New Research Findings from The PRIDE Study – Gender-Affirming Medical Care Helps Reduce PTSD Symptoms

 

 

I received this communication from the PRIDE Study, in which I've been participating:

 

We hope this update finds you as well as possible. The Journal of Traumatic Stress just published the latest findings from The PRIDE Study. This study is important because it was one of the first studies to test if having gender-affirming care received over time was related to lower posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. More details about this study are below.

Publication Title: PTSD symptom reduction after gender-affirming medical interventions: A longitudinal study Community Title: Gender-affirming care helps reduce posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms Lead Authors: James Michael Brennan, PhD What Did We Do? In our study, we looked at whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms changed after people had gender-affirming care (for example, hormones, hair removal, surgeries). We also wanted to know whether having more care was linked to greater improvements. In other words, does more care mean more benefit? We were also curious about how this care might be helping. So, we looked at factors that typically impact trans and gender expansive (TGE) people. Factors included gender minority stress – where someone might be discriminated against or feel bad about themselves for having a TGE identity– and depression symptoms. We wanted to see whether these experiences might shape the relationship between gender-affirming care and PTSD.     We were inspired to conduct this study because other research has shown that TGE people often experience benefits from gender-affirming care, such as lowering depression and anxiety. This research made us curious if gender-affirming care could also help with PTSD symptoms, which are fairly common among TGE people. What Was New, Innovative, or Notable? This was one of the first studies to test if having gender-affirming care received over time was related to lower PTSD symptoms. We followed The PRIDE Study participants over time instead of just at a single snapshot in time, which is called a longitudinal study. This way we could see what happened to PTSD symptoms in the years after a participant had some type of gender-affirming care. We also looked at what happened as participants received multiple forms of care.    What Did We Learn? About 2,500 participants from The PRIDE Study were included, and each participant had at least one form of gender-affirming care between 2019-2022. Over half of the participants showed signs of having a PTSD diagnosis. We learned a few things: There was an immediate and short-term drop in PTSD symptoms after the participants had gender-affirming care back-to-back over three years. Having more gender-affirming care resulted in fewer PTSD symptoms over time. These relationships disappeared when we also considered gender minority stress and depression symptoms. Through a follow-up analysis, we saw gender-affirming care improved PTSD symptoms with the help of reductions in gender minority stress and depression. Overall, what this means is that gender-affirming care may help reduce PTSD symptoms, but mostly indirectly by improving mood and reducing gender minority stress.   What Does This Mean for Our Communities? Gender-affirming care can be helpful for the impact of PTSD symptoms, but it’s not a magic fix. It’s important that TGE folks with PTSD who are pursuing gender-affirming care also get support through affirmative and trauma-informed mental health care. There’s no one-size-fits-all path. TGE people benefit from resources in different ways, so TGE people might want to find the path that is best for them. Having pride in your TGE identity along with connection to vibrant TGE communities are key to reducing depression and minority stress and to giving TGE people a safe space to heal from trauma. What’s Next? A big question remains as to whether gender-affirming care might be more helpful for TGE people with trauma related to their identities (for example, being discriminated against or experiencing a hate crime for being TGE). In this study, we did not assess whether PTSD symptoms were related to identity-based trauma or other types of trauma. We hope to continue exploring TGE experiences of PTSD and identifying what can help TGE communities heal from trauma.  Action Steps: See http://www.pridestudy.org/study for more information and to share this study with your friends and family. If you are interested in conducting research related to LGBTQIA+ health, please learn more about collaborating with The PRIDE Study at http://pridestudy.org/collaborate. Citation: Brennan JM, Lisha NE, Tran NK, Davis K, Obedin-Maliver J, Lunn MR, Flentje A. Posttraumatic stress symptom reduction after gender-affirming medical interventions: A longitudinal study. J Trauma Stress. 2026 Apr 9. Epub ahead of print. doi: http://doi.org/10.1002/jts.70065. Read the full paper at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/VFCMJHZNGJTYVVKXTTYB For information on all of our studies go to: http://pridestudy.org/research. We have multiple additional research results coming soon; make sure to add contact@pridestudy.org to your address book so you don’t miss out. For updates on the research being conducted by The PRIDE Study, check out the table showing the progress of our multiple Ancillary Studies. → Click here to get quarterly news about LGBTQIA+ health research. We are so grateful for your contributions to our research. We couldn’t broaden our knowledge about LGBTQIA+ health without you. Together in community, The PRIDE Study team