German Study Finds Most People Outgrow Transgender Identity in Five Years

A massive, years-long study shows the overwhelming majority of young people who identify as transgender will grow out of the diagnosis within five years. Researchers, who tracked all children and young adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria over a nine-year period, found a similar supermajority of trans people suffered from at least one other psychological condition.

The Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance in Germany reviewed all the medical billing records from the nation’s health care providers for insured people between the ages of five and 24 diagnosed with gender identity disorders from 2013 to 2022.

Researchers then combed through the data to identify trends in the number of children and adolescents diagnosed with transgenderism, including the prevalence, demographics, and duration of those struggling with their gender identity.

Two out of three young people medically diagnosed with gender dysphoria will no longer identify as a member of the opposite sex within five years. Researchers found overall that 63.6 percent of trans children and adolescents desisted from their clinically-confirmed gender diagnosis, and “only 36.4 percent had a confirmed [gender identity disorder] diagnosis after five years.”

Experts found the majority of all people who identified as transgender desisted during that time frame. The most likely group to change its mind is 15- to -19-year-old females, with 72.7 percent desisting. But a majority (50.3 percent) of young men who came to their transgender identity in adulthood (males age 20-24) also desisted in five years.

Similarly, nearly three quarters of young people who identify as transgender (72.4 percent) had at least one other psychiatric condition.

Trans young people were most likely to suffer from depressive disorders — an outright majority of females (57.5 percent) and about half of males (49.3 percent, female), as well as “anxiety disorders (23.5 percent/34.0 percent), emotionally unstable personality disorders of the borderline type (12.1 percent/17.6 percent), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (12.7 percent/12.6 percent), and post-traumatic stress disorder (9.9 percent/13.6 percent).”

“With regard to psychiatric comorbidities, our results are consistent with the literature, at least for depressive disorders,” they note.

The number of young people identified with gender identity disorders rose by 780 percent. Although they note some of this increase is due to the way the condition is coded, correcting for this still shows a nearly three-fold increase in transgender diagnoses (289 percent).

They pointed out that other studies show similar increases in the number of doctors identifying young people as transgender, ranging from 280 percent to an incredible 1,019 percent.

“In almost all years, the highest prevalence of” transgender-related diagnoses “were found in the age group of 15- to 19-year-old female adolescents,” they noted.

Researchers say the reason for this spike could vary from “real increase in prevalence” and “increased awareness, decreasing stigmatization” to “social contagion” or “overdiagnosis.”

“Further research into the reasons for the low persistence of diagnosis and the observed increase in prevalence is required,” the researchers conclude. “In the meantime, the stability of diagnosis and the high prevalence of accompanying mental disorders should be taken into account in recommendations for starting gender reassignment therapy in adolescence.”

Those results track with verifiable, expert data flooding in from around the world. A team of Dutch researchers came to nearly identical conclusions earlier this year.

After reviewing the records of 2,772 adolescents aged 11-26 in the Netherlands, they found a desistance rate of 64 percent. Young people were nearly 10-times more likely to feel better about their birth sex than worse during that time frame, the study reported.

“Gender non-contentedness, while being relatively common during early adolescence, in general decreases with age and appears to be associated with a poorer self-concept and mental health throughout development,” they found.

Other studies have found people who identify as transgender or nonbinary are up to six times as likely to be diagnosed with autism than the norm. Pediatric transgender facility whistleblower Jamie Reed revealed that “nearly all children who came to the Center here presented with very serious mental health problems.” She specifically identified autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, OCD, and eating disorders.

The combination of these studies and growing weaknesses in the transgender “standards of care,” based on low-quality studies and drawn up by transgender activists, have led many nations to reconsider the way healers deal with gender dysphoria.

The current U.S. affirmation model holds that health care professionals should affirm anyone who presents as transgender and start that adult, or child, down a pathway of “gender-affirming care” that may include potentially sterilizing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone injections, and transgender surgeries to remove healthy breasts and reproductive organs.

But the groundbreaking Cass Review in the U.K. found “remarkably weak evidence” undergirds these criteria. Leaked files from the primary medical group driving gender dysphoria diagnoses, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, similarly undermined the affirmation model.

Bucking the trend among their colleagues, and standing up to professional ostracization, a growing number of medical experts have spoken out against the present consensus. “Transition affirmation is not proven to be safe or effective long term,” said Dr. Andre Van Mol, representing the American College of Pediatricians, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, and the American Academy of Medical Ethics earlier this week.

“It does not reduce suicides. It does not repair mental health issues or trauma. Minors cannot give truly informed consent. Children have developing and immature brains. Their minds change often. They are prone to risk taking, they are vulnerable to peer pressure, and they don’t grasp long term consequences.” And as such, he contended, “Refusing to provide gender transition procedures or so-called gender affirming health care is non-discriminatory and is appropriate both professionally and scientifically.”

The peer-reviewed Deutsches Ärzteblatt International will publish the English text of the paper, titled “Gender identity disorders among young people in Germany: prevalence and trends, 2013–2022. An analysis of nationwide routine insurance data,” within two weeks. You can read the German original here.

This article appeared originally on The Washington Stand.