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Trans Youth CAN!

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Trans Youth CAN! is a study of youth referred for blockers or hormones at ten clinics in Canada.

We are looking at medical, social and family outcomes over a two-year period in order to have better information for doctors and nurses, counselors, schools, and for trans youth and their families.

Artwork, left: “Summer Girl” by Anna, trans female, age 15, from Ontario.
Artwork, right: by Katrina.
Learn how the study works »

About the Project

Youth whose gender identity does not match the gender they were assigned at birth have been increasingly referred to pediatric clinics that provide medical care to delay puberty and alter physical sex characteristics to align with inner gender identity. However, while these treatments are generally considered safe, there is very little research on the short- and long-term social and medical experiences and outcomes of youth undergoing clinical care. We are doing a study to learn about the health experiences of trans youth during the first two years they come to clinic to start on puberty blockers or hormones. We are also interested in learning more about the well-being of parents/caregivers and families with trans youth.

We form a multi-disciplinary team of academic, clinical, service provider, and knowledge user partners.

Meet our research team »

Artwork by Max, transgender, age 15, from Ontario.

We will collect data at the start of the study and over two years of follow-up using youth and parent surveys, as well as youth medical information from the clinics. We want to know more about the medical care of trans youth in Canada, and their positive and negative experiences with schools, families, and social life. We want to see how these things can affect their health, and how to give better medical care and other types of services to better help trans youth. We also want to know how parents/caregivers and families are doing so we can find ways to better support them. This is the first study like this in Canada, and we will share what we find with doctors, policy-makers, social service providers, and of course trans youth and families of trans youth. Our results will also be posted to this website. We expect our study will result in changes to medical care, social services, and youth and family decision-making.

This project is being paid for by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). This study is being done by a team of gender-affirming doctors and researchers who have many years of experience doing community-based trans research. Our team includes people who are also parents of trans children, trans adults, and allied researchers with a long history of working to support trans communities.