 They cost a fortune. 286 00:15:55,164 --> 00:15:59,057 And we need to get this condition out of the DSM. 287 00:15:59,081 --> 00:16:03,781 It is as much a psychiatric disease as being gay and lesbian, 288 00:16:03,805 --> 00:16:06,724 and that went out the window in 1973, 289 00:16:06,748 --> 00:16:08,252 and the whole world changed. 290 00:16:08,649 --> 00:16:10,994 And this isn't going to break anybody's budget. 291 00:16:11,018 --> 00:16:12,485 This is not that common. 292 00:16:13,279 --> 00:16:16,660 But the risks of not doing anything for them 293 00:16:18,005 --> 00:16:24,477 not only puts all of them at risk of losing their lives to suicide, 294 00:16:24,501 --> 00:16:30,753 but it also says something about whether we are a truly inclusive society. 295 00:16:30,777 --> 00:16:31,928 Thank you. 296 00:16:31,952 --> 00:16:35,928 (Applause)