#transgender health

[uirukii]

Some good news to add onto the scores of judges blocking the ban and families and teens suing for illegal discrimination.

You can’t say you’re protecting kids when 1) the healthcare is backed with decades of proven research it’s safe and effective and 2) you know this because you will allow cis children to access this medical care, just not the children you dislike.

[she-is-ovarit]

Trans research and scientific consensus

(2020) - Study of 139,829 students finds that in comparison to other students, transgender identity, especially non-binary identity, is associated more with perpetrating bullying than being bullied. Non-binary identity was most strongly associated with involvement in bullying, followed by [transgender] opposite sex identity and cisgender identity. 

(2023) 21 leading experts on pediatric gender medicine from 8 countries wrote a letter to Wall Street Journal expressing disagreement over how gender dysphoria in youth is treated, voicing concerns against things such as the affirmative model and research conducted outside of the US has found hormonal interventions for gender dysphoria to be without reliable evidence. Among these international experts is Dr. Rita Kaltiala, chief psychiatrist at Tampere university gender clinic and author of several peer-reviewed studies on trans medicine and Finland's top authority on pediatric gender care.

(2023) Landmark study from Denmark on 3,800 transgender patients pulled data from hospital records and applications from legal gender changes and discovered 43% of this group had a psychiatric illness compared with 7% of non-trans group, and despite "gender affirming care" and legal gender changes, still had 7.7 the rate of suicide attempts and 3.5 times the rate of suicide deaths. Researchers state this rate is likely even higher due to missing data.

(2016) Study finds association with increased risk of multiple sclerosis for trans women taking estrogen/reducing testosterone levels.

(2023) Metadata study shows, at best, no improvement for patients in gender-affirming care. "The conclusions of the systematic reviews of evidence for adolescents are consistent with long-term adult studies, which failed to show credible improvements in mental health and suggested a pattern of treatment-associated harms. Three recent papers examined the studies that underpin the practice of youth gender transition and found the research to be deeply flawed. Evidence does not support the notion that “affirmative care” of today’s adolescents is net beneficial."

(2011) Long term follow up of 324 transgender people having undergone sex reassignment surgery in Sweden, found that trans women retained male patterned incidents and rates of violence and had a greater significance and rate of rape and sexual violence than cisgender men. The study also found, "Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

(2020) Largest study to date on 641,860 people finds association with autism and "gender diversity", "Gender-diverse people also report, on average, more traits associated with autism, such as sensory difficulties, pattern-recognition skills and lower rates of empathy — or accurately understanding and responding to another person’s emotional state".

(2022) US study examining 10 years of data on 952 people finds large percentages of young adults prescribed hormones for trans identity no longer getting the drugs 4 years later. Discontinuation rate for both sexes combined = 30%. Female discontinuation rate as high as 44%. The standard disinformation pushed is that only 1-2% of people who begin medical transition end up desisting. But these figures show that in this cohort of young adults, the overall rate of discontinuing hormone treatment ranged from a low of 10% to a high of 44% within a space of just 4 years.

Abruzzese et al. 2023 'The Myth of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed'

More to come.

[sueeeeesworld]

Hello,

My name is Xue Yan. I am a Ph.D. student in Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My academic advisor, Dr. Liza Berdychevsky, and I conduct a study titled “Sex Views and Sexual Self-concept”.

If you are currently 18 years old or older and willing to share your opinions about sexual-related topics, please allow me to invite you to participate in this study.

If you agree to participate, you will take part in a survey, taking approximately 20 minutes. All information collected from this survey is anonymous and will be treated as strictly confidential. Your name will not appear on this survey and the information you provided will be grouped with other participants’ information to protect your identity. Please click on the link below or scan the QR code to participate:

Your participation would be much appreciated and extremely important, as it would provide valuable insights to contribute to people’s sexual justice and effective sexual health education.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration!

Xue Yan

Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism Management

College of Applied Health Sciences University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

xueyan3@illinois.edu

[t4t-pathogen]

⚠️TRANS PEOPLE WITH CALIFORNIAN HEALTHCARE: YOUR SURGERIES ARE FREE⚠️

This official page from the California Department of Insurance states "health insurance policies are prohibited from arbitrarily excluding coverage for gender affirmation services including (but not limited to) hormone therapy, mental health services and surgical services."

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

[texasobserver]

This piece by Texas Observer Digital Editor Kit O'Connell was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in the category of Outstanding Online Journalism Article.

With this investigation, Kit pushed back against harmful and inaccurate coverage of trans healthcare for kids, published by The New York Times. The original Times article was used in court by the state of Texas in their attempt to redefine gender-affirming healthcare as "child abuse," and this was our attempt to correct the record.

We're honored to be nominated for the 34th #GLAADMediaAwards, alongside so many other important creative works.

From the article:

“The reality is that gender-affirming medical care for trans youth is not controversial within mainstream medicine,” said Jack Turban, a medical doctor and incoming assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. “There is broad consensus from all major medical organizations that legislation outlawing it is dangerous.”

[crossdreamers]

New study shows that the “regret rate” for gender-affirming surgery is less than 1%.

Three researchers from Johns Hopkins University presents new research in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They conclude that the “regret rate” for gender-affirming surgery is less than one percent:

"This rate of surgical regret among TGD [transgender and gender-diverse ] patients appears to be substantially lower than rates of surgical regret following similar procedures among the broader population, including cisgender individuals. In fact, one systematic review found that the average prevalence of surgical regret was 14.4% among all research studies analyzed, which the authors suggested was relatively low."

In other words: The regret rate for surgery in general (all types) is around 14 percent, which is considered low. That makes the regret rate for trans people having surgery extremely low.

Harry Barbee, Bashar Hassan, and Fan Liang: Postoperative Regret Among Transgender and Gender-Diverse Recipients of Gender-Affirming Surgery

See also News Medical: Johns Hopkins researchers find minimal regret after gender affirming surgery

Photo: Shapecharge

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Alberta’s proposed transgender youth policies have the potential to increase anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts in the 2SLGBTQ+ community, according to a group representing the province’s psychiatrists. Citing a handful of American studies, the Alberta Psychiatric Association (APA) says the proposed policies “have the potential to lead to significant negative mental health outcomes amongst an identifiable, already marginalized population.” The APA says similar legislation passed in the U.S. “increased levels of anxiety, depression and suicide” among 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, as well as the number of hospital visits.

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada @abpoli

[robynochs]

Long COVID Is More Common in Bisexual and Trans People. The Reasons Why Are Complicated

"There is nothing inherent about being queer or trans that predisposes people to chronic illness, including long COVID. Yet the interlocking network of structural healthcare disparities that queer and trans people face — such as lower access to doctors or stigma regarding their gender or sexuality — could partly explain the higher rates, alongside other LGBTQ+ health disparities faced by the community."

[frameacloud]

Harriet Williamson (April 29, 2023). "Trans-inclusive cervical cancer campaign defies anti-LGBTQ+ hate: ‘We deserve to be screened.’" PinkNews. https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/04/29/cervical-cancer-screening-smear-test-lgbtq-inclusive-remove-the-doubt/

Update: This news article is about a campaign for cervical cancer screening, called Remove The Doubt. The UK charity running the campaign was called Live Through This. Later, the charity changed its name to OUTpatients, so the campaign moved to their new site. Since then, you can visit the Remove The Doubt site here, which explains to anyone who has a cervix what they need to know about cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccines.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

The Supreme Court handed down a strange set of opinions on Monday evening, which accompanied a decision that largely reinstates Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The ban was previously blocked by a lower court. None of the opinions in Labrador v. Poe spend much time discussing whether such a ban is constitutional — although Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion does contain some language suggesting that he and Justice Amy Coney Barrett will ultimately vote to uphold the ban.

Rather, seven of the nine justices split into three different camps, each of which proposes a different way that the Court should handle cases arising on its “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other matters that the Court decides on an expedited basis — often without full briefing or oral argument. The Labrador case arose on the Court’s shadow docket. Indeed, Idaho’s lawyers did not even attempt to defend its restrictions on gender-affirming care on the merits. Instead, they argued that the lower court went too far by prohibiting the state from enforcing its ban against any patient or any doctor. A majority of the justices agreed with the state, ruling that the ban cannot be enforced against the actual plaintiffs in this case, two trans children and their parents, but that it can be enforced against anyone who has not yet sought a court order allowing them to receive gender-affirming care.

How the justices divided in this case

While none of the justices discussed at much length whether they think the Constitution permits Idaho to ban transgender health care, every justice but Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan joined one of three opinions laying out how they think the Court should respond to parties asking them to provide relief on the Court’s shadow docket. Ordinarily, the Supreme Court waits until a case has been fully litigated in the lower courts before weighing in on a case in any way. Under its normal process, the Court also typically receives hundreds of pages’ worth of briefing on a case, hears oral argument, and spends months deliberating on how to decide it. Cases on the shadow docket, by contrast, ask the justices to bypass this ordinary process, typically to block a lower court order before the case has been fully resolved by a lower appellate court. The justices used to grant shadow docket relief very rarely — most often in death penalty cases where the inmate would be executed if the Court did not intervene swiftly — but it started granting it very often in the Trump administration after Trump’s Justice Department started routinely requesting shadow docket relief.

The justices divided into three camps in the Labrador case, with each camp joining concurring or dissenting opinions laying out how they think shadow docket cases should be resolved moving forward. Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, faulted the lower court for issuing a “universal injunction” that prohibits Idaho from applying its anti-trans law to any party. Gorsuch argued that courts should issue more limited orders when a state or federal law is successfully challenged, which only prevent the state or the federal government from enforcing its law against the specific plaintiffs who brought the successful challenge. Kavanaugh, joined by Barrett, argued that, in shadow docket cases, the Court often “has little choice but to decide the emergency application by assessing likelihood of success on the merits.” That means the Court’s decision to grant shadow docket relief will often turn on whether they think the party seeking such relief should ultimately prevail when the courts reach a final decision in the case.

That’s potentially very bad news for transgender children. Though Kavanaugh's opinion does not discuss whether he thinks Idaho’s law is constitutional, the fact that he voted to reinstate the law (except with respect to the two plaintiff families in this case) suggests that he thinks Idaho has a “likelihood of success on the merits” when the ultimate question of whether trans health care bans are legal reaches the Supreme Court. Finally, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that the Court should show more “restraint” when it is asked to grant shadow docket relief. She argues that “our respect for lower court judges — no less committed to fulfilling their constitutional duties than we are and much more familiar with the particulars of the case — normally requires an applicant seeking an emergency stay from this Court after two prior denials to carry ‘an especially heavy burden.’” Although neither Roberts nor Kagan joined any of these opinions, Kagan briefly indicated that she would have denied the request to reinstate Idaho’s law in its entirety.

SCOTUS handed down a shadow docket decision permitting Idaho's law banning gender-affirming care (HB71) to take effect while Labrador v. Poe is still being litigated in lower-level courts. #SCOTUS

[sueeeeesworld]

My name is Xue Yan. I am a Ph.D. Student in Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My academic advisor, Dr. Liza Berdychevsky, and I conduct a study titled, “Sexual Justice is Social Justice: Transgender People’s Views on Sex and Sexual Health Education”.

If you are currently 18 years old or older and self-identify as a transgender person, please allow me to invite you to participate in this study.

If you agree to participate, you will take part in an individual interview (taking approximately one hour) via Zoom and during the time convenient for you.

Your permission would be asked to audio record the interview. Recording the interviews is important so we can get a better understanding of your experiences. However, no names or any other identifying information would ever be shared in any research report and only the research team will have access to the recordings and transcripts. In other words, I would like to emphasize that your responses will be held confidential.

Your participation would be much appreciated and extremely important, as it would provide valuable insights to contribute to sexual justice and effective sexual health education tailored to the needs of transgender people.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration! If you are interested in this project, feel free to email contact me via email xueyan3@illinois.edu.

[halfd3af]

For any trans Ohioans that may have to consider leaving the state to continue obtaining transgender healthcare due to upcoming potential laws restricting it…

Virginia does NOT have any transphobic bills targeting healthcare. The only transphobic “law” we have that I am aware of is the 2022-2023 “Model Policy” that must be created every year and affects K-12 public school students (due to Virginia code 22.1-22.3 Treatment of transgender students; policies). While it's obviously not good (here is a paper showcasing the differences between our last governor's policy, which was amazing, and our current governor's), it's not set in stone as it can be remade with future, different governors and many school districts are NOT following it. Our state Senate is now controlled for the next 4 years by Democrats, and the state House for the next 2, and this is important because in 2023, the state Senate's Democrats are a huge reason that 12 transphobic bills died in committee once they passed the state House floor. We even have Danica Roem joining the Senate this year, who became the first openly transgender representative of a state legislature in 2018 and is now our first openly trans state senator. I don't know where things will go heading forward, but as of the next few years...

[theamphibianmen]

Hey quick question why can't a dysphoric trans girl donate her dick to me? This is not a bit I'm genuinely furious about this

[crossdreamers]

Top surgery is being included in a leading breast surgery textbook for the first time ever – and for Ioannis Ntanos, one of the UK’s leading gender affirmation surgeons, this moment plugs a “massive hole” in education for healthcare professionals to properly care for the trans population. 

The presentation is included in Breast Surgery, part of the Companion to Specialist Surgical Practice series.

Pink News has more.

[thatheathen]

"Gender identity is real."

ErinInTheMorn | Erin Reed Substack | SB254 Bill

[robynochs]

"Less than 2% of U.S. adults are trans or nonbinary, yet nearly 24% of all transgender adults report that they have experienced Long Covid. Bisexual adults report Long Covid cases at the same percentage rate (24%)."

‘Brilliant at survival’ — Long Covid afflicts trans and bi patients at highest rates:

https://clearhealthcosts.com/blog/2024/02/long-covid-challenges-trans-bisexual-lgbtq-patients/