Open letter from Australian clinicians concerned that the Trans20 research study data is not being released
We the undersigned call upon the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service and their partner, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, to publish interim outcome data from their Trans20 research study and make the data available to other researchers.
On 23 October 2024, a New York Times article [1] revealed that an influential doctor in the US, Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, had not published the findings of a National Institutes of Health funded study of puberty-blocking medications because the study did not show benefits, and she feared such findings might be used to support restrictions on youth gender treatments.
We seek to ensure that similar delays in publishing do not occur in Australia.
Since 2017, the paediatric gender service at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has been collecting long term follow up data on 618 children and adolescents who used the service to commence sex change procedures. The study was funded by the RCH Foundation, NHMRC, Hugh Williamson Foundation and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council—Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies scheme.
With 4-7 years of data now collected, we believe it’s time for the Royal Children’s Hospital to publish their preliminary outcome findings.
Source: Open letter: Australian clinicians call for Trans20 research data to be released
Thank you for letting us know about this open letter.
It is encouraging to know that the people behind the RCH gender clinic are being respectfully held to account by peers in the medical and mental health professions.