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Robert Garofalo and transgender people

Robert Garofalo is an American pediatrician who specializes in care for trans and gender diverse youth.

Background

According to a profile on the Northwestern Medicine site:

Robert Garofalo MD, MPH is a Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. He is the founding Chief of the Division Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine at Lurie Children’s Hospital and previously served as the hospital’s director of adolescent HIV services. Dr. Garofalo founded and co-directs the Lurie Children’s Gender and Sexual Development Program. He received a B.S. from Duke University (1988), his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine (1992) and a M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Garofalo has >25 years of clinical and research experience in global health, HIV, HIV prevention and sexual and gender minority health. In 2010, he was appointed to the National Academy of Science/Institute of Medicine Committee on LGBT Health Issues and Research Gaps and Opportunities. In 2011 he was elected to the City of Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame. In 2019 he was awarded the Ellen Perrin Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBTQ Health by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2024, he was awarded the Equality Award for community service by the Human Rights Campaign of Chicago. Dr. Garofalo’s research has been generously funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as multiple institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NICHD, NIDA, NINR, NIAID, NIMH, NIDA, NIAAA, NIMHD). He has been Principal Investigator or MPI on 20 NIH-funded research grants and a Co-Investigator on >30 additional federally funded research projects focused on HIV prevention and care outcomes and/or on the health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations in the U.S. and globally. Dr. Garofalo is a member of several professional organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the American Medical Association, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. During his time in Chicago, he served as the Deputy Director of Howard Brown Health and was a founder of the Broadway Youth Center. Dr. Garofalo is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transgender Health. In 2021 he co-authored the book, When Dogs Heal: Powerful Stories of People Living with HIV and the Dogs That Saved Them (Lerner Publishers). He has >220 publications in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. In addition to academic work, Dr. Garofalo founded and serves as President of Fred Says (www.fredsays.org) – named after his dog – a grassroots, non-profit charitable foundation that has raised and given back >$1,000,000 to the community organizations that provide care and services for transgender youth and young people impacted by HIV in the U.S. and around the world.

References

Staff report (August 19, 2016). Meet Dr. Robert Garofalo. ACLU Illinois https://www.aclu-il.org/en/news/meet-dr-robert-garofalo

Fishman, Elly (May 18, 2015). The Change Agent. Chicago Magazine https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/june-2015/doctor-rob-garofalo/

Reardon, Sara (March 31, 2016). Largest study of transgender teens to assess treatments during puberty. Genetic Literacy Project https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/03/31/largest-study-transgender-teens-assess-treatments-puberty/

Selected publications

Garolfalo, Robert [Ed.]

Media

Schorsch, Kristen (March 25, 2025). What happens when a Chicago hospital bows to federal pressure on trans care for teens. NPR https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5338757/transgender-surgery-lurie-chicago-hospital

Martinez A (Jun 30, 2015). Documentary examines tough choices for kids who are ‘Growing Up Trans.’ LAist https://laist.com/shows/take-two/documentary-examines-tough-choices-for-kids-who-are-growing-up-trans

Resources

Northwestern Medicine (feinberg.northwestern.edu)

  • Robert Garofalo
  • feinberg.northwestern.edu/research/podcast/2022/evidence-based-gender-affirming%20-care-for-young-adults-with-robert-Garofalo-md-mph.html
  • Robert Garofalo, MD, MPH
  • feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=11319

Northwestern Scholars (https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu/en/persons/robert-garofalo)

Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)

National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center (lgbtqiahealtheducation.org)

Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame (chicagolgbthalloffame.org)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Instagram (instagram.com)

LinkTree (linktr.ee)

HuffPost (huffpost.com)