Our Mission

Thank you to the transgender and nonbinary youth who continue to share their voices in our national, longitudinal study by Boston University and Boston Children's Hospital researchers. 

How this study works: 

Eligible youth have been invited to lend their voices by completing an ongoing series of longitudinal surveys and Zoom interviews. They enrolled in the study when they were adolescents, and they are now young adults. Topics have included social support, mental health, school environment, and gender-affirming care. We encourage our participants to let us know if we are missing any important topics so that we can add them on future surveys.

Why this matters:

School and community programs are funded in part based on the needs of youth, and surveys are one way to hear directly from youth about their needs. However, few studies have focused on the experiences of transgender and nonbinary (TNB) youth, and most research to date has been cross-sectional, meaning it has focused on a single time point. By using a longitudinal framework, this study is not only able to learn at each survey point about how TNB youth and emerging adults are doing across multiple life domains, but also to identify how experiences at one time point might affect those in the future. This allows us to determine optimal points when prevention and policies might be targeted to support the wellbeing of TNB individuals.

What’s next?:

We feel privileged to have learned from the TNB individuals in our study, and plan to continue to offer opportunities for surveys and Zoom interviews. We approach this work from a strengths-based approach; project findings will extend our understanding of strengths across the social ecology (i.e., school, community) that improve the health and wellbeing of TNB adolescents and young adults. Similarly, through identifying factors that thwart wellbeing, we can better inform and advocate for policies and prevention programs that can reduce such risk factors.