This Is So Moving

I hate it when people say trans kids are too young to transition, too young to understand their gender.

Stanford launches short online course to boost understanding of transgender kids
Stanford Medical
By Erin Digitale
March 27, 2017

In 2011, Stanford Medicine lecturer Maya Adam, MD, had just finished teaching her undergraduate course on critical issues in child health when a student approached her with some feedback. “I loved your class, but you are missing one issue,” the student said. “You need a lecture on transgender children’s health.”

Adam’s response was “You’re right … but I know so little about that.” Her own medical training had never mentioned transgender children; she was unsure what difficulties they faced. Adam soon realized this knowledge gap was common, not just among physicians but also among teachers and other professionals who work with kids.

This week, which happens to be LGBT Health Awareness Week, Stanford is launching a free online course that Adam created to fill the gap. The course, which consists of 18 short videos, grew from her desire to raise awareness of the needs of transgender children beyond the small audience of Stanford students she teaches. In the videos, Adam interviews Stanford experts and gives basic explanations of what it means to be transgender.

I know that UConn School of Medicine used to have a half a day class on LGBT clients for their second year students, but now they moved to their first year students because they are doing clinical rounds in their first year and the school thought that they needed earlier exposure to LGBT clients. Instead of the huge lecture hall this year they are doing it in their classrooms to see if it is better than the lecture hall approach.

So here is the first video…