‘A light in the dark’ for LGBTQ+ youth
Clair Kronk of the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center attended the LGBTQ+ section at the AAP meeting because of concerns about she and her transgender siblings have been treated by the medical community.
“It has always been important to be ‘on the pulse’ of what is happening in the medical community, especially with new, more discriminatory policies being passed seemingly willy-nilly these days, both in the medical realm and outside of it,” Ms. Kronk said in an interview. “I was overjoyed to see how many people seemed to care so much about the transgender community and LGBTQIA+ people generally.”
As an ontologist and bioinformatician, she did not recall many big clinical takeaways for her particular work, but she appreciated how many areas the session covered, especially given the dearth of instruction about LGBTQ+ care in medical training.
“This session was a bit of a light in the dark given the state of LGBTQIA+ health care rights,” she said. “There is a lot at stake in the next year or so, and providers’ and LGBTQIA+ persons’ voices need to be heard right now more than ever.”
Sonia Khan, MD, a pediatrician and the medical director of the substance use disorder counseling program in the department of health and human services in Fremont, Calif., also attended the session and came away feeling invigorated.
“These data make me feel more optimistic than I have been in ages in terms of increasing the safety of young people being able to come out,” Dr. Khan said in the comments during the session. “These last 4 years felt so regressive. [It’s] good to get the big picture.”
The presenters and commentators had no disclosures.