Benefits include less psychological distress, lower prevalence of suicidal thoughts, planning
MONDAY, March 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Possession of gender-concordant identity documents (IDs) may improve mental health among trans persons, according to a study published online March 16 in The Lancet Public Health.
Ayden I. Scheim, Ph.D., from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and colleagues used data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (27,715 participants) to assess whether having gender-concordant IDs is associated with mental health among trans adults.
The researchers found that 45.1 percent of respondents had their preferred name and gender marker on none, 44.2 percent on some, and 10.7 percent on all of their IDs. Respondents for whom all IDs were concordant had lower prevalence of serious psychological distress (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR], 0.68; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.61 to 0.76), suicidal ideation (aPR, 0.78; 95 percent CI, 0.72 to 0.85), and suicide planning (aPR, 0.75; 95 percent CI, 0.64 to 0.87), compared with participants with no gender-concordant ID. Smaller reductions in distress and suicidality were associated with having some versus no concordant ID. There was no association between gender-concordant ID and suicide attempts (aPR for all versus no IDs, 0.92; 95 percent CI, 0.68 to 1.24).
“Gender recognition policies should be considered structural determinants of transgender health,” the authors write.
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