Concerns over supposedly cancer-causing effects of cross-sex hormone therapy are an area in which public alarm has often pulled far ahead of the facts on transition and transgender health. For instance, in 2019, the Telegraph breathlessly reported that the “risk of breast cancer rises 46 times for trans women after hormone therapy”. What this framing omitted is that the study found trans women had a 70% lower likelihood of developing breast cancer compared to cis women, that the “absolute risk of breast cancer in transgender people remains low”, and that “following breast cancer screening guidelines for cisgender people seems sufficient for transgender people using hormone treatment” (de Blok et al., 2019).
Abigail Shrier, in her recent book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Teenage Daughters, referred to a “suspected risk” of uterine and endometrial cancer in trans men taking testosterone, then upgraded this suspicion to the overt claim that testosterone “can raise the risk of endometrial cancer significantly” in an interview at the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal; Jonathon Van Maren’s review of Shrier’s book makes the completely separate claim that puberty-blocking medications used for trans adolescents “create a higher risk of” cancer, an assertion that was not made by Shrier. Continue reading
