In a new research article posted today, we answer the hard question of whether or not transition improves and saves lives. From the article:
In debates and discussions with those who are unfamiliar with or unfriendly to the transgender community, a frequent point which is brought up is “but hormones and surgery don’t help transgender people! I read an article somewhere that said that!” Typically the article cannot be cited or found, but in some cases it can, and using that one source someone makes a personal policy decision on an issue so complex and multifaceted that even most transgender people don’t really understand it.
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My goal in this article is to perform a study on the studies which are out there in the public arena, to summarize their results, and to give my critical take on each of them to answer these final questions:
1) Does hormone treatment result in a greater quality of life for transsexuals?
2) Does sex reassignment surgery result in a greater quality of life for transsexuals?
3) Do either of the above result in a reduction in the suicide rate of transsexuals?
This article would be hopefully very useful to any of you who get caught up in debates online or off, in Facebook or on message boards. While the results won’t convince most haters, they can lower the boom on the science portion of the argument.