Laura Targownik

Contributor

Laura Targownik, MD, MSHS, FRCPC, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto; Ontario Medical Association Tariff Lead, Section of Gastroenterology; Chair, Diversity and Equity, Canadian Association of Gastroenterology; and Staff Gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.

4 Contributions
by Laura Targownik

Cross-sex hormone use among teens is rising. Should Canadians be concerned?

Providing gender-affirming medical care to adolescents has become one of the most heavily debated medical topics in the public sphere. Medical interventions once widely presented by most major medical groups as unequivocally beneficial and even lifesaving for young people with gender dysphoria have come under sustained scrutiny as emerging evidence has called the certainty of these claims into question and trans issues have become more politically polarizing and salient.
by Laura Targownik

Alberta has restricted access to gender based medical care for trans youth. Will the rest of Canada soon follow?

If clinicians cannot demonstrate who is most likely to benefit from pediatric gender-based care, governments may do it for them, with young people paying the price.

by Laura Targownik

I used to envy socially transitioned trans kids for having the childhood I never had. Now I am not so certain.

While more research will continue to provide useful information on how socially transitioned children manage through their adolescence and adulthood, it will never be able to answer whether transitioning is the best choice for any gender-variant child.

by Laura Targownik

My birth sex is part of my medical history; it should be as private as the rest of my medical history

Insisting on primary birth sex identification for trans people does little to improve the health of trans and gender diverse persons; it merely exchanges one theoretical set of adverse health care outcomes for others that are definite and far more impactful.

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