A study by the Louisiana State Dept of Health was released in March on Gender Reassignment Procedures on Minors, a result of HR158 in 2022. in 2023, SB16 in Utah directed a similar study occur, so this can be insightful for us.
This analysis breaks out youth experiencing Gender Dysphoria by age and year. This data alone rejects the rhetoric that we are seeing a huge increase in the numbers and allows for more analysis like are we just seeing increased visibility resulting in slightly more coming out.
As found, the incidences of treatment are low and surgeries non existent. The standards of care utilized by the medical community allows affirming top surgeries in later teen years under very clear paths of treatment, genital surgeries are not recommended. And we see none here. So in Utah we may see top surgeries and the delta may be related to available providers. That information is not completely detailed in the Louisiana analysis
The data contained on mental health before and after treatment align with long standing studies that show increased depression and suicidal ideation at the initiation of therapy while seeing significant decreases after care has started.
Even surgery regret is shown as being quite small with 0.6% in AMAB, 0.3% in AFAB for gonadectomy and only 2 out of 209 for breast reduction with no reversal surgeries. This is slightly better than the general population’s top surgery regret rate which is likely the same given sample size. As noted in many social media posts and completely searchable, regret rates on medical procedures exist across the board and are significantly higher in other areas of care that are commonly performed. So these numbers are far better than generally accepted standards.
We will likely see some variations in the Utah study based on availability of mental health care, medical care, and insurance. But given the extreme claims made against transgender healthcare, the findings should be relatively similar.
Lousiana Dept of Health Report:
https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/LegisReports/HR158_2022RS_LDHReport.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email