A pre-med student at Hamilton, Wolf-Gould enlisted in the Peace Corps after graduation. It was while teaching fish farming in the Congo that she first met a transgender person. After her service, she attended Yale Medical School and completed her residency at the University of Rochester before joining the Bassett Healthcare Network in Oneonta as a general practitioner.
In 2007, Wolf-Gould welcomed her first transgender patient, a trans man who was recommended to her due to her safe space sticker. His needs inspired her to research hormone replacement therapy. Word of her support for trans patients spread, and she soon found herself with upward of 300 patients.
“To understand where we are now, we have to understand the history. We have to understand how people are afraid of difference.”
Wolf-Gould saw the need for more specialized and comprehensive care for transgender people and endeavored to establish a health center with five prongs — medical, surgical, mental health, legal, and community-based research services. Together with a team of three other healthcare professionals, she received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to construct the Gender Wellness Center. Today, the center is a bastion for transgender healthcare — a safe haven where patients from not just New York, but also states as far away as Texas and Florida can receive the care they need.
Along with her work at the Gender Wellness Center, Wolf-Gould has spent the past six years crafting her recently published book, A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States: From Margins to Mainstream. “To understand where we are now, we have to understand the history,” Wolf-Gould said. “We have to understand how people are afraid of difference.”
Posted August 15, 2025
