China’s first multidisciplinary clinic for transgender children and adolescents was set up at the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai recently to safely and healthily manage transgender minors’ transition.
Experts expect that the clinic, integrated with psychology, endocrine and genetic metabolic, urology departments among other departments, will serve as a bridge between transgender children, parents, doctors and the various circles of society.
The Global Times learned from the hospital on Thursday that the clinic was set up after the hospital had encountered such cases in its clinical practice.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) defines a transgender person as someone whose gender identity is inconsistent with his or her birth sex.
In a case shared by the hospital, an adolescent girl named Xiao Lin (pseudonym) suffered repeated anxiety and depression after she entered puberty and her female physiological characteristics became more obvious.
Through searching on the internet, she learned that she is a transgender person.
However, talking to her parents about this increased her psychological pressure since her parents tried to dismiss the concept as being in her mind but their efforts eventually turned out to be in vain.
The preliminary evaluation on her psychology at the hospital showed that Xiao Lin is indeed transgender.