Continuation of Gender-affirming Hormones Among Transgender Adolescents and Adults

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[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This study analyzed 2009 to 2018 medical and pharmacy records from the US Military Healthcare System over a 10 year period from 2009 to 2018 to see how many people who were prescribed "gender affirming hormone regimens" (GAHR) and remained in the military health system were still getting GAHR prescriptions filled 4 years after their prescriptions were filled for the first time.

We identified TGD patients who were children and spouses of active-duty, retired, or deceased military members using International Classification of Diseases-9/10 codes. We assessed initiation and continuation of gender-affirming hormones using pharmacy records.

The study sample included 627 transmasculine [female] and 325 transfeminine [male] individuals with an average age of 19.2 ± 5.3 years.

The 4-year gender-affirming hormone continuation rate was 70.2% (95% CI, 63.9-76.5).

Transfeminine individuals [males] had a higher continuation rate than transmasculine individuals [females] 81.0% (72.0%-90.0%) vs 64.4% (56.0%-72.8%).

So 10-28% of males and 27-44% of females who started taking prescription "gender affirming hormone regimens" (GAHR) between 2008 and 2018 were no longer getting prescriptions for GA hormones filled 4 years later. Presumably because they stopped taking them.

This would seem to indicate much, much higher rates of desistance and detransition than TRAs and gender vendors admit.

People who started hormones as minors had higher continuation rate than people who started as adults 74.4% (66.0%-82.8%) vs 64.4% (56.0%-72.8%).

So people roped into the trans cult as minors and started on hormones under age 18 were more likely to continue with hormones.

Still, it seems newsworthy that fewer than 3/4s of those who started GAHR as minors were getting prescriptions for them filled 4 years after the hormones were first prescribed. That means more than 25% had decided to stop.

And the reason for stopping doesn't seem to have been due to lack of money or changed living conditions and relationship status.

Continuation was not associated with household income or family member type.

[–]FlippyKing 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting. I only have more questions and got very few "answers" from reading this. How different is this military-adjacent population from the civilian population, is one. Military might be a more homogeneous group socio-economical than the population at large, but how does that compare to the population that is trans in general society? Should they account for and compare the officer-adjacent population with enlisted-adjacent population?

I'm not asking for answers, MarkTwainiac, so do not feel a need to address any of those. I mean, trans is not valid. If people desist, good and I hope the damage done was minimal, and I hope they heal from that damage and the damage that led them there. If people do not desist, it doesn't mean trans is valid anymore than people who can't quit heroin really have had a need that was met by heroin.

[–]snub-nosedmonkey 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If we're to assume that discontinuation of gender-affirming hormones means those individuals no longer felt they were transgender or experienced gender dysphoria, then around 30% is a remarkable proportion of people who desisted. I can't get full access to the article yet so I'd need to read in more detail to see how accurate that assumption is likely to be.

For context, remember this study involved people who had already started hormone treatment. A 2016 review paper which summarised all the studies at time on rates of persistence of gender dysphoria among childrenwho have not already transitioned socially or medically showed that in each study, the majority of children 'desist' i.e. grow out of gender dysphoria through adolescence.

Gender dysphoria in childhood https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26754056/

In contrast, studies show that children who take puberty blockers almost always go onto take cross-sex hormones. It could be that these children just represent cases of 'strong' gender dysphoria. It could also be that taking cross-sex hormones and gender affirming care start children on the path to hormone treatment, when they most of them would have naturally resolved their gender issues over time.