New study follows transgender teens

By Austin Stallings
Journalism Intern

A large study funded by the National Institute of Health that focuses on transgender teens has officially kicked off.

According to Nature.com, “Physicians are increasingly giving transgender adolescents drugs to block puberty until their bodies — and decision-making abilities — are mature enough to begin cross-sex hormone treatment, typically at age 16.”

Since the side effects of these treatments are unknown, the study seeks to recruit 280 adolescents who identify as transgender, and follow them for five years.

About 75% of children who question their gender by puberty have identified as the one assigned to them at birth. But those who identify as transgender in adolescence almost always do so permanently. Denying them the ability to transition is unethical, says bioethicist Simona Giordano of the University of Manchester, UK. “Not treating adolescents is not being neutral,” she says. “It means exposing children to a lot of harm.”

Though there is no clear age of consent to receive these irreversible hormone treatments, this is “the safest way to relieve transgender adolescents at the worst time of their life,” says Wylie Hembree, an endocrinologist at Columbia University in New York City.

The $5.7-million project will be not only the largest-ever study of transgender youth, but also only the second to track the psychological effects of delaying puberty — and the first to track its medical impacts.

The Gayly 3/19/2016 @ 2:34 p.m. CDT