Desistance

Many children referred to gender clinics as children grow up to identify as cis, often lesbian gay or bi. Reverting after surgery or such hormone treatment, after removal of genitals and needing further surgery, a person might develop a deep resentment of the medical services s/he had as a child.


I have often felt that if given the opportunity to transition when I was around 7 years old, I would have said yes.  I still feel this way.  My gender dysphoria goes back as far as I can remember.  In this post, Clare comments on a New York Magazine article, debating the issue of pre-puberty social transition in children, including the age at which cross-sex hormones are prescribed.  The New York Magazine article states that some studies have claimed that a high percentage of the children exhibiting gender dysphoria or confusion at an early age actually ended growing up happy in their birth gender.  But, how accurate are these studies?

Clare's post is, Desistance.

The New York Magazine article is, What’s Missing From the Conversation About Transgender Kids.

Here's a link to a blog post mentioned in the New York Magazine article titled, Do trans- kids stay trans- when they grow up?

These articles, including Clare's blog post, are very interesting to those of us who are trans, but what about the parents?  Depending on the article or study you read, the parents are put in the position of making a life decision for their child that could end up being the correct or the wrong decision.  As a parent myself, I cannot begin to imagine the pressure on the parents of a gender dysphoric child to make a decision, one way or the other, while the clock keeps on ticking....