Finding the you that fits you: A young adult's account of their trans journey and reflections from their former clinician

Whilst the majority of the adolescents seen in the UK's child and adolescent Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) plan to continue receiving support for specialist gender services beyond age 18, some will not. Of these... [ view full abstract ]

Whilst the majority of the adolescents seen in the UK's child and adolescent Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) plan to continue receiving support for specialist gender services beyond age 18, some will not. Of these some indicate that they plan to live in the gender they were assigned at birth. Research into rates of persistence versus desistence rates has attempted to uncover differences between those who continue to hold a trans identity and those who do not (Steensma et al, 2010; Steensma et al, 2013)


GIDS operates under a protocol where adolescents must have had at least 12 months of hypothalamic blocker injections and be age 16 or over before cross-sex hormones can be considered. Young people are usually also expected to have had some experience presenting in their preferred gender.


Hormone blockers are envisaged to provide young people with thinking space to think about future choices without the pressure of their sex hormones and further pubertal development. The experience of living in a non-assigned gender role can help adolescents to clarify the extent to which gender is the cause (or solution) of their unhappiness or distress.

This clinical vignette presents the experiences of a young adult (assigned female at birth) in her own words, who first presented to GIDS at age 16 and who also socially transitioned to a male gender presentation at that... [ view full abstract ]

This clinical vignette presents the experiences of a young adult (assigned female at birth) in her own words, who first presented to GIDS at age 16 and who also socially transitioned to a male gender presentation at that time. Shortly before her 18th birthday, she transitioned back to a female gender presentation. She describes how having arrived at the conclusion that living as male was not the right "fit" for her does not mean that she regrets her time in the trans community and considers how it has been part of her overall identity development.

Following this, in part drawing upon a conceptual framework of outsider witnessing from narrative therapy (White & Epston, 1990) her former GIDS clinician reflects on his response to the young person's story and discuss how this has influenced his practice working with other adolescents and their families. Together we consider how this experience may inform other young people and clinicians in their discussions around ongoing gender identity development in adolescence.

We conclude by examining how individual case studies of people whose trans journeys do not end in transition can help clinicians better support people in making the right choices for them, regardless of how their gender... [ view full abstract ]

We conclude by examining how individual case studies of people whose trans journeys do not end in transition can help clinicians better support people in making the right choices for them, regardless of how their gender identity develops.