Transgender adults are four times more prone to sleep disorders

This is a worrying number. According to a study published by the University of Michigan in the scientific journal Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicineadolescents and young transgender adults are more victims of sleep disorders.

What disorders do they suffer from?

By studying a database containing the health information of more than a million Americans aged between 12 and 25, the scientists retained the profiles of 2,600 transgender or young people who do not conform to gender norms. Among these young people, half were then undergoing gender affirmation therapy and had access to medical care to achieve a transition. Scientists have observed the following sleep disorders: mainly insomnia and sleep apnea, as well as other non-detailed sleep disorders.

Fewer sleep disorders among young people in therapy

The authors of this work note that transgender adults suffer four times more from sleep disorders than cisgenders. Nocturnal disturbances which result mainly in insomnia – young trans people are 5.4 times more likely to suffer from it – but also in the risk of sleep apnea, three times more frequent in the latter.

Beyond this first conclusion, the researchers also noticed that sleep disorders were two times less important in young transgender people undergoing therapy compared to those who did not follow it.

Dealing with gender affirmation to treat sleep?

Access to gender-affirming treatments”may confer a protective effect on sleep disorders”say the scientists.

Lead author Dr. Ronald Gavidia even believes that as “mood disorders and insomnia are closely linked, gender transition through affirmation therapies may improve mental health, which, in turn, may decrease the proportion of insomnia by improving gender dysphoria ( the distress of a trans person in the face of a feeling of inadequacy between their assigned gender and their gender identity), the bad mood and the stress experienced by people from stigmatized minority groups”.