The Plasticity of Sex

Dr. Marianne Legato, Emerita Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University, is an internationally known academic physician, author, lecturer, and specialist in gender-specific medicine. She is founding member of the International Society for Gender Medicine and the founder and director of The Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University and its next iteration, The Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine. She has published extensively on gender and sex specific medicine, both for the scientific community and for the lay public. She is also the founding editor of the Journal Gender Medicine, and the journal Gender and the Genome. In 1992, Dr. Legato won the American Heart Association’s Blakeslee Award for the best book written for the lay public on cardiovascular disease. The third edition of her textbook, Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine and her most recent book, The Plasticity of Sex., both won Prose awards from the American Association of Editors in 2021 and 2022 respectively. She is a practicing internist in New York City and has been listed each year in New York Magazine and Castle Connolly’s lists "Best Doctors" since their inception in 1993.

1. What determines biological sex? 2. Disorders of sex development 3. The sexual brain 4. The transgender individual 5. Homosexuality: the biological basis of differences in sexual orientation 6. The strong heritability of gender dysphoria 7. 5α-Reductase deficiency syndrome: the impact of androgens on gender identity and gender role 8. Biological basis of gender identity 9. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia as a model to explore gender fluidity in early life; particularly 46,XX patients with male external genitalia 10. Testosterone treatment for transgender (trans) men 11. Transgender care 12. Fertility preservation for transgender individuals 13. Breast imaging in transgender individuals 14. Protecting children with intersex traits: legal, ethical, and human rights considerations 15. Transphobic discrimination and health 16. Societal experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people 17. Implementing LGBTQ curricula into health professions education