We are undertaking a new programme of work – funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) – to summarise the evidence currently available to support decision-making around service provision for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence. We aim to gather all the relevant research on the key support and treatment possibilities for young people, so we can assess what works, what works best, and what doesn’t work.
Who we are
This work is being carried out by a team of researchers and public involvement specialists in collaboration with a group of young trans people. We are based at the following three NIHR Evidence Synthesis Groups:
- Bristol-UCL-King’s Living Evidence Synthesis Group (BUcKLES) a collaboration between University of Bristol and UCL as well as King’s College London;
- London Alliance for the Coproduction of Evidence Synthesis (LACES) at University College London (UCL);
- Bristol Evidence Synthesis Group (BESG) at University of Bristol.
We are also convening an advisory group including healthcare professionals who have experience of providing care to young trans people, representatives of support groups for the trans community, representatives of parent and carer support groups, and representatives from our group of young trans people.
Our work in relation to the “Cass review”
This is new work and is being carried out independently of the systematic reviews previously undertaken by the University of York that informed the Cass review. We will carry out new reviews of the research evidence and keep them up to date as more research is published. Our role is to report what the evidence shows; we have no role in making recommendations for policy or clinical practice.
Our approach
This new programme of work will:
- Involve young trans people throughout: Working throughout with our young trans people’s patient and public involvement group ensures that the perspectives of young trans people inform the decisions about our approach to the research.
- Take a broad approach to eligible evidence: We are taking a broad view of which evidence is useful to address each research question. Eligible evidence will include different study designs, including qualitative studies (exploring experiences and meanings) and quantitative studies (focusing on numbers and measurable evidence), chosen on a question-by-question basis.
- Take a broad approach to review tools and methods: By expanding the types of eligible evidence types, we will also expand the tools and methods used to assess the strength of the evidence included in the reviews.
- Explore how services work (or not): We want to explore evidence on how services have the effects they do for young trans people.
- Ensure the reviews are up to date: The reviews are intended to be ‘living’ systematic reviews – they will be updated regularly on a planned basis. As new evidence is published, it will be assessed and incorporated into the reviews.
- Be transparent about plans for each piece of work: Once the scope of the work has been developed through working with our patient and public involvement group, and agreed with NIHR as the funding body, we will publish a protocol (a detailed plan) for each review separately. We will publish the reviews as open access publications, along with a ‘dashboard’ which will show their status in terms of new research being published, assessed, and incorporated.
Timelines
The initial versions of the first three reviews are scheduled to be completed in 2026.
Contact details
besg-genderresearch@bristol.ac.uk
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