Few teens regret gender-affirming medical care, survey finds

Most teens who began seeking gender-affirming medical care did not regret it, according to survey responses from Trans Youth Project participants.

Of 220 young people, only nine (4%) reported regretting receiving puberty blockers and/or gender-affirming hormones, reported Kristina R. Olson, PhD, of Princeton University in New York. Jersey, and his colleagues. Of these nine people, four continued to receive gender-affirming medical care, four stopped care, and one continues to receive care but is considering stopping.

“In other words, regret was not always associated with cessation of care, even though these changes might occur later,” Olson’s group pointed out in JAMA Pediatrics.

In general, most youth who received gender-affirming medical care or their parents reported being “extremely satisfied” with their care, with a median satisfaction score of 7 (on a scale of 1 to 7).

“I was not surprised by the general direction of the results because, by the time we analyzed the data, I had met so many young people who had received and were satisfied with gender-affirming medical care,” Olson said. Page Med today“But I was surprised by how many people felt so satisfied. It became clear to me that this was not a rare or exceptional circumstance, but that the overwhelming majority of young people receiving this care were. satisfied.”

“I hope that doctors, especially those who do not provide gender-affirming medical care, will have a better understanding of this care,” she said. “There is a lot of misinformation circulating on this topic, which is part of the reason we need studies that systematically track young people receiving gender-affirming medical care over time.”

“Yes, there are rare cases where young people have regretted the care — and we want to understand and support these young people — but we find that a very high number of young people are satisfied with their care,” she said. added.

To date, most previous studies have focused on whether transgender people who begin gender-affirming medical care continue to identify as transgender several years later. Olsen emphasized that this study “rather provides a more direct indication” that young people are very satisfied with this care and that very few regret starting this care or wish they had not started this care.

Gender-affirming care for young people has been at the center of the national debate for several years. Currently, 25 states have restrictions on gender-affirming care for young people, despite the fact that several leading medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and the American Medical Association, are advocating for protect this practice.

Olson pointed to another recent study that found similar levels of satisfaction among young people receiving gender-affirming care. “This is important because it indicates that our results are reproducible,” she said. “We should have more confidence in results that replicate across multiple samples and use different approaches. This study, for example, is from a clinic, whereas our sample is a community sample.”

For the survey study, a sample of 220 youth was drawn from the ongoing Trans Youth Project – a longitudinal study of transgender youth and their parents initially recruited in the United States and Canada between 2013 and 2017. Age average was 16 years old and 70% were white. Participants were on average 11 years old when they started puberty blocking and 13 years old when they started using gender-affirming hormones.

At the last interaction, 31% were boys, 60% were girls, and 9% were gender diverse or non-binary.

Most said now was the time to start gender-affirming care or that they wished it had started sooner (94% of youth on blockers and 94% of their parents; 96% of youth on hormones and 100% of their parents). Up to 6% of respondents for each intervention said they wished they had access to this aspect of gender-affirming medical care later or never.

Most of the young people represented in the study were white and from affluent backgrounds, which limits the generalizability of the results. The researchers also noted that their research question did not distinguish between different types of regret, such as regret for receiving the treatment, regret for the process or outcome, or regret for the social implications.

“Based on participants’ responses to other questions, including their open-ended responses, we observed some people who expressed regret about starting treatment and others who expressed regret about an aspect of the care process , as an adverse effect or developmental delay compared to their peers,” they wrote.

They suggested that future research on the topic delve deeper into different aspects of regret.