Our vision is to improve the health and wellbeing of transgender children and adolescents through innovative, high-quality research.

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Referrals of young transgender individuals to specialist gender services have risen dramatically across the western world in recent years. Consistent with this, recent population-based estimates suggest that the prevalence of young people identifying as transgender is around 1 per cent, which is much higher than previously thought.

Providing optimal clinical care for transgender young people is critical. A recent community-based survey of 859 Australian trans youth found a significant proportion had been diagnosed with depression (75 per cent) and anxiety (72 per cent), with 80 percent of respondents reported having self-harmed and 48 per cent have attempted suicide. Many of these young people lacked access to gender-affirming healthcare, and there is increasing evidence that providing supportive clinical care to transgender youth significantly improves mental health and wellbeing.

The Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service (RCHGS) provides care to transgender children and adolescents and is one of the largest multidisciplinary clinics of its kind in the world. Previously, our team released the first-ever clinical guidelines specific for transgender children and adolescents, but there is a need for more robust empirical data to inform clinical practice in this nascent field.

The overall objective of our program is to produce high-quality research evidence related to child and adolescent transgender health. Our research activities have been developed in consultation with our community advisory group, consisting of young trans people and their parents.

Our vision is to improve the healthcare, wellbeing and overall outcomes of trans children and adolescents and their families through research.

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Positions available

We are currently recruiting students who wish to undertake postgraduate research in transgender health. Interested applicants should send a statement of research interests, CV, and two references by email to