Young people who desist from a trans identity are disproportionately likely to grow up to be non-heterosexual

Desistance   Sexuality   Teenagers  

A Dutch paper1 notes that, for gender dysphoric children, the more likely psychosexual outcome in adulthood is a homosexual sexual orientation without gender dysphoria.

Evidence2 suggests that many boys whose childhood gender dysphoria recedes with puberty will grow up to be bisexual or homosexual. Another study of males3 indicates that bisexual/homosexual orientation is far greater than base rates in the general male population, with 63.6% of boys with gender identity disorder being same-sex attracted.

This suggests that a non-heterosexual orientation is particularly likely among gender dysphoric boys.

  1. Wallien, M.S. & Cohen-Kettenis P.T. (2008) Psychosexual outcome of gender-dysphoric children. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 47 (12): 1413-23. [Link] ↩︎
  2. Kaltiala-Heino, R., Bergman, H., Työläjärvi, M., & Frisén, L. (2018). Gender dysphoria in adolescence: current perspectives. Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics 9, 31–41. [Link] ↩︎
  3. Singh, D. (2012). A follow-up study of boys with gender identity disorder. Doctoral thesis, University of Toronto. [Link] ↩︎
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