Do Clinical Data from Transgender Adolescents Support the Phenomenon of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”?

There is no clinical evidence to support the concept of "Rapid onset gender dysphoria" in adolescents.

We did not find support within a clinical population for a new etiologic phenomenon of rapid onset gender dysphoria during adolescence. Among adolescents under age 16 years seen in specialized gender clinics, associations between more recent gender knowledge and factors hypothesized to be involved in rapid onset gender dysphoria were either not statistically significant, or were in the opposite direction to what would be hypothesized. This putative phenomenon was posited based on survey data from a convenience sample of parents recruited from websites,10 and may represent the perceptions or experiences of those parents, rather than of adolescents, particularly those who may enter into clinical care. Similar analyses should be replicated using additional clinical and community data sources. Our finding of lower anxiety severity/impairment scores in adolescents with more recent gender knowledge suggests the potential for longstanding experiences of gender dysphoria (or their social complications) playing a role in development of anxiety, which could also be explored in future research.

• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2021.11.020
• https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(21)01085-4/fulltext#relatedArticles
• https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(21)01085-4/pdf