Gender-affirming care for young people has long been advocated on the basis that it improves their mental health and can be life-saving. A new study from Finland, based on the entire population of young people under the age of 23 who were seen at the country’s two gender identity clinics between 1996 and 2019, calls this assumption into question. While it confirmed that this population accessed “specialist psychiatric services” (reserved in Finland for really serious psychiatric conditions) more often than same-age controls prior to gender transition, it showed that they were even likelier to need such services post-transition: up from 9.8% of MTF transsexuals prior to medical transition to 60.7% post-transition, and 21.6% of FTM transsexuals pre-transition to 54.5% post-transition. This study is superior to most previous efforts to quantify the mental health benefits of gender transition because it is based on a larger number of subjects (2,083), relies on data from a national health care system that keeps systematic records of psychiatric visits, and utilizes a much longer follow-up period (5.5 years on average).
Gender Transition and Psychological Health
