In “Moving Beyond Psychiatric Gatekeeping for Gender-Affirming Surgery,” commentary authors Drs. Alex S. Keuroghlian and Catherine A. Wu offer a discussion of the phenomenon of clinical gatekeeping in the context of accessing gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) or gender-affirming surgery (GAS), in contrast to what might be considered reasonable precautions to ensure candidacy. The article details the recent changes in requirement guidance issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC8), and the way in which this shift reflects a move towards an informed consent model for gender-affirming care. The article authors offer their recommendations for an optimized informed consent approach to GAS to further mitigate the harms of psychiatric gatekeeping.
“Moving Beyond Psychiatric Gatekeeping for Gender-Affirming Surgery” may be found online here.
