Although gender clinics claim there is little treatment regret, the Cass report says: “The percentage of [young] people treated with hormones who subsequently detransition remains unknown due to the lack of long-term follow-up studies, although there is suggestion that numbers are increasing.”
Given the risks and unknowns, the report urges “an extremely cautious clinical approach” to any cross-sex hormone provision at age 16, when this intervention becomes available under some treatment guidelines. In Australia, younger girls are put on testosterone, which is meant to be taken lifelong.
The recording of the July 2 Cass webinar, hosted by Australia’s National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, is here.
At the Australian webinar, picking up a key theme of her report, Dr Cass stressed how important it was for transgender identifying youth—girls dominate the mostly teenage caseload of gender clinics—to keep their options open as long as possible during a period of development and change.
“I was speaking to a gay friend who said, ‘We’re not hung up on this. We present however we want to present in a more masculine, androgynous or feminine way. And we feel that we have more flexibility than some of the binary trans community where there’s real pressure to conform to an idealised male or female appearance’.”