Until recently, hardly any children presented at gender clinics, but in the past decade the number has soared. Every one of the dozen or so studies of children with gender dysphoria – discomfort and misery caused by one’s biological sex – has found that most grow out of it, as long as they are supported in their gender non-conformity and not encouraged in a cross-sex identification. Many of these ‘desisters’ are destined to grow up gay: there is copious evidence of a strong link between early gender non-conformity and adult homosexuality.
