A new study has pushed back on the long-running claim that most transgender children eventually stop identifying as trans, concluding that the evidence often used to support that idea is far weaker and far more inconsistently interpreted than its supporters suggest.
The research, titled Desistance: A multimethod review of the literature on gender identity variability in transgender and gender diverse youth, was led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and published in the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. It examines the concept of so-called “desistance”, a term used to describe cases where a child who once identified as trans later identifies as cisgender.
The study was written in response to a widely cited 2016 blog post that claimed between 60 and 90 per cent of young people presenting for gender-related care would eventually “desist”. That figure has since been repeatedly used in political arguments against gender-affirming care for trans youth.
But after reviewing 11 of the studies used to support that blog post, along with five more recent studies, the researchers found that the numbers are not nearly as solid as they have often been presented. In fact, depending on how the data were interpreted, rates of “desistance” could be estimated anywhere from zero to 100 per cent. Rates of persistence could also fall anywhere within that same range. In other words, the studies were so inconsistent and methodologically limited that they cannot credibly support a clean, authoritative claim that most trans children will simply grow out of being trans.
The researchers also noted that many of the older studies frequently cited in these arguments were conducted before 1990, often with very small sample sizes and under social conditions that looked very different from those facing trans and gender-diverse young people today.
Lead author Catherine Wall said the issue matters well beyond academic debate. “We should rely on accuracy with our science, and we should rely on accurate science to guide legislation,” she said. She added that the team wanted to take a closer look at the “desistance” figure precisely because it has been repeated for years as though it were definitive, despite being used to justify laws and bans affecting best-practice gender-affirming care in dozens of US states.
The findings do not mean that no child’s understanding of their gender will ever shift over time. What they do suggest is that sweeping claims about most trans children reverting to a cisgender identity are not supported by the evidence in the way campaigners often claim. That sentence is an inference based on the review’s findings about the unreliability of broad desistance estimates.
At a moment when trans youth are increasingly at the centre of political and legal battles, the study adds weight to what many clinicians and advocates have argued for years: bad science, or oversold science, should not be used to shape policy with life-altering consequences. That final sentence is also an inference grounded in the study’s stated purpose and Wall’s comments about legislation.
