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Comparative Study
. 2020 Nov 19;15(11):e0241214.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241214. eCollection 2020.

Transgender fathering: Children's psychological and family outcomes

Affiliations
Comparative Study

Transgender fathering: Children's psychological and family outcomes

Agnès Condat et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Medical advances in assisted reproductive technology have created new ways for transgender persons to become parents outside the context of adoption. The limited empirical data does not support the idea that trans-parenthood negatively impacts children's development. However, the question has led to lively societal debates making the need for evidence-based studies urgent. We aimed to compare cognitive development, mental health, gender identity, quality of life and family dynamics using standardized instruments and experimental protocols in 32 children who were conceived by donor sperm insemination (DSI) in French couples with a cisgender woman and a transgender man, the transition occurring before conception. We constituted two control groups matched for age, gender and family status. We found no significant difference between groups regarding cognitive development, mental health, and gender identity, meaning that neither the transgender fatherhood nor the use of DSI had any impact on these characteristics. The results of the descriptive analysis showed positive psycho-emotional development. Additionally, when we asked raters to differentiate the family drawings of the group of children of trans-fathers from those who were naturally conceived, no rater was able to differentiate the groups above chance levels, meaning that what children expressed through family drawing did not indicate cues related to trans-fatherhood. However, when we assessed mothers and fathers with the Five-Minute Speech Sample, we found that the emotions expressed by transgender fathers were higher than those of cisgender fathers who conceived by sex or by DSI. We conclude that the first empirical data regarding child development in the context of trans-parenthood are reassuring. We believe that this research will also improve transgender couple care and that of their children in a society where access to care remains difficult in this population. However, further research is needed with adolescents and young adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following potential competing interests: AC has received funding for this project from the Pfizer France Foundation and the Centre d’Activités de Recherche en Psychiatrie Infanto-Juvénile (CARPIJ). Pfizer is a commercial funder. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. None of the authors have any commercial relationship with Pfizer, and there are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The recognition scores of each rating group during the experimental procedure with the family drawings.
The scores calculated by adult psychiatrists, endocrinologists, biologists, family therapists and students when determining whether family drawings were done by children who had a transgender father and were born by DSI or by children who had a cisgender father and were born by sexual intercourse. For each group of raters, the score could vary from +368 for all perfect guesses to -368 for a complete failure, and the probability that the score differed from chance was calculated using a permutation test. The computed p-value for each group of raters is indicated on the bar (level of significance p = 0.01).

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