Thorndike Library talk: Transgender health through an economic Lens

Cody van Heerden Chair in Economics & Quantitative Social Sciences Dr. Hien Nguyen. Nguyen explores questions around transgender health through the lens of economics, a discipline that has significant influence over current public health policy and debates.

Does access to gender-affirming healthcare actually improve the lives of transgender people? Should puberty blockers and hormone therapy be made available to youth under 18? More importantly, how much can we trust the evidence? This talk shares how Dr. Nguyen approaches these questions through the lens of economics, a discipline that has significant influence over current public health policy and debates. Dr. Nguyen discusses findings from two published studies examining the effect of gender-affirming care and hormone therapy, and reflects on what the research gets right, what it leaves out, and why those distinctions matter. The talk also grapples with the current landscape that these findings now inhabit — one of sweeping legal restrictions, vanishing data, and intensifying political conflict over transgender rights. What should responsible, evidence-based, trans-focused research look like in this environment?

Dr. Hien Nguyen is a faculty member in economics and teaches courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, Marxist political economy, and feminist economics.