Gender Affirming Healthcare

Doctors Debate Whether Trans Teens Need Therapy Before Hormones

Clinicians are divided over new guidelines that say teens should undergo mental health screenings before receiving hormones or gender surgeries.

Gender-affirming care should be embraced, not met with vitriol and bomb threats

Those three words, “gender-affirming care,” indicate a thoughtful approach to individuals whose gender identity — feelings of self — doesn’t correspond to the sex assigned them at birth. I am appalled that delivering this kind of care has caused well-publicized incidents of bigotry and threats of violence...

More Trans Teens Are Choosing ‘Top Surgery

Small studies suggest that breast removal surgery improves transgender teenagers’ well-being, but data is sparse. Some state leaders oppose such procedures for minors.

New standards of transgender health care raise eyebrows

Controversial recommendations on everything from transition to castration.

Surgery for Transgender Youths Becomes a Political Issue

Readers discuss whether teens are too young to undergo gender-affirming surgeries.

The Battle Over Gender Therapy

More teenagers than ever are seeking transitions, but the medical community that treats them is deeply divided about why — and what to do to help them.

What Are Puberty Blockers?

Recent conservative legislation has targeted a class of drugs used to treat transgender adolescents. But what do these drugs actually do?

'It helps me be myself': trans kids on the healthcare Republicans want to deny them

Proponents of the healthcare bans argue that kids are too young to consent to treatments like hormone therapy and puberty blockers and that the bills aim to prevent “medical experimentation” on children. Some bills claim that trans kids “will outgrow” their identities.

A Medical Frontier

Doctors who provide gender-affirming care are split on how to evaluate teens.

A Rare Reversal on Gender Transition Policy

The ‘vast majority of children’ receiving care shouldn’t be treated with hormones or surgery, says the American Academy of Pediatrics

An English ruling on transgender teens could have global repercussions

Worries grow over treatments that can leave children sterile.

Doctors Who Provide Gender-Affirming Care Prepare For Growing Restrictions

More than a dozen states have drafted or voted on restrictions to critical healthcare for trans youth. But it's not just trans youth that are being targeted. The livelihoods of doctors and pediatricians who provide this care are at stake too.

Everything You Need to Know About Getting Top Surgery

In our increasingly anti-trans environment, it can be difficult to find affirming, inclusive information related to gender-affirming care. But if you know people who have had top surgery or have ever browsed an online group of people sharing photos of their first day wearing a favorite shirt with their new flat chest, you know that the possibility of gender euphoria is out there.

Experts Say Gender-Affirming Medical Care Can Be Lifesaving for Youth

Research shows that limiting gender-affirming medical care for young people can have a negative effect on their health.

For Transgender Youth, Stigma Is Just One Barrier to Health Care

Discrimination, delays and systemic hurdles prevent young trans people from reaching the care they need, a new study finds.

Gender Affirmation For Minors Is Child Abuse, Not Treatment

Interviewing therapists, academics, and transgender people in pursuit of the elusive answer to the question, “What is a woman?” Walsh uncovers a number of professionals whose objections to the trans party line have resulted in being cut out of the discussion altogether.

Gender-Affirming Care Doesn’t Just Help Trans Youth Survive. It Allows Them to Flourish

Transgender people suffer from disproportionately poor lifelong health outcomes and lower life expectancy. This problem is commonly attributed to the gender dysphoria that many transgender young people feel about their bodies. But the truth is that gender dysphoria is treatable when transgender young people are able to access gender-affirming health care and live authentically as themselves.

Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy for LGBTQ Youth Can Help Save Lives, Study Finds

The use of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is significantly related to lower rates of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health...

Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy for LGBTQ Youth Can Help Save Lives, Study Finds

The peer-reviewed study comes from researchers at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth, and is the first large-scale study to examine GAHT’s impact on trans and nonbinary young people.

Gender-affirming hormones can improve teens’ mental health and life satisfaction

The research is one of the longest studies to study the psychological effects of gender-affirming care.

Hm, No One Had a Problem With Puberty Blockers When Only Cis Kids Took Them

Lawmakers hell-bent on taking puberty blockers away from trans kids are ignoring all the research that says they're safe for everyone.

How Medical Care for Transgender Youth Became ‘Child Abuse’ in Texas

A custody battle in the Dallas suburbs amplified a growing conservative cause and helped fuel a move to treat transgender medicine as abuse.

Mental health benefits of gender-affirming hormones for teens persist for two years in new study

Trans and nonbinary teenagers who receive gender-affirming hormones experience less depression and anxiety and more satisfaction with life than before the treatment, according to a new study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Most teens who start puberty suppression continue gender-affirming care, study finds

Researchers found that a whopping 98% of people who had started gender-affirming medical treatment in adolescence continued to use gender-affirming hormones at follow-up. The finding is significant because of ongoing political debates over whether young people should receive gender-affirming treatment, with some opponents arguing that many transgender children and teens will realize later in life that they aren't really trans.

New York Times Admits That Hundreds of ‘Top Surgeries’ Are Being Performed on Children

The legacy media has changed its mind. We are now informed that life-changing transgender surgeries on minors are real, and that they’re spectacular.

Parents say gender-affirming health care is ‘life-affirming care’ for their trans children

WPATH is an international organization of health professionals whose mission is to “promote evidence-based care, education, research, public policy, and respect in transgender health.” They are joined by other major medical organizations in concluding that age-appropriate gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Endocrine Society.

The Myth That Fuels the Panic Over Surgery for Trans Teenagers

For many, getting top surgery is a long and onerous process.

The Travesty of Transgender Surgery for Kids

We should allow children to become who they are destined to become, not what adults believe they should become.

We Need to Change the Terms of the Debate on Trans Kids

Sadjadi, who was a physician before she became an anthropologist, has written that puberty blockers are not as medically inconsequential as they are often portrayed. Although they appear to have no long-term physical effects if they are used for a short time (a year or less), some studies suggest that they can have long-term detrimental effects for the musculoskeletal system if they are used for three or four years.

What does gender-affirming care for transgender children involve? Let’s clear up some misinformation

This care runs the gamut from treatment that is socially affirming and support-based to medical care that follows the guidelines laid out by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

What the Science on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Kids Really Shows

Laws that ban gender-affirming treatment ignore the wealth of research demonstrating its benefits for trans people’s health.

What to Know About Gender-Affirming Care for Children and Adolescents

“People may assume that gender care means that you’re going to do surgery, or you’re going to put them on hormones. While that might be part of it, that’s really not the focus,” says Dr. Chang. “It’s a lot of continual checking in and seeing where the child is on their journey. It’s about love and support and affirmation.”

What We Owe Children Contemplating a Gender Transition

Hormones and surgery, affirmation as ‘trans kids’ or therapy? Experts and readers debate.

What’s so scary about a transgender child?

Stop worrying about what happens if we let kids transition. Worry about what happens if we don’t.

When Children Say They're Transgender

Hormones? Surgery? The choices are fraught—and there are no easy answers.

Youth and gender-affirming care: let’s start with ‘do no harm’

No decent person wants to hurt children. Yet as pediatricians and longtime public health practitioners, we’ve both seen how children can be harmed by adults’ poor decisions. Efforts to block gender-affirming care for trans children have been more about politics than about health, and kids are paying the price: More than 90% of LGBTQ+ youths say recent politics has harmed their mental health.

The Trevor Project

Gender-affirming care has been shown to reduce suicide ideation and attempts in transgender individuals, along with social support, familial support, and reduction of discrimination.