Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden
Associated Data
Abstract
Context
The treatment for transsexualism is sex reassignment, including hormonal treatment and surgery aimed at making the person's body as congruent with the opposite sex as possible. There is a dearth of long term, follow-up studies after sex reassignment.
Objective
To estimate mortality, morbidity, and criminal rate after surgical sex reassignment of transsexual persons.
Design
A population-based matched cohort study.
Setting
Sweden, 1973-2003.
Participants
All 324 sex-reassigned persons (191 male-to-females, 133 female-to-males) in Sweden, 1973–2003. Random population controls (10∶1) were matched by birth year and birth sex or reassigned (final) sex, respectively.
Main Outcome Measures
Hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for mortality and psychiatric morbidity were obtained with Cox regression models, which were adjusted for immigrant status and psychiatric morbidity prior to sex reassignment (adjusted HR [aHR]).
Results
The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9). Comparisons with controls matched on reassigned sex yielded similar results. Female-to-males, but not male-to-females, had a higher risk for criminal convictions than their respective birth sex controls.
Conclusions
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.
Introduction
Transsexualism (ICD-10),[1] or gender identity disorder (DSM-IV),[2] is a condition in which a person's gender identity - the sense of being a man or a woman - contradicts his or her bodily sex characteristics. The individual experiences gender dysphoria and desires to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex.
The treatment for transsexualism includes removal of body hair, vocal training, and cross-sex hormonal treatment aimed at making the person's body as congruent with the opposite sex as possible to alleviate the gender dysphoria. Sex reassignment also involves the surgical removal of body parts to make external sexual characteristics resemble those of the opposite sex, so called sex reassignment/confirmation surgery (SRS). This is a unique intervention not only in psychiatry but in all of medicine. The present form of sex reassignment has been practised for more than half a century and is the internationally recognized treatment to ease gender dysphoria in transsexual persons.[3], [4]
Despite the long history of this treatment, however, outcome data regarding mortality and psychiatric morbidity are scant. With respect to suicide and deaths from other causes after sex reassignment, an early Swedish study followed 24 transsexual persons for an average of six years and reported one suicide.[5] A subsequent Swedish study recorded three suicides after sex reassignment surgery of 175 patients.[6] A recent Swedish follow-up study reported no suicides in 60 transsexual patients, but one death due to complications after the sex reassignment surgery.[7] A Danish study reported death by suicide in 3 out of 29 operated male-to-female transsexual persons followed for an average of six years.[8] By contrast, a Belgian study of 107 transsexual persons followed for 4–6 years found no suicides or deaths from other causes.[9] A large Dutch single-centre study (N = 1,109), focusing on adverse events following hormonal treatment, compared the outcome after cross-sex hormone treatment with national Dutch standardized mortality and morbidity rates and found no increased mortality, with the exception of death from suicide and AIDS in ma