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Transgender people who start their hormones as teenagers have “far better” mental health than if they wait until adulthood, new research says.
Experts have found that transgender people who begin hormone treatment in adolescence had fewer suicidal thoughts, were less likely to experience major mental health disorders and had fewer problems with substance abuse than those who started hormones later in life.
The study, which was led by the Stanford University School of Medicine, gathered data from the largest-ever survey of US transgender adults where 27,715 people responded in 2015.
Researchers found that, as well as fewer mental health concerns when taking the drugs as teenagers, those who took the drugs at any age had better mental health than those who wanted them but had never received them.
Of the people surveyed, 21,598 reported they had received the hormones they wanted. Of these people, 119 began hormones at age 14 or 15; 362 at age 16 and 17 and 12,157 following their 18th birthday.
Some 8,860 people surveyed said they wanted but never received hormone therapy and acted as the control group for the study.
Odds of severe psychological distress were reduced by 222 per cent, 153 per cent and 81 per cent for those who began hormones in early adolescence, late adolescence and adulthood, respectively.
Odds of feeling suicidal in the previous year were 135 per cent lower in those who began hormones in early adolescence, 62 per cent lower in those who began in late adolescence and 21 per cent lower in those who began as adults, compared with the control group.
Dr Jack Turban, lead author on the study and expert in paediatric and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford Medicine, said: “This study is particularly relevant now because many state legislatures are introducing bills that would outlaw this kind of care for transgender youth.
“We are adding to the evidence base that shows why gender-affirming care is beneficial from a mental health perspective.”
In the UK, hormone drugs can only be given to people from the age of 16 who have been on puberty blockers for at least 12 months.
Last September, the UK Court of Appeal overturned a judgment that children under the age of 16 considering gender reassignment were unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent to be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs.
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/transgender-hormones-teenager-mental-health-b1991724.html
And no one said not to listen to them
I find the way suicide is used in this discussion really worrying, and really damaging to young people and as far as I can see not within the advice provided by organisations such as the Samaritans.
I’m out now. These discussions can turn toxic on a sixpence....
What gave you the clue that things might turn toxic, Urmstongran? We were all chatting nicely when I went for my shower.
Past history Doodledog these threads always do! Yes, I agree it’s fine right now. I’ll peep tomorrow and see how it’s going.
You’re right, of course. It’s a shame though, and a shame that people are put off joining in, as I can’t help thinking that if there were a bigger pool of posters there would be more chance of a decent discussion.
It seems a given that teenagers/children who have positive strong attachments to and bonds with their parents will have less chance of developing m.h problems. Children with significant identity or gender issues more so than others.
This research states children do better if they start medication earlier. There will be multiple reasons why some present for help later in life.
Also I have just checked and the latest research (2020) from Sweden raised concerns of lack of evidence of benefits of medical treatments and consequently they have stopped hormone treatments for minors unless under very specific circumstances.
2015 is actually a long time ago in terms of for example the unexplained increase with regard to female to male transition, the later research from the UK and Sweden is saying the risk/benefit ratio is unclear. I want the best care for children with gender dysphoria, I think its unclear as to what that may be. I am not interested in being right I am interested in the best care.
Interestingly last May Sweden did what is a U-turn and stopped prescribing puberty blocking and cross-sex hormones for minors under 18. Professor Gillberg and others from the University of Gothenburg said “gender reassignment of children is a big experiment.” You might like to look at genderreport.ca the-Swedish-u-turn-on-gender-transitioning. It gives a full and detailed background and is food for thought. Transitioning is not a simple process. I clicked the link to segm.org of May 5 2021 - it can cause medical harm with uncertain benefits.
Science needs to do a lot more research.
Galaxy
And no one said not to listen to them
I find the way suicide is used in this discussion really worrying, and really damaging to young people and as far as I can see not within the advice provided by organisations such as the Samaritans.
Suicide ideation is very prevalent among trans teens. Understandably so. Our society is so determined to make gender a totally binary, uncrossable divide, that to feel other than the one assigned to you at birth is a huge, seemingly insurmountable barrier. As many as 1 in 4 trans individuals have attempted suicide and between 80 & 90% of trans individuals admit to have thought about suicide.
Anyone working with young people has a duty of care. And that means being sensitive to any suggestion of trauma/mental health issues. If only qualified individuals are suitable for support, that 5+ year wait may well be too late for many of them.
The answer, of course, is to make more qualified support available. But we are currently going in the opposite direction to that.
Yes which is why we should be very careful when we talk about suicide in relation to a particular group particularly as my understanding is there are concerns about the study which the statistics are based on.
If the qualified individuals are actually saying hold on there are serious concerns with regard to what we are doing here then it might be useful to listen to them.
As many as 1 in 4 trans individuals have attempted suicide and between 80 & 90% of trans individuals admit to have thought about suicide.
On what figures are these statistics based? Without a register of 'trans individuals' (which I am not advocating), how is it possible to know when a figure of 80% has been reached? 80% of how many? Ditto the claim of '1 in 4'.
Galaxy
If the qualified individuals are actually saying hold on there are serious concerns with regard to what we are doing here then it might be useful to listen to them.
Yes, Galaxy. The populist 'who needs experts' way of thinking is worrying on so many levels.
As I said, we need more experts.
It is easy to dismiss the support of the trans movement as populist. Would you call feminism, gay lib (old fashioned term, sorry!), BLM populist? The fact is that there are openly/covertly young trans people out there and even after they've come out, it takes 5 years for them to get to see someone.
They need sympathy. They do not need to be shut down until they can access the professionals.
I'm more interested in the flesh and blood in front of me, than the paperwork.
gagajo if you are involved in the education and pastoral care of young people surely you have a duty of care to inform yourself of the ‘paperwork’ (I assume you mean research papers) that might be relevant to their issues?
They ‘consented’ to the treatment before the legal age of consent, which puts the responsibility onto the adults making the decisions for them
doodledog I agree, the issue is whether a young person can give valid & informed consent to treatment. This applies to any medical procedure.
Er nobody is saying shut the down are they? I certainly am not.
janeainsworth
^I'm more interested in the flesh and blood in front of me, than the paperwork.^
gagajo if you are involved in the education and pastoral care of young people surely you have a duty of care to inform yourself of the ‘paperwork’ (I assume you mean research papers) that might be relevant to their issues?
They ‘consented’ to the treatment before the legal age of consent, which puts the responsibility onto the adults making the decisions for them
doodledog I agree, the issue is whether a young person can give valid & informed consent to treatment. This applies to any medical procedure.
No, I was referring to the academic marking that Doodledog mentioned earlier in the threat.
All teachers have to undertake Safeguarding training annually JA. There is also a clear set procedure for reporting any concerns about children/young people in schools or any educational setting.
The information coming out of the Tavistock, seen as the Uk centre Of excellence suggests early drug treatment is unhelpful and may cause harm
I want the best support and treatment for children and families.
I think at the moment, accessing any kind of expert support is next to impossible Iam64. 5 year wait currently.
It is easy to dismiss the support of the trans movement as populist.
I didn't. Do you even read people's posts before going on the attack?
I agreed with Galaxy that if experts are advising that treatment should not start at a young age, we should take notice, and commented that a refusal to listen to experts is a populist stance.
That is not the same thing at all as 'dismissing the trans movement as populist', and it's very hard to believe that you thought it was. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that yet again you are misrepresenting my words to make me sound unreasonable.
No, I was referring to the academic marking that Doodledog mentioned earlier in the threat.
While we are on the subject of your misrepresentation of my posts, I was referring to the fact that marking dissertations alerts me to inaccuracies, fallacies and yes, downright misrepresentation in posts. What else could I have meant? That I was so happy correcting papers that it somehow meant that I didn't care about transpeople?? Again, it looks suspiciously as though you are deliberately misunderstanding what I am saying, or attempting to spin it as evidence that I am transphobic, as you were doing above, and also when you suggested that I was more interested in 'paperwork' than in pastoral care of students.
Which leads me to a post earlier that you may have missed, where I queried your assertion that 1 in 4 transpeople attempted suicide, and >80% have thought about it. I am interested to know how these figures were arrived at, when there is no baseline for measurement of the numbers of transpeople. If you mean 80% of the people in the study, we would need to know how the sampling was done - ie who was chosen to take part and why? Without knowing that, how do we know if the respondents weren't predisposed to suicidal thoughts for reasons unconnected to their trans status?
Read the WPATH information about what they recommend as suitable ages and treatment. I won’t put the link because I’m quite sure the same people who got it removed last time would do so again.
Next, I’d like to know the answer to Doodledog’s question in her 10:05 post today. I can’t find these figures online.
The one or two people I have known who have transitioned later, in their 30s or 40s do seem to have more problems. My friend's brother seemed to have transitioned quite successfully but after a couple of years decided that whatever his problem was, it wasn't being in the wrong body and went back to live as a man. He may not have been helped by a distinct lack of sympathy from his family.
There’s no information in that Independent article as to whether the Stanford study is an on-going one. A lot can happen to people in six/seven years.
It would be good to know how the present day mental and physical health of the respondents is, how many of them have fully transitioned, how many have de-transitioned.
This applies to both those who were given hormone therapy and those who were not given it.
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