Transgender Health, Aging, and Advocacy: A Podcast with Noelle Marie Javier and Jace Flatt

Happy Pride Month GeriPal listeners!

Transgender issues are in the news. Just today (June 17th) as we record this podcast:

• Ezra Klein released a wonderful interview with Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of congress

• A judge ruled that cuts to NIH grants focused on minority groups, including transgender people, were illegal and ordered the government to restore funding. 

• It’s Pride month, and our guests remind us of the leadership of two trans women in the Stonewall riots, which started the modern fight for LGBTQI+ rights and liberation.

Today’s guests are Noelle Marie Javier, a geriatrician and palliative care doc who tells her story of transitioning as a faculty member at Mt. Sinai in New York, and Jace Flatt, who started their journey as a gerontology researcher at UCSF and is now faculty at UNLV. Jace was in the news recently for having multiple federal grants cancelled because they included transgender participants. We cover many topics, including:

• Terminology: gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, transgender, nonbinary, intersex, what’s in LGBTQI+

• Gender affirming care

• Major health and medical issues associated with aging as a transgender person

• Allostatic load

• Accelerated aging

• What can clinicians do - pointers, pearls, and attitudes

• Dementia risk 

• Caregiver issues

• Hormone replacement therapy at the end of life

• Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data, what is it, how to collect it respectfully and safely

• Mentioned: Harvey Chochinov’s Dignity Therapy question, and our prior podcast on LGBT Care for older adults and serious illness with Carey Candrian and Angela Primbas

So pleased to sing True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, with Kai on guitar for those of you listening to the podcast.

-Alex Smith

Many links!

-Rainbows of Aging: Jace Flatt’s research site.

-LGBTQcaregivers

-Callen-Lorde gender affirming trans health services

-GLMA: organization for health professional advancing LGBTQ+ equality

-Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at UCSF

-World Professional Association for Transgender Health

-Sage advocacy services for LGBTQ+ Elders: focus on impact of Medicaid cuts

-Trans bodies, Trans selves: resource guide