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NORTHAMPTON — Dallas Ducar, founding chief executive officer of Transhealth Northampton, which officially opens Tuesday, May 4, says the health care center’s name speaks “loud and proud about who and what we are.”
“We are the first independent, comprehensive transgender health care center in the nation,” Ducar said. “We are led by the trans community, which is really unique, and we are for the trans community. We are really built to empower people. We are empowering trans- and gender-diverse adults, children, families.”
There are other health care systems regionally and statewide that incorporate care to those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, but Ducar said Transhealth Northampton is alone in its mission of “committing 100 percent of our budget to transgender health care.”
“We don’t know of any other place like this in the country,” Ducar said. “We are a majority trans identified and LGBTQ. We are really by and for our community which is a very exciting thing. We are really constructing this from the wisdom of the community.”
Transgender health care involves addressing the needs of individuals whose gender identity differs from their biologically assigned sex at birth.
Ducar, who began transitioning from male to female in 2016, said understanding based on this definition often narrows down to thinking about such care in terms of “hormones and surgery.” She added gender identity needs to also address feelings that can be experienced and expressed early in life.
“One of the wisdoms from the trans community is that gender-affirming care is not just hormones and surgery,” said Ducar who, by training, is a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner. “One of the most gender-affirming things that happened to me is when my grandmother took me to buy my first dress. I will not forget that. That was not something that could happen in a clinical encounter. That was so much more.”
The center offers primary care for adults, pediatric primary care, hormonal care, as well as mental health care and “also lots of non-critical services,” including patient advocacy, legal and community services, Ducar said.
She added that the “majority of our staff are trans- or gender-diverse identified and a very strong number are LGBTQ identified, too,” and that individuals can schedule appointments with more than one provider during a visit.
“What we are trying to do here is really center the conversation around whatever the patient needs,” Ducar said. “It is really complex to be aware of someone’s identity, their individual identity, their gender identity, their gender expression. It is something that takes an effort and oftentimes one not seen in health care. It is a humanistic approach to getting to know someone, their story, their identity and what brings them there.”
The center’s website advises how to request an appointment and states that it specializes “in services for transgender, gender-diverse (non-binary, gender-queer, gender-nonconforming), those questioning and exploring their gender, others for whom gender identity provides a barrier to accessing quality health care, and their loved-ones.”
A need assessment study known as the PATH (Plan and Act for Transgender Health) Project was undertaken prior to the center’s establishment to determine what would make such care more accessible in Central and Western New England.
The project involved a partnership among the Fenway Institute, Cooley Dickinson Health Care, and researchers from Harvard Medical School as well as gender-diverse community members. Its findings helped form the mission of the center founded by Northampton resident Perry Cohen who was instrumental in Harvard Medical receiving funding in 2019 to incorporate transgender-affirming health care into its curriculum.
Cooley is an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest teaching hospital for Harvard Medical, and the institute is part of Boston-based Fenway Health whose population served includes the LGBTQIA+ community.
Ducar said the PATH study found pediatric care to be “one of the starkest needs to be addressed” in terms of transgender care.
It also found the center could potentially draw a significant pool of patients from parts of upstate New York as well as areas of New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut in addition to Central and Western Massachusetts. Ducar said staff, which currently includes a pediatrician, two family nurse practitioners, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and clinical social worker among others, would expand to meet patient growth.
She said a nurse care coordinator is available to patients to help navigate any insurance issues and access other resources.
“We have invested in having full-time staff members in every discipline,” Ducar said. “We will be seeing folks across the lifespan from babies to kids to teens to older adults. We are also here to provide consults.”
Ducar said that the center could be particularly helpful to pediatricians interested in prescribing hormone blockers for a patient who may want to delay physical changes of puberty that do not match their gender identity.
She added funding for the stand-alone clinic’s launch in the Pioneer Valley has come from private sources, including from Cohen, who serves as board chair and brought on the senior staff as well as founding board members, and who is raising twins with co-parent Brooks Bull.
“I could not be more proud of the work we are doing at Transhealth to bring even more gender affirming care to the Valley,” said Cohen who is founder and executive director of the Venture Out Project that offers backpacking and adventure trips for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and a former member of the executive leadership team at C&S Wholesale Grocers.
“Every person deserves to be seen and cared for as their truest self. I am grateful to be able to support that for my family and for so many people in the Valley and beyond.”
Ducar holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy and cognitive science, a master’s degree in clinical nurse leadership, and is a board-certified registered nurse and psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner.
Her prior employment was as clinical lead for mental health services at the Massachusetts General Hospital Transgender Health Program. She feels her personal and professional experience make her “uniquely posed to be aware of the mental health concerns and needs of the community” that she serves.
“I started transitioning in a very different political environment in 2016,” Ducar said. “There was a lot of fear at the time and there is a lot of fear that is happening now on a state-by-state basis, especially in the South, with anti-trans legislation.”
Her hope is for Transhealth Northampton, whose building space includes one floor with seven exam rooms and another floor with therapy offices and community space, to become a “really bright light” in the life of those it serves and that eventually such care will be integrated into all medical practices.
“It feels like I have lived multiple lives at age 28, especially with transitioning,” Ducar said. “My life as student, patient and professional has been a really opportunity for me to see other perspectives and I am really grateful for the lessons I have learned and they feel intensely human. The trans community has so much to share with folks and should not be demonized. There is a lot of wisdom there.”
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