Our Research

Gender identity development has typically been considered a child development research area (Gülgöz et al., 2019). Yet 40% of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people start to realize that they feel different than their sex at birth by 11 years of age or older, and a smaller proportion come out as TGD by 10 years of age (James et al., 2016). These data suggest that gender identity exploration is salient for many adolescents, and use of hormone therapy may be included in this process. However, there is a concern that gender identity variability may be associated with compromised health (Kcomt et al., 2022). In this study, we explore how gender identity may vary during adolescence and early adulthood in a community-based sample.