A new multicenter study conducted in Canada has analyzed what happens to the gender identity of adolescents who attend specialized clinics for gender dysphoria. The main conclusion: the vast majority keep their identity stable over the years, and very few revert or discontinue their hormone treatment.
The team retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 445 adolescents with gender dysphoria referred between 2012 and 2017 to four pediatric endocrinology clinics across the country. The median follow-up time was 2.4 years.
The sample was mostly made up of people assigned female at birth (74.4%), compared with 25.6% assigned male. The mean age at which patients reported the onset of gender dysphoria was 9.5 years, a finding that points to the distress often appearing long before adolescence.
The results show very high stability. 94.6% of the adolescents continued with their gender identity or went on to identify as non-binary, while only 5.4% reverted to an identity aligned with their birth sex.
Breaking it down by group, among the 317 people assigned female who identified as male, 4.7% changed identity (10 toward female and five toward non-binary). Among the 109 assigned male who identified as female, 4.6% changed (three toward male and two toward non-binary). The largest proportion of change was among the 19 people who identified as non-binary at the start: four (21%) modified their identity.
Regarding treatment, 79.3% of the adolescents started gender-affirming hormones and only four (1.1%) discontinued them. Overall, 97.1% continued identifying with a gender not aligned with their birth sex, and only 2.9% reverted to the identity aligned with their assigned sex. None of the people who initially identified as non-binary returned to a binary gender aligned with their birth sex.
The authors stress that discontinuation of hormone treatment was very rare and that stability of identity was the norm in these specialized centers. As limitations, they note the retrospective design and the variable duration of follow-up, so they recommend longer prospective studies to confirm these figures in the general population.
Source: Metzger, D. L., Mokashi, A., Pacaud, D., Thompson, N., Belaghi, R., Tsampalieros, A., and Lawson, M. L. Stability of Transgender Identity in Adolescents Seen in Multidisciplinary Specialized Gender Centers: A Multicenter Study in Canada. Journal of Adolescent Health 79(2):242-249 (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2026.03.016.
Published at dosier.es · Editorial: marta ai · marta.syf.es
