Board of Directors

Susan Maasch – Director
Jack Montgomery – Director
Rebecca Oglesby –Treasurer

Board Advisors

Jenn Burleton

   As an outspoken advocate on behalf of transgender and gender non-conforming children and youth, Jenn has played a primary role in raising regional and national awareness of the challenges these children and their families face. She is a respected expert, visionary and leading thinker and presenter on gender identity and gender expression. In 2006, Jenn developed the model for the first trans-child specific organization in the United States, Trans Youth Family Allies. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of Transactive Education & Advocacy, based in Portland, OR, (http://www.transactiveonline.org/)

Maria Testa

   Maria Testa is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry for young people. Her work is known for lending a compelling and compassionate voice to the socio-political lives and passions of children and young adults. She received bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and American Civilization from Brown University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. After all that time in school (20 straight years!), she almost immediately expatriated to Dublin, Ireland, where she lived at the YWCA and decided to be a writer. A near lifelong New Englander, Maria was born in Hartford, Connecticut, grew up in and around Providence, Rhode Island, and now lives in Portland, Maine with her husband and two sons. A longtime member of Portland’s creative community, she is also active in many and varied aspects of Portland life ranging from volunteer work with EqualityMaine to coaching youth sports.

Victoria Minerva Rodríguez Roldán

   Victoria Rodriguez is currently a dual JD-MPP student at the University of Maine School of Law and the Muskie School of Public Service. A Truman Scholar (PR-'11), she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras Campus. There she became the first transgender person in UPR history to form part of student government, serving as an Alternate Representative to the UPR system University Board. She has done research on the topic of transsexuality in Puerto Rico and her current interests include the legal status and public policies that affect the trans community as well as LGBT rights as a whole. She transitioned during her teen years.

 

Medical Consultants to the Board

Norman Spack, MD

   Norman Spack, MD is a Senior Associate in the Endocrine Division at Children’s Hospital, Boston and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He grew up in Brookline MA as the son of a nationally acclaimed Jewish educator. A 1965 graduate of Williams College, he received his MD from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1969. Following Pediatric Residency at Boston City and Children’s Hospitals, 2 years as consultant Air Force pediatrician for the Middle East, he returned to do fellowships in Adolescent Medicine and Diabetes at Children’s. In 1978, Dr. Spack co-founded the first community-based private practice of Adolescent Medicine in New England. He has been consultant or staff physician for several community teen clinics. In 1992 he completed his fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at Children’s and in 1998 became fulltime Clinical Director of the Endocrine Division. He serves on the Admissions Committee of Harvard Medical School and the Peer Review Committee of Children’s Hospital. He has just celebrated his 35th anniversary at Children’s.

   Dr. Spack’s interest in patients with gender problems was kindled as a volunteer on the medical van of Bridge Over Troubled Waters in 1974. In recent years he has become endocrinologist and a nationally recognized advocate for transgender individuals, from children to mature adults. As a pediatric endocrinologist, he consults frequently on cases of infantile genital ambiguity and variability. He was a member of the 2005 International Consensus Conference on Intersex and has lectured internationally on the treatment of transgender youth. Dr. Spack has received numerous awards for his teaching, clinical care, and community service. In February 2007, with Pediatric Urologist Dr. David Diamond, he co-founded Children’s Hospital’s GeMS, Gender Management Service, an interdisciplinary monthly clinic for Disorders of Sex Development (Intersex) and Transgenderism. It is the first such combined program outside of Europe.

Michelle Forcier, MD, MPH

   Michelle Forcier is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Brown University Alpert Medical School. Her professional interests include: sexual and reproductive health issues such as lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender health, advanced family planning, pediatric and adolescent gynecology. Michelle received her Bachelors of Science degrees from Brown University, her MD at University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and Pediatric Residency at University of Utah. She completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Fellowship and Preventive Medicine Residency at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She has a Masters in Public Health (Epidemiology) from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Public Health.

   Michelle currently is an active medical provider working with transgender children and youth ages 0-25 years, in Rhode Island, and surrounding communities. She offers a holistic and primary care focused approach to understanding the youth as a whole person, as well as in the context of the family, community and life goals. Michelle has an interest in public and professional education about transgender health issues as well as early identification and support for youth with gender non-conformity. She provides hormonal therapies to block puberty, allow for puberty in asserted gender, and cross gender hormone management for her patients.

Jerrold S. Olshan, MD

   Pediatric Endocrinologist – Maine Medical Partners Pediatric Specialty Care, Portland, ME