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The study comes at a time when opponents of this care have often exaggerated how common it is.
While opponents of gender-affirming care for trans youth often act as if such care is common and undertaken thoughtlessly, it’s actually quite rare, according to a new study.
The study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, found that “fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents with commercial insurance received gender-affirming medications — puberty blockers or hormones — during a recent five-year period,” the Associated Press reports.
Other studies have looked at gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors and concluded it is rare, but the use of medications for gender confirmation is not well-documented, the study’s authors note.
“Because age and experience of puberty onset varies by sex assigned at birth and dictates the course of care, it is important to analyze these rates by age and sex assigned at birth,” says an abstract of the study (the full research paper is behind a paywall). “This study filled this gap by using private insurance data across all 50 states.”
“We are not seeing inappropriate use of this sort of care,” lead author Landon Hughes, a researcher at Harvard University,” told the AP. “And it’s certainly not happening at the rate at which people often think it is.”
The authors examined insurance data for more 5 million patients aged 8 to 17, covering the years 2018 to 2022, so it as before many of the state bans were enacted. Only 926 of these patients received puberty blockers and 1,927 received hormones, coming out to 0.1 percent. Puberty blockers were not administered to anyone under age 12.
“I hope that our paper cools heads on this issue and ensures that the public is getting a true sense of the number of people who are accessing this care,” Hughes said.
The new study “adds to the growing evidence base about best practices when serving transgender and gender-diverse youth,” Dr. Scott Leibowitz, who has helped develop the adolescent standards of care for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, told the AP.
Twenty-six states have passed laws banning some or all gender-affirming procedures for trans youth. The U.S. Supreme Court heard a case in December seeking to overturn Tennessee’s ban, and a decision is expected in the spring or summer. Donald Trump has vowed to ban such care nationwide through an executive order when he becomes president again, something that would undoubtedly lead to more court cases, and during his campaign he falsely claimed that young people are receiving gender-affirming medical care at school. He has promised to enact other anti-trans policies as well.
