GIRES Research Award for 2009

See the GIRES Annual Research Awards page to read about the awards and the criteria used by the GIRES trustees in evaluating entries for the annual award.


Endocrine Society Guidelines – 2009 (PDF)

The Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) is most grateful to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) for allowing its Award for 2009 to be announced on 18 June 2009 at the Biennial WPATH Symposium in Oslo, in the presence of HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.

The Award is made in recognition of influential published work that will improve the lives of gender variant people.

The 2009 Award recognises the importance and excellence of the Endocrine Society “Guidelines on the Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual Persons”. This document is co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE), European Society of Pediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society (LWPES), and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The guidelines cover, in a highly practical way, the treatment of both adult and adolescent transsexual persons.

The Guidelines include a clear recommendation that suppression of pubertal hormones should start when girls and boys first exhibit physical changes of puberty, but no earlier than Tanner stages 2-3. That treatment is already available in highly reputable centres in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the USA. The guidelines should now provide a substantial impetus to improving treatment in other countries, such as the UK, which require these young people to endure inappropriate full pubertal development before any physical intervention is offered.

As often in previous years, distinguished members of WPATH were among the recipients of the 2009 Award, who comprise:

  • Wylie Hembree MD, Chair of the Task Force that developed the Guidelines
  • Peggy Cohen-Kettenis
  • Walter Meyer III
  • Vin Tangpricha
  • Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal
  • Louis Gooren
  • Norman Spack
  • Victor Montori

GIRES was delighted that the first four members of the Task Force named above were in Oslo to receive their Awards in person.