Gender dysphoria comes at an early age, and ID documents may make a difference later

Transgender adults who later seek gender-affirming surgery recall feeling different than their assigned gender before age 7, a new study of 200 people reports — about two years later than most people can pin down their first memories. That’s consistent with other research showing that gender identity generally becomes fixed between age 5 and 7, and that gender dysphoria — discomfort with one’s assigned gender — comes early in life. A larger survey of more than 22,000 transgender people, also published Monday, found that people whose identity documents matched their preferred name and gender felt less severe psychological distress, including suicidal thoughts or actions, than transgender people whose documents only partially reflected or didn’t line up at all.