[DuskStar]

> and these medicines are known to reduce that risk

I'd known the first, but I've seen very few sources for actual studies on this. Do you happen to know of any? Even a 5 year study of people transitioning vs people denied the ability to transition would be greatly appreciated. There's a lot of people out there saying that transitioning doesn't lower lifetime suicide risks and I'd love something to push back on that.

[nissimk]

The population is small and more studies are needed.

I found this:

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/MHRJ-05-2014-...

Unfortunately the suicide risk is still very high even for post transition trans population.

[DuskStar]

So I'm unfortunately unable to access that paper - well, without paying $32 which is a bit steep - but does it have anything on the difference between people who transitioned and ones who did not? That's what matters after all, not the base rates. (Base rates being high tells us we really need to find a treatment, but it doesn't tell us what that treatment might be)

[Raphmedia]

Most studies focus on how safe the therapy is. The questions are will it cause lifelong issues, how does it affect life expectancy, etc. You would need a study that begins before a diagnostic to be able to have any significant data. Any trans person who is denied transition will likely not be available to participate in such an experiment. Those that were denied that do make it to a scientist or expert would instead promptly begin to transition. It would be unethical to deny them transition for a longer period just to see how it goes.

There's a few that focus on how it increase quality of life but I don't know any hard comparaison.

"The present study suggests a positive effect of hormone therapy on transsexuals' QoL after accounting for confounding factors." [1]

"evidence suggests that sex reassignment that includes hormonal interventions in individuals with GID likely improves gender dysphoria, psychological functioning and comorbidities, sexual function and overall quality of life" [2]

"Psychological evaluation has shown that sex reassignment increases the well-being of transsexuals, but it should not be considered as a cure-all; it is rehabilitative relieving gender dysphoria, but some transsexual subjects may still experience other problems (e.g. comorbid psychiatric problems, social isolation, troubled relationships, prejudice, and discrimination)." [3]

"A clinical protocol of a multidisciplinary team with mental health professionals, physicians, and surgeons, including puberty suppression, followed by cross-sex hormones and gender reassignment surgery, provides gender dysphoric youth who seek gender reassignment from early puberty on, the opportunity to develop into well-functioning young adults." [4]

"Using data draw from the follow-up literature covering the last 30 years, and the author's clinical data on 295 men and women after SRS, an estimation of the number of patients who regretted the operations is made. Among female-to-male transsexuals after SRS, i.e., in men, no regrets were reported in the author's sample, and in the literature they amount to less than 1%. Among male-to- female transsexuals after SRS, i.e., in women, regrets are reported in 1-1.5%. Poor differential diagnosis, failure to carry out the real-life- test, and poor surgical results seem to be the main reasons behind the regrets reported in the literature." [5]

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[1] "Is Hormonal Therapy Associated with Better Quality of Life in Transsexuals? A Cross-Sectional Study" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22145968

[2] "Hormonal therapy and sex reassignment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19473181

[3] "A long-term follow-up study of mortality in transsexuals receiving treatment with cross-sex hormones" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21266549

[4] "Young Adult Psychological Outcome After Puberty Suppression and Gender Reassignment" https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/4/696

[5] "Regrets After Sex Reassignment Surgery" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J056v05n04_05?jo...