研究：2025年美国就职典礼后跨性别青少年家长抑郁焦虑上升

一项追踪家长情绪的周度调查

2025年初，美国总统一系列行政令直接限制跨性别群体的权利。跨性别青少年此前已被报告比同龄人承受更多心理困扰，但这次政治变动会如何影响他们和他们的家庭，是这项研究想回答的问题。研究团队使用的数据覆盖2022至2024年，对象包括73名跨性别儿童、87名顺性别儿童以及各自的家长；2025年就职典礼后的七周里，研究者每周发放问卷，测量抑郁、焦虑与积极情绪。

结果显示，在2024年总统选举和2025年就职典礼之前，两类孩子的家长在抑郁和积极情绪上水平相近。选举之后，尤其是就职典礼之后，跨性别青少年的家长抑郁明显上升、积极情绪下降，焦虑也比就职前更严重。顺性别青少年的家长心理健康则基本稳定，尽管两组家长的政治立场和对新政府的看法大体相似。

家长为何更早出现反应

作者把这一差异与家长对孩子的处境预期联系起来。研究引用的解释是，家长往往更早预见到较长期的威胁：行政令涉及禁止未成年人获得性别肯定医疗、惩罚支持跨性别学生的学校、限制跨性别女孩参加与其性别认同相符的队伍，这些都可能影响孩子的医疗可及性或他们将要面对的偏见。

问卷中的开放回答也呈现了这种压力。一位家长写道，过去一周是“能回想起的最糟糕的几周之一”；另一位提到自己被“否认与悲伤”淹没。研究者记录到，家长把心理状态的下滑归因于针对跨性别支持的攻击。这一归因来自参与者自述，而非研究单独验证的机制。

青少年本人变化不明显，但可能滞后

与家长相比，跨性别青少年在整项研究中的心理健康变化不大，不过在就职后的数周里积极情绪有所下降，焦虑也高于顺性别青少年。作者对此给出的解释是，研究进行期间，行政令的实际效果大多尚未落地，青少年的反应可能因此延后。他们同时提醒，青少年的心理健康下滑有可能在研究覆盖的时间之外进一步显现。

这也意味着，家长状态与孩子状态之间如何相互影响，仍是开放问题。作者明确表示，需要更大样本才能下强结论，并建议未来研究纳入政治立场差异更大的家长，例如不支持孩子性别认同的家长，以及更多低收入和种族多元的家庭。

这项研究能说明什么

这是一项观察性追踪：它记录了就职典礼前后家长心理指标的变化，并把时间点与政治事件并置，但不能据此断定行政令直接导致了这些变化。样本规模有限，且研究期较短，作者本人在论文中就把扩大样本列为前提。

可以确认的是，在这批支持跨性别孩子的家长中，就职后的数周伴随了抑郁和焦虑的显著上升，而政治立场相近的顺性别青少年家长没有出现同样变化。作者写道，随着针对跨性别者尤其是青少年的反弹加剧，识别并理解这些代价以及它们落在谁身上，具有关键意义。

Image above: Capitol police lead a rehearsal parade for the 60th Presidential Inauguration in Washington D.C., Jan. 12, 2025. More than 5,000 military members from across all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, including Reserve and National Guard components, will provide ceremonial support and defense support of civil authorities during the inaugural period. U.S. Department of Defense photo by Staff Sgt. Trevor Rhynes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In early 2025, the reality for transgender youth drastically shifted in the United States, after a deluge of executive orders from the president directly threatened and restricted rights for the demographic. Transgender youth already face increased mental health distress compared to their peers, so did these events further decline their mental health? And how did it affect their parents?

New research from Psychological Science showed that in the months following the 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration, political actions against trans people particularly took a toll on the parents of transgender children, including sharp increases in depression and anxiety. “Our findings identify an immediate potential cost of the current political environment for supportive parents of transgender youth,” the study’s authors wrote.

For these findings, researchers used data that surveyed 73 transgender and 87 cisgender children, as well as their respective parents from 2022 to 2024. Data included weekly surveys that researchers administered in the seven weeks after the 2025 inauguration. The survey asked questions related to the participant’s demographics and gender identity, as well as their mental health and well-being, measuring depression, anxiety, and positive affect (one’s internal confidence and happiness).

In their analysis, the study found that prior to the 2024 presidential election and 2025 presidential inauguration, parents of both transgender and cisgender children had similar levels of depression and positive affect. But after the election, and especially after the inauguration, researchers observed a marked increase in depression and drop in positive affect for parents with transgender children. Their anxiety also became worse compared to before the inauguration.

Notably, in the weeks following the inauguration, there were significant spikes in depression and anxiety, and parents attributed these declines to attacks on transgender support. “This past week has been one of the worst weeks I can recall,” one parent wrote in a survey after the inauguration. Another cited how they were overcome with “denial and grief.”

In contrast, the mental health of parents of cisgender youth remained fairly stable, even though they generally had the same political ideology and similar outlooks on the new administration.

The findings that parents of transgender youth are sensitive to threats to their children is consistent with past research. “Parents more often anticipate the longer-term threats,” the authors wrote. In this case, it’s likely the parents were anticipating the effects of President Trump’s executive orders banning gender-affirming care for minors, punishing schools for supporting transgender students, and stopping transgender girls from participating in their gender-identifying team. All of these policy changes could affect their child’s healthcare access or the amount of prejudice they end up facing.

Interestingly, transgender youth mental health did not change much over the course of the study, though they showed decreases in positive emotions in the weeks following the inauguration and had worse anxiety than cisgender youth after the inauguration. The study’s authors noted a need for additional research with a larger sample before making strong conclusions. It’s likely that mental health declines may worsen in transgender youth beyond the time frame of the current study. “Transgender youths’ responses may reflect the reality that, in the time of our study, effects of executive orders had largely not been implemented,” they wrote.

These delayed effects, as well as how the declining well-being of parents may intertwine with that of transgender youth, are key points for further research, the authors noted. Looking at parents with a broader range of political ideologies, like transgender youth with parents who don’t support their identities or studying more families that are low-income or racially diverse, are also sources of future inquiry.

As the authors wrote, “as backlash toward transgender people (and youth in particular) intensifies, identifying and understanding these costs, and whom they affect, is of critical importance.”

Feedback on this article? Email apsobserver@psychologicalscience.org or login to comment.

Reference

Leshin, R. A., Kodipady, A., & Olson, K. R. (2026). Reduced mental health and well-being in parents of transgender youth following the 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration. Psychological Science, 37(8), 586-599.