On changing genders during puberty...

[mac1]

I was raised a boy til puberty showed me I was a girl,that confused me for I have a boy part and went about trying to understand with the limited resources I had at hand. As for hormones there wasn't much data at that time on their usefulness,when I hit 18 information was getting a little better and I was thinking about transition but I like females and wanted a family so i compromised with myself that I would put on a male mask and found honesty was important,my wife knows about me and is fine with me dressing girly time to time as long as I put the male mask on time to time.

I wish that my wife could look at it like that.

[Lyric]

Over the last couple of decades that the Internet has widely existed I've read hundreds of TG people's stories and it's always been apparent to me that there are distinctly different categories of TG people. There are definitely those who clearly feel from a very young age they are a different gender. I've never heard of one of those folks changing later. This category seems to be the rarest group, though.

Then there is the category I've called the thirteeners. I've run across many of these people. Most commonly they felt like normal boys until puberty and then felt desires to be more feminine. I basically fit this category myself. The situation is doubtless connected to sexual development, but the hows and whys are not clear. Some of these people grow to desire a full transition while others seem satisfied to live as males and be part time "crossdressers". Still others identify as androgynous or bi-gendered.

It seems rare that anyone states discovering such a desire in themselves after puberty, though many don't fully face the fact in themselves until many years later.

[GlobalPessimum]

How can that number possibly be accurate when 1) gender and sex are these spectrum/grid things, and 2) most of us are in the closet anyway?

I don't know that gender and sex are a spectrum for kids. Rather, I have the hunch that for most kids, especially very young ones, being trans is a straight-up, very traditionally binary, girl/boy thing.

My reasoning for this is that a more nuanced concept of gender is something that a) is rare anyway, and b) takes considerable time to arrive at.

Simpler gender systems (such as a strict binary, or a binary plus a "third gender") are much easier for younger kids to understand.

I mean, it's so much easier to say "I'm a girl" when you're only four years old than "I'm a poly-gendered person with a preference for feminine attire and the colour pink and my preferred pronouns are xe, xem and xir".

Maybe the observation that most trans kids change their minds reflects this evolving concept of gender. While early on a simplistic view of gender might make you think that "I'm not a girl" because you like to play with fire trucks rather than dolls, once you've grown up a bit you realise that girls can dig fire trucks just as bad as boys do, so maybe wanting to play with fire trucks doesn't make you a boy.

Also: kids' identities are very flexible and it's a mistake to consider them from the point of view of rigid adult identities who have had a lot of time to settle and much opportunity for refinement.

[GlobalPessimum]

Cite this please.  It doesn't sound like a scientific theory...

It's entirely legitimate to express views that are not scientific and are not backed by references to some literature.

Anyway, throwing "citation needed" tags in the middle of ordinary convos is so early-noughties. You know, like LiveJournal, blogs and wikipedia? Nowadays, if you want to hit someone with an argument over the internets, you ask for data. You use statistics. "Hey-psst. What's the statistical significance of the research backing your claim, huh? And no p-hacking, thank you so much!" :|

[Jean24]

It's interesting too because people who transition young tend to be the ones who adapt the best to their new sex when it comes to social aspects of life. Also 1+ years of dysphoria in a young person is almost certainly genuine.

[Lily Rose]

If only hormone blockers had been available and I could have had them it would have been great.  That way I could have avoided the wrong development. Actually it would have even been better if I could have taken female hormones but my parents would never agreed to that.

  would agree with you, but if i could have been in the 40-60% that "change their minds". think i would have preferred that to be honest. how many of those truly change their minds or just go into hiding?