Previously in Part 1: Endocrine aspects, cardiovascular risk, and sexual functioning.
No “objective tests”? Affirming treatment and persistent gender dysphoria in youth
There are no laboratory, imaging, or other objective tests to diagnose a “true transgender” child. Children with GD will outgrow this condition in 61% to 98% of cases by adulthood (3). There is currently no way to predict who will desist and who will remain dysphoric. The degree to which GAT has contributed to the rapidly increasing prevalence of GD in children is unknown. The recent phenomenon of teenage girls suddenly developing GD (rapid onset GD) without prior history through social contagion is particularly concerning (4).
Laidlaw et al.’s argument from the lack of “laboratory, imagining, or other objective tests to diagnose” gender dysphoria is far less persuasive than they seem to believe. There may not be one perfectly definitive and binary biomarker for gender dysphoria or transgender identification. There aren’t perfectly definitive biomarkers for a broad array of known and recognized conditions which are not ever invalidated solely on this basis. By the authors’ reasoning, one could likewise note that there is no blood test for major depression, and speculate that perhaps we can’t or shouldn’t diagnose or treat depression at all if we lack the ability to identify a “true depressed” person in this manner. Continue reading
This March, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism published a letter to the editor from an active voice in the anti-trans movement, Dr. Michael K. Laidlaw, and four other medical professionals who oppose the mainstream affirming treatment of gender dysphoria in youth 
In 2014, the family of RJ Appleberry filed a lawsuit claiming sex discrimination against Missouri’s Blue Springs School District. It went to the Court of Appeals after being dismissed by a circuit judge in Jackson County, and found its way to the Missouri Supreme Court where the dismissal was finally overturned in February of 2019. Five years later, the original lawsuit can finally proceed.
