Gaines Blasdel is a transgender man and a clinical medical student at the University of Michigan. His previous work experience was in LGBT community health, and he has held peer-leadership roles in gender affirming surgery patient community. Gaines centers this lived experience and work history in academic inquiry, and has published in surgical outcomes, ethics, medical education, and community-based participatory research practices. He intends to train as a Urologist and to provide care and conduct research as a surgeon-scientist in academic medicine. Gaines is committed to health justice for all: Transgender health cannot be separated from movements for disability, racial, economic, and women's justice. In the summer, you can find him spending as much time as possible at New York's historically LGBT beaches, Riis and Fire Island, and enjoying art and social theory about trans, LGB, and HIV issues.