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New data show gender-affirming hormones protect from HIV
A study published in Lancet HIV Thursday showed that patients who received gender-affirming hormones were 37% less likely to be infected with HIV than those not taking hormones.
Over a decade ago, psychologist and researcher Jae Sevelius had an idea: The behaviors that might put transgender people at particularly high risk of getting HIV stem from the fact that their gender wasn’t being affirmed as they needed.
If that could happen more easily for people — with good medical care, but also through validation from family, friends, and society — they’d be healthier overall, and less likely to engage in risky behavior that could put them at risk of an HIV infection, Sevelius argued, identifying this underlying system as the gender affirmation framework.
