Randomized Controlled Trials Are the ‘Gold Standard’ of Research–But a Difficult Fit for Trans Care

September 15, 2023

(STAT News) – Politicians in the United States and other critics of gender-affirming care have similarly pushed for more highly-valued research like randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to justify the treatments. As the name suggests, these studies randomly assign participants to either a group that receives the treatment being tested or a control group that doesn’t, and they are considered the gold standard of medical research. But clinicians and researchers say it’s time to rethink the insistence on RCTs, which they say are impractical and almost impossible to perform ethically when looking at the benefits of gender-affirming care like hormones and puberty blockers. (Read More)