A new study on the effects of testosterone therapy on transmasc youth found that those who initiated the hormone treatment do not, on average, experience increased anger or irritability a year later.
In fact, some subjects demonstrated reduced aggression.
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The study, published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health, addresses a common concern by trans youth and their families that increased anger, irritability, or aggression could be a side effect of testosterone therapy.
The study also answers a claim made by anti-trans activists in the aftermath of the small number of mass shootings by trans individuals that hormone therapy was one reason for the shooters’ violence.
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Both Vice President JD Vance and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said as much following the 2023 shooting by Aiden Hale, a transmasc former student at the Covenant School in Nashville, which took the lives of three 9-year-olds and three teachers.
False claims have spread about soaring numbers of mass shootings committed by trans shooters, when most have been carried out by cisgender white men.
“Put simply, transgender individuals account for a vanishingly small proportion of perpetrators,” says James Densley, co-founder and deputy director of the Gun Violence Archive.
The testosterone study was conducted by nine researchers affiliated with major children’s hospitals in the U.S., including the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Benioff Children’s Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco. It included 178 transgender and gender diverse adolescents and young adults across four major gender care centers in the United States who initiated testosterone therapy.
The participants were 12-20 years old with an average age of 16.
92% identified as transmasculine/male, and 58% were white. All the subjects had completed puberty and had no exposure to puberty blockers.
The study found that, on average, self-reported levels of anger, aggression, and irritability were within normal ranges at the start of testosterone therapy (referred to as baseline) and remained about the same 12 months after initiation.
45.5% of participants reported slightly elevated anger and/or externalizing behaviors at baseline, but their average levels of these behaviors dropped to the normal range at 12 months.
69.6% of participants had consistently normal anger levels between baseline and 12 months, 19.2% moved from elevated to normal anger, and 11.2% moved from normal to elevated anger.
The study did not capture potential changes in anger, irritability, or aggression in the first few months after initiating testosterone therapy, a period of adjustment for patients that can produce mental and physical stress.
The authors conclude that “despite concerns commonly raised by youth and their families, there is not a clinically significant concern for increased anger, irritability, or aggression as a side effect of testosterone.” The researchers also noted that transgender adolescent and young adult males experience “levels of anger, irritability, and aggression comparable to normative samples over time as a whole.”
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