In September 2022, Dr. Katie McMenamin attended the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) 27th Scientific Symposium, in Montreal, Canada. People who identify as transgender or non-binary experience huge inequities in healthcare, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally, making this an important area for research.

The first two days of the conference included a comprehensive introduction to transgender health, run by WPATH’s Global Education Institute (GEI). This course covered physical health, mental health, gender affirming primary care, cultural awareness, and minority stress, taken from the perspective of working with transgender adults and youth/children. The remaining three days of the conference covered presentations on each of the sections from the recently released Standards of Care (SOC8) and current research in all of the above areas.

Of note, one of the key note speakers was New Zealand’s own Jaimie Veale, from the University of Waikato, presenting about areas for future research that are important to the transgender community.