Transgender Conversion Therapy Linked to More Psychological Distress, Suicide Attempts, Study Finds

Individuals who identify as transgender may be at a greater risk of psychological distress and suicide in adulthood if they were exposed to conversion therapy, according to astudy inJAMA Psychiatry. These risks were found to be particularly high if the individual was exposed to the therapy when they were 10 or younger.“Our results support the policy positions of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association, which state that gender identity conversion therapy should not be conducted for tran sgender patients at any age,” Jack Turban, M.D., M.H.S., of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues wrote.The researchers analyzed the responses of 27,715 transgender adults living in the United States to the2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, whose protocol was reviewed and approved by the University of California, Los Angeles, institutional review board. The respondents ’ mean age was 31.2 years, and 42.8% had been assigned male sex at birth; 19,741 reported they had spoken to a professional about their gender identity, and 3,869 reported exposure to gender identity conversion therapy (psychological interventions aimed at aligning an individual’s gender identit y with the sex assigned at birth) in their lifetime. The researchers also measured respondents’ severe psychological distress during the previous month (using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: conversion therapy Jack Turban JAMA Psychiatry transgender U.S. Transgender Survey Source Type: research