Conference session

When promising medical interventions make life better for many, yet unexpectedly more complicated for others, what is the ethical way to respond? Governments, medical associations, and gender clinics around the Western world have been grappling with the stories of young people detransitioning, while actual patient experiences have remained under-researched. The phenomenon of detransition—as a possible outcome following gender-affirming healthcare—has been largely discussed with anecdotes to argue either for or against pediatric gender-affirming care, but without much data to back up the politicized discourse. The lack of data has led to an information vacuum vulnerable to misinformation and healthcare policy-making based in divisive narratives about care that is either “life-saving” or a “medical, legal, and political scandal.” Drawing from the DARE study, a mixed-methods investigation of detransition in Canada and the United States, this presentation aims to cut across division by offering data-driven answers to politicized uncertainty. Participants in this session will learn about why latent class analysis methodology was selected for the DARE study, and how it enabled the creation of nuanced knowledge that cuts across polarized public and legislative debates.