A new study suggests that media coverage about transgender issues may serve as a catalyst for young people to seek support at specialist gender clinics. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
In the past decade, there has been a surge in the number of transgender children being referred to gender clinics, and the reasons for this are unclear. “Such a rapid increase in clinical demand is unusual within medicine,” study authors Ken C. Pang and team remark, “and the underlying reasons for this increase are of great interest.”
“Various theories and assumptions have been put forward to explain the rising rates of referral to specialist gender clinics. We felt it was important to move beyond such theories and assumptions to look at the empirical evidence,” said Pang, a clinical scientist fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
There has been some suggestion that this increase in demand for services could be due to the increased media coverage about gender diverse issues. Evidence suggests that the media has a powerful influence on the development of a young person’s identity, and Pang and colleagues reason that the media may accordingly impact the development of gender identity.
To explore this idea, researchers collected referral records from two child and adolescent gender clinics in two different countries. Records from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London, UK, and the Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service (RCHGS) in Melbourne, Australia were obtained from the time period of January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2016.
Pang and associates also collected media items discussing transgender issues from both countries during the same time period. The researchers collected items that mentioned transgender and gender diverse (TGD) issues in passing, items with a primary focus on TGD issues, and media items that explicitly mentioned either the GIDS or RCHGS.
In total, 5,242 young patients were referred to either clinic between 2009 and 2016. For both countries, the number of TGD media items and the number of gender clinic referrals increased dramatically during this time period and — importantly — were positively correlated.
For the RCHGS in Melbourne, this correlation was strongest when looking at the number of media items in a given week and the number of patient referrals the following week. For the GIDS in London, the association was strongest between the number of media items in a given week and the patient referrals during that same week.
“Across an 8-year study period during which more than 5,000 trans and gender diverse young people were referred to 2 pediatric gender clinics in the UK and Australia, we observed an association between weekly referral rates and the number of trans-related items appearing within the local media 1 to 2 weeks beforehand,” Pang told PsyPost.
“While these data do not provide any direct evidence of causation, the results are nonetheless consistent with our clinical experience, in which trans and gender diverse patients and their families commonly identify the media as a way of empowering them to seek clinical assistance.”
Pang and team discuss how the media could be helping transgender and gender diverse youth recognize their feelings.
“First, media serve as an important means by which young people explore, recognize, and understand their overall identity, and it seems reasonable that the same might also be true of gender identity more specifically. Anecdotally, many of our patients have reported that their clandestine feelings of gender diversity were brought to the surface by media stories that prominently featured TGD individuals and helped them to appreciate that others share similar feelings,” the authors share.
Importantly, these media items may serve to authenticate the questioning youth’s feelings. The researchers illustrate, “by providing young TGD people with the realization that professional services and clinical pathways exist to assist them, media items might help to validate and legitimize their experiences and thus counteract the disbelief and nonaffirmation from others that many of them face after coming out.” The discussion of TGD issues in the media also likely contributes to a wider environment that is more accepting of gender diversity and more conducive to seeking treatment.
More simply, these media mentions may alert TGD youth to the clinical options in their area, and to the types of treatment available to them, thus empowering them to seek care.
One key limitation of the study was that it did not include media stories from social media, a gap the researchers point to for future study.
“While our study provides evidence of an association between relevant media stories and clinical referrals of TGD young people, given the nature of the study design, it is important to note that our results provide no indication of causation,” Pang explained.
“Another caveat is that our study only looked at ‘mainstream’ media items and did not look at social media at all, which is obviously of great relevance to young people. Finally, another limitation is that we weighted each media item equally (despite likely differences in reach and accessibility) and were unable to quantify actual levels of media exposure among referred patients.”
Still, the findings provide compelling evidence that including discussions of transgender and gender diverse topics in the media may serve to empower TGD children and adolescents to seek valuable clinical care.
“In terms of next steps, I think it would be important to determine whether the sentiment and tone of media stories affect the association we observed. For example, in the past few years, there has been a significant amount of negative press coverage of paediatric gender services, and it is possible that this may have dissuaded some young people and their families from seeking care,” Pang said.
“Thus, testing whether negative media coverage is associated with reduced rates of help-seeking would be of interest. Another area for future study would be to look specifically at social media.”
The study, “Association of Media Coverage of Transgender and Gender Diverse Issues With Rates of Referral of Transgender Children and Adolescents to Specialist Gender Clinics in the UK and Australia”, was authored by Ken C. Pang, Nastasja M. de Graaf, Denise Chew, Monsurul Hoq, David R. Keith, Polly Carmichael, and Thomas D. Steensma.
