Norman Spack

Norman Spack, MD, is Senior Associate Emeritus in the Endocrine Division at Boston Children’s Hospital where he has been on staff for 50 years. A 1965 graduate of Williams College, he received his MD from University of Rochester and Pediatric Residency at Boston City and Children’s Hospitals. He did fellowships in Adolescent Medicine and Endocrinology at Children’s.

Dr. Spack’s interest in patients with gender variance was kindled in 1974 as a volunteer on a medical van serving homeless youth. His first trans patient graduated college in 1980 having matriculated as a female but lived as a male with full knowledge of his male roommates. His experience treating adults convinced him that starting hormonal treatment in late puberty was too late for an optimal physical and psychosocial outcome. His first patients from the UK were treated according to the Amsterdam protocol using pubertal suppression.

Dr. Spack has received numerous awards for his teaching, writings, clinical care, and community service, and has become an internationally recognized expert in Transgenderism. In 2012 Williams bestowed a Bicentennial Medal on him for alumni/ae with a “lifetime of achievement in their field of endeavor.” His TedTalk , uploaded internationally in 2014 and used as a teaching instrument in colleges throughout the world has had 2.5 million views.

In 2007 he co-founded the Gender Management Service” (“GeMS”) at Boston Children’s Hospital, an interdisciplinary clinic for Transgender adolescents. GeMS the only program of its kind outside of Europe and soon became the model for 70 comparable clinics currently operating throughout North America, including three who became partners in a 4-site $6 million NIH collaborative longitudinal outcome study.

Having turned over administrative duties to former trainees when he reached emeritus status in 2016, his efforts are devoted to support of the GeMS program, to assisting the new programs and advocating for the rights of transgender people in the USA in states where their basic human rights never existed or are being rescinded by conservative Governors and state legislatures. Worse, clinics for trans youth are being closed despite their reducing the previously horrendous incidence of self-harm and suicide. Those who deny their rights to medical care as minors, threaten the doctors who treat them as perpetrators of child abuse threatened with loss of medical licenses and even prosecution for a felony.