@dgoldsmith But how do people conclude that is the solution to what ails them? Self diagnosis is wildly popular and mostly wrong. You can stop taking drugs but this a different matter entirely.
I think the best evidence that supports this treatment are the experiences of adult trans people. If a young person constantly insists there is a gender mismatch they seem to do best when this is taken with patience and not a lot of fussing. After years of social transition it should be clear if things like hormones make sense. Some percentage of people are not the gender they get assigned at birth. That’s not shocking really.
@futurebird@Abercrombie There are also decades of clinical studies on trans kids specifically and what works for them (and what doesn’t). But yes, many trans adults were trans kids (meaning they experienced gender dysphoria in childhood) and know what would have helped them. Like me.
The documentary Girl-Hearted by Anne Scheschonk helps, if you really want to understand how deep-rooted gender-idendity can be from an early age on.*
If it is articulated from an early age, consistently, fought over in thousand tiny battles (like barbies, dresses, a ponytail or the daily struggle to have to wear boy-clothes)... it's pretty obvious that this is different from a dinosaur-loving-phase.
Gender can be deep or weakly rooted. Some people don’t feel a strong connection to their gender, and this could be about socialization but also just who the person is. Some feel misgendering as pain some don’t notice much (we can all be misgendered cis or trans) Some cis people have never had to think about their gender, never had it questioned so they have no idea if it’s important to them.