Publications

COVID-19 containment measures reached into people's intimate lives. Researchers interviewed 93 gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver across two waves between November 2020 and October 2021 to learn how public health measures reshaped sexual practice. Participants adapted rather than abstained, applying years of HIV and STI risk mitigation experience: social bubbles became sex bubbles, masks became safer sex tools, and guidance about outdoor gatherings and physical distancing turned into outdoor sex and voyeuristic masturbation. The authors read these adaptations through reflexive mediation, showing men as simultaneously self-monitoring and resistant, self-responsibilising and creative.

People with HIV were underrepresented in COVID-19 vaccine trials, so this study estimated how well the vaccines worked for them in Ontario. Using a test-negative design, researchers identified adults with HIV who had a PCR test between December 2020 and November 2021, before Omicron, and compared vaccination between 801 positive cases and 8,879 negative controls, adjusting for age, region, testing history, other conditions, and neighbourhood socioeconomic status. Two doses were 82 percent effective against any infection, 94 percent against symptomatic infection, and 97 percent against hospitalisation or death. Protection against any infection waned over time. Findings do not support claims of broadly reduced effectiveness.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health released the eighth version of its Standards of Care, the first update since 2012, responding to rapid growth in scientific literature and in the number of transgender and gender diverse people seeking gender-affirming care. International professionals and stakeholders developed recommendations from independent systematic literature reviews, background reviews, and expert opinion, graded on evidence, risks and harms, and feasibility across country settings. The resulting eighteen chapters span terminology, population estimates, education, assessment across ages and identities, hormone therapy, surgery, voice, primary care, reproductive and sexual health, and mental health, offered as flexible clinical guidance rather than rigid rules.

Families and clinicians sometimes worry that children who socially transition will later change how they identify, a process known as retransition. This longitudinal work with the Trans Youth Project followed 317 youth who were transgender at enrolment, averaging just over eight years old at the start, with information reported by youth and parents. An average of five years after their initial social transition, 7.3% had retransitioned at least once. Ninety-four percent identified as binary transgender at the end of the period, 2.5% as cisgender and 3.5% as nonbinary. Retransitions were infrequent but worth understanding so families and clinicians can support youth well.

Some young people who socially transition gender later transition again, an experience families and clinicians often worry about but know little about. Drawing from an ongoing longitudinal study of 317 initially binary transgender youth, researchers identified 23 who had retransitioned, and interviewed 15 youth and their parents about what preceded each transition, how others reacted, and how they now reflect on it. At data collection, participants included cisgender, nonbinary, and binary transgender youth. Paths varied: identities changed over time, or a newly learned label simply fit better. Reactions were often neutral or positive, and no participant spontaneously voiced regret about transitioning initially.