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In 2016, there’s fairly solid agreement about the proper course of treatment for otherwise healthy, stable young people who have persistent gender dysphoria, and who are either approaching puberty or older than that: You help them transition to their true gender. The process is different from person to person, but for an 11-year-old, it might include a round of puberty-blocking hormones to prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics and buy time to figure out the best course of transition, followed by the administration of male or female hormones, and, later on, possibly sex-reassignment surgery or surgeries.
With kids who are still years away from the onset of puberty, though, there’s a charged controversy about what’s best. That’s because here, two seemingly conflicting truths collide: Trans people deserve to have their identities recognized and respected; and research suggests that most gender-dysphoric kids will, in the long run, end up identifying as cisgender. In other words, a sizable percentage of them aren’t transgender in the same, usually permanent way trans adults are.
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Clinicians who work with gender-dysphoric kids operate on unsteady ground, then. Do you accept the idea that many young kids really are trans, or assume that their dysphoria is likely to dissipate as they grow older? At the moment, the prevailing trend is toward the former, which is known as a “gender-affirmative” approach
Read full, original post: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired
