Research Highlights the Dangers of Anti-Trans Legislation
The recent tidal wave of anti-trans state legislation, coupled with a harmful practice that’s still legal in much of the country, could have dire consequences for many of the nation’s 300,000 transgender adolescents.
Three new studies by researchers at Rutgers and other institutions add to the mounting evidence that banning gender-affirming care for minors and allowing parents to force their children into conversion therapy could lead to more suicide attempts.
The research also reveals that anti-trans legislation causes ambient harm by emboldening transphobic people and by causing many trans youth and young adults to become more anxious, depressed, and withdrawn.
“State lawmakers and governors have enormous power to lower the suicide risk for some of their most vulnerable constituents,” said Yana Rodgers, a professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations. “Unfortunately, many states are raising the risk by choosing ideology over evidence.”
Hormone Therapy
Gender-affirming hormone therapy uses estrogen or testosterone to align a person’s physical appearance with their gender identity. It’s been shown to reduce gender dysphoria and improve mental and physical health.
A new study by Rodgers and colleagues Travis Campbell (Southern Oregon University), Samuel Mann (Vanderbilt University), and Duc Hien Nguyen (University of Massachusetts Amherst) finds that it also lowers the risk of suicide in transgender youth.
Analyzing thousands of datapoints from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, the researchers discovered that gender-affirming hormone therapy is linked to a 14 percent reduction in the risk of trans youth attempting suicide. The effect is largest when therapy is started at ages 14 or 15.
Despite its benefits, hormone therapy is inaccessible to a growing number of transgender adolescents and teens. Twenty states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors, nearly all of them this year, and similar legislation is pending in at least eight other states.
The study appears in American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings.
Conversion Therapy
Conversion therapy is a pseudoscientific practice that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Leading medical and mental health organizations have warned that it’s harmful and ineffective.
Campbell and Rodgers analyzed data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey to examine how conversion therapy affects trans youth. Their study, published by the Journal of Health Economics, reveals that it increases the risk of attempting suicide by 55 percent and increases the risk of running away from home by 128 percent.
The effects are largest in people who began conversion therapy between ages 11 and 14. Strikingly, the danger progressively worsens in the five years after first exposure. This reflects intensifying gender dysphoria and the stress of living in a hostile environment.
“Parents who subject their children to conversion therapy are inflicting serious harm,” Rodgers said. “The detrimental effects appear immediately, and they accumulate over time.”
Twenty-one states, the District of Columbia, and more than 100 municipalities have banned conversion therapy for minors, and five states have enacted partial bans, but it remains legal everywhere else.
Ambient Harm
The bans on gender-affirming care and the continued legality of conversion therapy add to an already hostile climate for transgender people.
Lindsay Dhanani, an assistant professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations, and Rebecca Totton (Amherst College) surveyed 113 transgender youth and young adults nationwide. They asked what it’s like seeing anti-trans legislation on the news, and how it feels when family, friends, and others in their circle express their support for those new bills and laws.
Their study, published by Sexuality Research and Social Policy, reveals that many respondents are dealing with more negative thoughts and emotions, more discrimination, a reluctance to seek medical care, and heightened fears of disclosing their gender identity.
Importantly, they feel the sting of anti-trans legislation in other states, not just their own, including bills introduced but not yet enacted. This suggests that the mere existence of the bill, and the anti-trans rhetoric behind it, causes harm.
“The indirect harm of this legislation is insidious,” Dhanani said. “Seeing these stories on the news, seeing them pop up on social media, can have a chilling effect on someone who’s already struggling with gender dysphoria and other challenges. It’s an affront to their sense of self.”
Survey Results
In Dhanani and Totton’s survey, 39 percent of respondents said losing access to gender-affirming care would harm their mental health. One person said they “quite literally would be dead right now” without it, telling the researchers, “I attempted suicide many, many times before I got care. Not once since.”
Another respondent said, “I would kill myself without gender-affirming care. It's the only thing worth living for: the potential that someday I might be able to be myself.”
In addition, 31 percent of survey respondents said they feel anxious, depressed, and stressed-out after seeing news coverage of anti-trans legislation. One person told the researchers, “I just hate seeing how much people hate me for existing.”
Among the other findings: 22 percent of respondents have experienced more discrimination and harassment by family members, strangers, or both; 15 percent now hesitate to seek medical treatment for fear of discrimination by health care practitioners; 10 percent worry about losing their health coverage; and 4.5 percent are actively avoiding other people or concealing their identity.
“I hide underneath hoodies so people are less likely to know I am trans,” one person said.
Many respondents reported the anti-trans legislation does not affect them directly because they already face barriers to gender-affirming care, such as affordability and fear of telling their family. But the indirect harm still resonates.
