Our team of mental health professionals aims to provide the highest quality care to transgender and gender diverse youth and their families, with a focus on gender-related support.
Clinical Overview
The UCSF Gender Psychiatry Program is a comprehensive, evidence-based program that aims to provide outstanding mental health clinical care for transgender and gender diverse youth and their families. This includes individual psychotherapy, group therapy, family therapy, and psychiatric medication management services. All clinical services are carefully tailored to the unique needs of our patients and their families, with a focus on gender-related needs.
Our program works closely with the UCSF Child & Adolescent Gender Center, which provides gender-affirming care, including medical interventions, for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. We also work closely with the UCSF Adult LGBTQ Psychiatry Program, allowing seamless mental health support across the lifespan from childhood through adulthood.
Teaching Overview
The UCSF Gender Psychiatry Program is committed to training future cohorts of mental health professionals to provide evidence-based mental health treatment for transgender and gender diverse youth and their families. The clinic hosts UCSF child and adolescent psychiatry fellows for a six month seletive rotation in the final year of their fellowship training. We also present regularly at the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Annual Meetings to educate mental health clinicians around the world on best practices for supporting transgender youth mental health.
Research Overview
In addition to our clinical work, our team works to study the determinants of mental health among transgender youth, with a focus on the impacts of societal structures and public policies on the mental health of our patients and their families. Our team's research includes the first study to establish that gender identity conversion efforts (attempts to force transgender people to be cisgender) are linked to adverse mental health outcomes (Turban et al. JAMA Psychiatry 2019) and several examining the links between access to various forms of gender affirmation (both medical and non-medical) during adolescence and adult mental health outcomes. Our research has been cited in major court cases regarding the civil rights of transgender people in the U.S., in state legislative debates around the country, and in the United Nations’ independent expert report on conversion therapy. Our team also co-edited the textbook Pediatric Gender Identity: Gender-affirming Care for Transgender & Gender Diverse Youth. We work closely with the UCSF Philip R. Lee Insititute for Health Policy Studies to examine how to promote evidence-based public policy to promote the mental health of transgender and gender diverse youth.