Founder, President & Chief Medical Officer

Scott Leibowitz, MD is a Cornell-educated, Harvard-trained, board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, author, speaker, educator, and consultant who is internationally recognized for his specialization in the care of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) children and adolescents. His 18+ years of clinical experience at three multidisciplinary children’s hospital gender clinics makes him a leading authority on gender identity development and diversity in young people. He has garnered a reputation for addressing the ethical debates around adolescent care with a balanced and pragmatic approach and has proven effectiveness working with individuals across many different perspectives and belief systems.

Dr. Leibowitz received his MD at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine American program in 2004 and then completed residency at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York where he was chief resident. In 2008, he began his child and adolescent fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he started treating TGD youth within one of the country’s first multidisciplinary academic gender programs, ultimately staying as junior faculty to continue working with the population. In 2013, Dr. Leibowitz became the Head Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Gender and Sexuality Development Program, serving in that role for nearly three years. From 2016 to 2024, he was the Medical Director of Behavioral Health Services for the THRIVE Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where he grew it into the largest in-house therapy program attached to a children’s hospital gender clinic in the United States.

He was featured in The New York Times Magazine (2022) for his work as the co-lead of the Adolescent chapter for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standard of Care 8th Ed. He was also featured on The New York Times podcast The Protocol (2025), has been a co-investigator in National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded research, has authored more than 30 academic publications, has edited two clinical guides, and often serves as an expert authority for the media.

He previously served as co-leader of the Sexual Orientation Gender Identity Committee for the American Academy for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) from 2013–2021, and on the Board of Directors for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) from 2022–2026. His team was recognized with the Human Rights Campaign Community Leadership Award in 2024, and he also received Equality Ohio’s Queer Wellness Award in 2025. 

Often sought as a keynote speaker, he brings experience, knowledge, and perspective to audiences that include providers and non-providers across different disciplines and settings. Widely considered a leading educator on these issues, Dr. Leibowitz has trained professionals around the world, including in the Czech Republic, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Norway, the United States, and Vietnam. Dr. Leibowitz is uniquely positioned to speak to the ethical, legal, political, developmental, cultural, and personal intersections of gender and gender care in young people and is known to effectively break down the complexities for curious audiences.