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Sexual Orientation Labels Used by Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents and Young Adults Seeking Gender Affirming Hormones

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Abstract

Not enough is known about the labels that transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals – and especially adolescents and young adults – use to describe their sexual orientation. This is likely due to a historical conflation of sexual orientation and gender identity, where both researchers and the public have failed to examine the ways that these constructs differ. Consequentially, there are few statistics about TGD young people’s sexual orientations. The present study aims to help address this gap by examining the sexual orientation labels 208 TGD young people (13–22 years old) used at time of an assessment for readiness to start gender affirming hormones. Results indicate that the vast majority of youth in the sample used non-heterosexual orientation labels, with the most commonly endorsed label being “bisexual”. Fischer’s exact tests reveal that participants who affirmed a male/transmasculine gender were more likely to use the label “heterosexual” compared to female/transfeminine and non-binary young people. Findings underscore the importance of mindful sexual orientation and gender identity demographic information collection for TGD young people.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston Children’s Hospital, 333 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, US

    John L. McKenna, Ava Vu, Kerry McGregor, Coleen R. Williams, Vinisha Rana & Elizabeth R. Boskey

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, US

    John L. McKenna, Kerry McGregor, Coleen R. Williams & Elizabeth R. Boskey

  3. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, US

    Elizabeth R. Boskey

Authors
  1. John L. McKenna
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  2. Ava Vu
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  3. Kerry McGregor
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  4. Coleen R. Williams
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  5. Vinisha Rana
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  6. Elizabeth R. Boskey
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Contributions

All authors contributed to study conceptualization and design. Material preparation and data abstraction were performed by John McKenna and Avalon Vu. Analysis was performed by John McKenna and Elizabeth Boskey. The first draft of the manuscript was written by John Mckenna and all authors provided feedback and comments on multiple versions of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to John L. McKenna.

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Ethical Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the IRB at Boston Children’s Hospital.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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* Drs. Vu and Rana were trainees at Boston Children’s Hospital from 2022 to 2023

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McKenna, J.L., Vu, A., McGregor, K. et al. Sexual Orientation Labels Used by Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents and Young Adults Seeking Gender Affirming Hormones. Sexuality & Culture (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-024-10216-0

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