A report, released in the autumn, presented a careful summary and up-to-date explanation of research, from the biological, psychological and social sciences, related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Its intention was to address health issues faced by LGBT populations within the US. Some key findings in the report were:
• The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings, the idea that people are ‘born that way’, is not supported by scientific evidence.
• There are no compelling biological explanations for human sexual orientation
• Sexual orientation may be fluid; 80% of adolescents do not go on to report same sex attraction as adults.
• Compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.
• The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex, e.g. that a person might be ‘a man trapped in the wrong body’, is not supported by scientific evidence.
• There is no evidence for a neurobiolog-ical basis for cross-gender identification.
• Compared to the general population, adults who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery continue to have a higher risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes. One study found that, compared to controls, sex-reassigned individuals were about five times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.
• A minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so in adulthood.
• There is little scientific evidence for the therapeutic value of interventions that delay puberty or modify the secondary sex characteristics of adolescents, although some children may have improved psychological well-being if they are encouraged and supported in their cross-gender identification. There is no evidence that all children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behaviour should be encouraged to become transgender.
The report appeared in The New Atlantis, a journal of technology and society.
