A new study found that injury rates among transgender women are significantly higher than injuries among cisgender women, based on radiological imaging. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "Cisgender" is a term used to describe people whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth, while 'transgender' describes people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
"Transgender women have been reported to experience alarmingly high rates of violence," said lead researcher Rohan Chopra, an undergraduate student at Northeastern University in Boston and a research intern at the Trauma Imaging Research and Innovation Center (TIRIC) at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "They also frequently endure discrimination, hate crimes, psychological abuse and social isolation , which not only increases their vulnerability but also creates significant barriers in reporting violence and escaping abusive situations." The first-of-its-kind study, conducted by TIRIC, employs a case-control design to quantify and compare the burden of injuries evident on imaging between transgender women and a control group of cisgender women.
For the study, researchers selected a cohort of 263 trans-female patients, aged 18 and older, from the Research Patient Data Registry. All patients had undergone at least one imaging exam at a Massachusetts General Brigham affiliated hospital. From the same registry, a .
