May 2021

WPATH President's Newsletter

Dear WPATH Members and Supporters,

I hope this message finds you and yours all safe and healthy.

I am pleased to share with you some of the updates and new WPATH items/initiatives that have occurred and are or have been developed.

Firstly, there are two important Scientific Symposia organised this year.

4th EPATH Hybrid Conference: Reconnecting and Redefining Transgender Care – the EPATH conference takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden from 11-13 August and will be a hybrid meeting with limited availability (150!) for in-person attendees due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is unlimited availability to attend as an online participant against very competitive prices! The EPATH Board and Scientific Committee is looking forward to presenting an exciting programme of cutting edge, state-of-the-art research in transgender health.

USPATH 2021 Scientific Symposium: Seeking Equity in A Time of Hope and Challenge – the USPATH Symposium will be fully virtual and held from 4-7 of November. Courses that run concurrently will be recorded and available to watch later. This format will allow attendees to watch live or recorded sessions and receive credit hours for both. This robust program will allow for accreditation and attendance to more educational sessions than in the face-to-face meeting. Submission of abstracts for Oral and Poster sessions as well as State-of-the-Art Symposia is now open with the submission deadline: Friday, July 9, 2021 at 5:00 pm ET.

I would like to express my deepest thanks to the leadership and Board of EPATH and USPATH for organising these symposia, particularly in these difficult and increasingly polarised times. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent wave of anti-trans legislation specifically in Europe and the US show that we must step up our efforts even more to seek equality and fair access to healthcare for all.

Anti-Trans Legislation Response - the WPATH Board will be forming a Task Force to put together a toolkit for members to have at the ready, when faced with questions, concerns, and criticism. Our goal is to create FAQs, templated letters, and quick fact sheets. This project will require a considerable amount of time and work and given its global importance we will allocate significant resources to develop and to implement a robust and effective toolkit.

WPATH 2022 27th Scientific Symposium - in the hope of locking in a location and date for our 2022 symposium, we have solicited proposals from some major cities in North America and Europe. After many deliberations we felt these locations were our safest options, as the world continues to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic. This current choice will not diminish our view and mission to continue to reach out to all parts of the globe and we expect to organize our 2024 28^th WPATH Symposium on a different continent.

Nevertheless, we are on this occasion excited to announce that we have selected 5 venues for consideration to host the 2022 meeting. We also felt that you, the membership, should decide where the next WPATH 2022 Symposium will take place. Please follow this link to rate the cities by your preference. Once we have received your feedback, we will be able to enter into our tough negotiations for the meeting contract. Please vote by Friday, May 28.

New Member Benefit - DocMatter WPATH Member Forum - Coming Soon - over the next few months, you will receive an invitation to engage in our NEW WPATH Member Forum. This platform will replace our current member listservs and take them to a whole new level. Highlights include: the ability to interact with your fellow colleagues on complex cases, reaching out directly to each other in one space, reviewing fellow members profiles when searching for referrals, and so much more. We know this new benefit will impress, and benefit our interdisciplinary field, in so many ways.

WPATH Global Education Initiative (GEI) - in June you will see a call for applications for the new GEI committees and we hope many of you will apply and become active in this initiative. We have just completed our 3^rd round of online courses, with great success. In this new format alone, we have trained over 1500 healthcare professionals, from over 24 countries! The next round is being scheduled now.

NEW GEI Offerings - Don't forget to sign up for the free (to members) Journal Club and Book Club episodes throughout 2021. The recordings of each will be uploaded to the website for your viewing shortly after each live episode has concluded. Our first Journal Club, featuring an article entitled Health disparities between binary and non-binary trans people: A community-driven survey from the International Journal of Transgender Health, presented by Dr Aisa Burgwal and Professor Joz Motmans from Ghent, Belgium brought together over 100 registrants, from over 19 countries.

• The second episode of the Journal Club will take place Thursday, June 3, 2021 from 1100 EDT (GMT -4) to 1200 EDT and discusses the paper Mental health and quality of life in non-binary transgender adults: A case control study and is presented by Dr Beth Jones and Professor Jon Arcelus from Nottingham Trent University and University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, respectively. Click here to sign up now! 
• Our first episode of the Book Club will take place on Friday, June 25, 2021 from 1730 EDT (GMT-4) to 1900 EDT join Dr. Jamison Green as he discusses his book Becoming a Visible Man, Second Edition. Click here to sign up now!

International Journal of Transgender Health Update – I am pleased to report that the third issue of this year has been published online ahead of schedule and is currently printed and will be arriving in mailboxes soon of those members who have subscribed to a paper copy of our journal. The running order of the fourth and final issue of this year is also ready and will be submitted to the publisher next month. There is a significant backlog catalogue of published manuscripts online. We are scheduled to publish the WPATH Standards of Care version 8 (SOC8) soon.

WPATH Standards of Care version 8 (SOC8) – I would like to thank all authors and participants of the SOC8 and especially the Chair and Co-Chairs Eli Coleman, Asa Radix and Jon Arcelus for their relentless effort, time, expertise, and energy regarding this complex and multi-faceted interdisciplinary project, which will significantly improve the lives of trans people and their loved ones globally. Furthermore, WPATH will dedicate a webpage outlining the history of the SOC8 journey to ensure full transparency of processes, including the application process for all current participants, community representation, working groups as well as its methodology, contracting and costing, chaptering, timelines, review and consultation processes and editing.

Specifically for our US Members, there are two more issues to report:

Insurance Plan Training, US - in response to the California Senate Bill, SB855, we have built a training program for the nearly 40 plans to attend, and learn about proper and complete trans health coverage, coding, medically necessary treatments that should be covered, staged procedures, etc. We hope that this is one step in the right direction to ensure that access to and payment for gender affirming treatments becomes more streamlined and easier to navigate for patients. We also hope that many states will follow California’s lead. We will be ready to train them when they do.

Department of Corrections Training, US - we are finishing up a training for a state-wide DOC’s medical and mental health staff to learn about trans healthcare in institutional settings and we hope that this training module will be the first of many and that all states will want to take part in this program.

Finally, these are just a small part of all the things happening at WPATH. We are so pleased to be able to continue our work to improve information-sharing, education, member engagement and volunteer participation for all of you, our members, and supporters.

With warm regards and stay safe,