Another Myth of Persistence?

Abstract

Gender dysphoria is “the aversion to some or all of those physical characteristics or social roles that connote one’s own biological sex” (Schneider et al., 2009, p. 28). The onset of gender dysphoria may be in early childhood or “around puberty or even much later in life” (American Psychiatric and Association, 2022, p. 517). This Letter concerns childhood-onset gender dysphoria; not gender dysphoria that first manifests in adolescence or adulthood (Zucker et al., 2016). The reported new presentation of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (Diaz & Bailey, 2023; Littman, 2018), mostly affecting adolescent natal females, is also not relevant.