Investigating Experiences With Scarring Among Transgender and Gender Diverse People: Mixed Methods Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Scarring has been shown to have adverse health effects on marginalized patient groups. However, experiences of scarring among transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people have not yet been thoroughly characterized. . Objective: This study aimed to investigate the impacts of scarring related to gender-affirming care and other causes among TGD people. Methods: Anonymous data were extracted from Reddit, a popular online platform organized into "subreddit" groups based on identities and interests. A combined total of 604 posts and comments that explicitly reference physical scarring were extracted from r/FtM, a subreddit for transmasculine people (449 posts and comments) and r/MtF, a subreddit for transfeminine people (155 posts and comments). Applying inductive thematic analysis, all posts and comments were coded and codes were sorted into overarching themes. . Results: Among the 604 posts and comments, the scars most discussed were secondary to gender-affirming care procedures, including mastectomy (n=338 posts and comments), hormone administration (n=102 posts and comments), and hair removal (n=38 posts and comments). Nongender-affirming care-related scars, such as those due to self-harm (n=43 posts and comments), were discussed less often. A total of five overarching themes emerged through thematic analysis: (1) concerns about physical outcomes related to scarring; (2) psychological distress related to scarring; (3) societal perceptions of scarring; (4) strategies to prevent, conceal, and minimize scarring; and (5) positive experiences with scarring. Conclusions: For TGD people, scar complications, visibility, and permanence represent major concerns. While many TGD people ultimately accept scarring as an unavoidable consequence, scarring both related and unrelated to gender-affirming care can present a significant psychosocial stressor for TGD people. Scarring can result in physical health complications, gender dysphoria, and negative body image; visible scarring is also a barrier for TGD people who wish to blend into society. Clinicians should improve communication regarding scarring outcomes and scar-care procedures. Future research should focus on the development of scar prevention, care, and reduction techniques for TGD people.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".