Long COVID in transgender and gender nonbinary people in the United States, 2025, Wirtz et al.

Long COVID in transgender and gender nonbinary people in the United States
Wirtz, Andrea L.; Reisner, Sari L.; Cole, S. Wilson; Adams, Darya; Davids, J. D.; Cohen, Alison K.; Brown, Carter; Miller, Marissa; Poteat, Tonia C.

Despite recommendations in the US National Research Action Plan on Long COVID, gender identity is rarely reported in research and surveillance used to guide public health programming and clinical care. We analyzed data from a cross-sectional study of COVID-19 in a nationwide sample of transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people (N = 2,134).

Participants were surveyed between June 14, 2021 and May 1, 2022. Data were restricted to 817 participants who reported confirmed or suspected COVID-19 to estimate the prevalence of long COVID, defined as symptoms persisting for ≥ 3 months.

Ten percent of participants with a history of COVID-19 reported symptom duration consistent with long COVID, ranging from 4.8% to 12.9% across gender identities. Long COVID was most common in transmasculine and nonbinary people assigned female sex at birth. There was no evidence of an association with reported hormone therapy, supporting current recommendations that prioritize gender-affirming care during treatment for long COVID.

As a condition which profoundly impacts health and productivity, long COVID is likely to exacerbate existing disparities. Principles of equity demand that we reduce barriers to prevention, diagnosis, and care for long COVID, and ensure that research and surveillance are inclusive of TNB people and disaggregate findings by gender identity.

Link | PDF (Nature Scientific Reports) [Open Access]

 

It reads like they also looked at whether someone reported symptoms for 1-2 months (31%) and then whether they reported symptoms for more than 3 months (10%). If I'm reading that correctly it would be something other studies have mostly not done. At least it suggests that they managed to filter out some of the patients with short and quickly self-resolving symptoms from the longer lasting ones. Perhaps it would be useful to also know which symptoms these were to know what the shorter lasting symptoms entail in this cohort and also what this cohort looked like. Additionally the 3 month timeframe here is likely far too short to be useful (by that time most people wouldn't even have been able to get a doctors appointment to rule out other potential issues) and I haven't found the actual data on symptom duration presented anywhere in the paper. They mention a cohort of patients with symptoms longer than 6 months, but don't present that data? I think it could be interesting too see all the data for all the different durations they mention.