Paul Garcia-Ryan is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and President and CEO of Therapy First. He lectures nationally and internationally on developmental approaches to clinical work with gender distressed youth, and trains and supervises clinicians in this specialized area of clinical care. Paul serves as Guest Associate Editor for the Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry section of the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, and his work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Paul holds a Master of Social Work from Hunter College's Silberman School of Social Work. He completed advanced graduate training in LGBT behavioral health at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and received clinical social work training at the AIDS Service Center of Lower Manhattan. He also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and worked extensively in the visual arts before entering the mental health field.