Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal

Henriette A. Delemarre-van de Waal is a Dutch pediatric endocrinologist.^[1] As one of the principal architects of the Dutch Protocol, her work has had a major influence on the global understanding and treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents.

The idea of using puberty blockers originated in the Netherlands and was developed by Delemarre, Professor of Pediatrics Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, child psychiatrist Annelou de Vries,^[2] and health psychologist Thomas D. Steensma. The first patient received these drugs in 1987.^[3] Cohen-Kettenis collaborated with endocrinologists in Amsterdam, one of whom had experience prescribing gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs, which were relatively new at the time. At the time, gender dysphoric teenagers had to wait until they were of age for cross-sex hormones, but the team proposed that earlier interventions might benefit carefully selected minors.