Citation

Rafferty J. Pediatrics 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

10.1542/peds.2021-050216

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 2018, the Human Rights Campaign sounded the alarm that antitransgender violence in the United States had become a "national epidemic," on the basis of the increasing number of transgender fatalities that year.1 In the context of coronavirus disease 2019, there is a greater appreciation for the significance of a national public health crisis and how it can lead to feelings of grief, vulnerability, and fear. In this month's Pediatrics, Thoma et al2 show that violence and victimization is not only widespread among a national sample of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals but that it is often first encountered early in life as childhood abuse.2

Thoma et al2 conducted an online survey of TGD adolescents over 4 months in 2018. Although initial advertisements generated 8747 clinics, only 5642 assented and responded. On the basis of their inclusion criteria and after multiple means of controlling for validity, duplicate responses, and survey incompletion, data from 1836 participants remained. Thoma et al2 found that TGD adolescents experienced higher rates of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, compared with that of their cisgender peers, with identical results after controlling for covariates. Generally, those assigned female at birth (AFAB) had experienced more psychological (now identifying as transgender and nonbinary) and sexual abuse (now identifying as nonbinary), whereas those currently questioning their gender identity had experienced more physical abuse than other demographics.2 With post hoc analysis, it was confirmed that increased psychological abuse among transgender males AFAB was an independent finding and not a consequence of other types of abuse...

Language: en