Transgender (TG) is still a polarizing issue today. The lack of acceptance in society and often even in one's own family, the feeling of a lack of identity and connection with one's own body and the experienced discrimination all lead to a considerable degree of suffering in TG and elevated levels of psychiatric symptoms as well as a reduced quality of life. Many TG people seek hormonal treatment. Physical and psychological consequences of this treatment still need to be revealed.~To this aim, the investigators recruit TG people (MTF and FTM) who intend to seek gender-affirming hormonal treatment. Before treatment, various measures will be taken, including a semi-structured interview to assess psychiatric symptoms, self-ratings, behavioral experiments (to assess male/female face recognition and male/female voice perception), while functional MRI scans are taken to assess respective neural correlates. In addition, resting-state scans as well as anatomic images will be taken.~Six months after having started gender-affirming hormone treatment, participants will be reinvited to undergo the same study protocol.~In between testing sessions, patients will perform several online surveys regarding their psychological well-being.
The aim of this longitudinal, observational study is to investigate the effects of gender-affirming hormone treatment in FTM (female to male) and MTF (male to female) transgender (TG) people with regard to changes in brain structure and function as well as psychological and behavioral consequences. Methodological problems and missing studies in this area were mentioned several times with an emphasis on the need for longitudinal research.