With great excitement, Anchor Health announces that AJ Eckert, DO, the Medical Director of our Gender & Life-Affirming Medicine (GLAM) Program, has been elected as a Board Member-at-Large to the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH) for a 3-year term.
USPATH is the U.S. chapter of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). WPATH is the leading international, multidisciplinary organization devoted to promoting evidence-based care, education, research, public policy, and respect in transgender health. One of the main functions of WPATH is to promote the highest standards of health care for trans and gender diverse (TGD) people through its internationally accepted Standards of Care.
USPATH cooperates with WPATH in support of the organization’s mission and vision. It provides professionals from various subspecialties of such disciplines as medicine, mental and behavioral health, and the law, residing and practicing in the U.S., to interact and communicate with each other to share research, clinical practice and other experience affecting the health and well-being of trans and gender diverse (TGD) people. The USPATH Board of Directors is involved in furthering communication, education and training, and policy efforts in the field of gender-affirming care.
Dr. Eckert joined Anchor Health in 2020 when the organization merged with his existing gender-affirming care clinic, the GLAM Center. As a trans nonbinary physician with almost two decades of experience, he established our GLAM Program to empower trans and gender diverse people in their gender journeys. Since 2020, our TGD patients have increased by over 150%.
On his election, Dr. Eckert stated:
“I am so humbled to have been elected to the USPATH Board. As a transmasc nonbinary person, I am deeply aware of my community’s day-to-day challenges – from accessing competent health care to getting misgendered and dealing with daily microaggressions. I know what it is like to feel incredibly alone, underrepresented, and worried about my safety in public spaces. I am committed to using my platform to move trans health care forward by improving public health resources, mitigating bias, contributing to more and better research studies, and amplifying the voices of historically underrepresented intersectional communities. I look forward to working with USPATH’s dedicated leaders toward the ultimate goal of depathologizing, decriminalizing, and humanizing trans bodies.”
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Eckert on this well-deserved appointment!
About Anchor Health
Anchor Health is Connecticut’s leading health center for the LGBTQ community, providing the most groundbreaking, radically inclusive, gender-affirming, and sex-positive care possible in Connecticut and beyond. Founded in 2016, Anchor Health currently serves over 3,000 patients, nearly half transgender and gender diverse, across full-service health centers in Hamden and Stamford. Anchor Health continuously works to advance health equity for LGBTQ people through advocacy, community-building, education, and research. We are health care for queer people by queer people.
