The Gender Affirmative Model: What We Know and What We Aim to Learn

摘要

In the summer of 2013, Dr. Jack Drescher published an editorial opinion about gender-nonconforming children in the New York Times in which he stated: "Currently experts can't tell apart kids who outgrow gender dysphoria (desisters) from those who do not (persisters), and how to treat them is controversial". As members of a four-site child gender clinic group, we concur with Dr. Drescher regarding the controversy, but take issue with his assessment of experts and their inability to differentially assess "persisters" and "desisters" in childhood. We would like to take this opportunity to outline the gender affirmative model from which we practice, dispel myths about this model, and briefly outline the state of knowledge in our field regarding facilitators of healthy psychosocial development in gender-nonconforming children.