Jan 7, 2025 - Health

Gender-affirming care drugs seldom used by kids: study

Tina Reed

Illustration of a prescription bottle with a trans flag resting inside — Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios

Less than 0.1% of U.S. adolescents received drugs for gender-affirming care between 2018 and 2022, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

Why it matters: Critics of gender-affirming care say the drugs are experimental and dangerous and warn of their overuse, but the new study led by Harvard University researchers suggests young people rarely receive them.

But research shows gender-affirming care is safe and can be life-saving for youth and adults, and mainstream medical societies endorse it.
"The politicization of gender-affirming care for transgender youth has been driven by a narrative that millions of children are using hormones and that this type of care is too freely given. Our findings reveal that is not the case," said lead author Landon Hughes.

What they found: Researchers identified transgender or gender-diverse patients in 5.1 million patients' private insurance claims between 2018 and 2022.

They then calculated the rate of adolescents who are transgender and receiving puberty blockers and other gender affirming care per 100,000 privately insured adolescents according to age and sex assigned at birth.
The review found that no patients under 12 years old who were transgender or gender diverse received hormones.
A previous study found gender-affirming surgeries were also rare in adolescents.

What to watch: The Supreme Court is weighing whether to uphold laws that ban gender-affirming care for minors.

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Gender-affirming care drugs seldom used by kids: study

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