Treatment
Treatment for a person diagnosed with GD may include psychological counseling, supporting the individuals gender expression, or hormone therapy or surgery. This may involve physical transition resulting from medical interventions such as hormonal treatment, genital surgery, electrolysis or laser hair removal, chest/breast surgery, or other reconstructive surgeries. The goal of treatment may simply be to reduce problems resulting from the persons transgender status, for example, counseling the patient in order to reduce guilt associated with cross-dressing.Guidelines have been established to aid clinicians. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care are used by some clinicians as treatment guidelines. Others use guidelines outlined in Gianna Israel and Donald Tarvers Transgender Care. Guidelines for treatment generally follow a "harm reduction" model. Children
Medical, scientific, and governmental organizations have opposed conversion therapy, defined as treatment viewing gender nonconformity as pathological and something to be changed, instead supporting approaches that affirm childrens diverse gender identities. People are more likely to keep having gender dysphoria the more intense their gender dysphoria, cross-gendered behavior, and verbal identification with the desired/experienced gender are (i.e.
A WPATH commissioned systematic review of the outcomes of hormone therapy "found evidence that gender-affirming hormone therapy may be associated with improvements in [quality of life] scores and decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms among transgender people." The strength of the evidence was low due to methodological limitations of the studies undertaken. Some literature suggests that gender-affirming surgery is associated with improvements in quality of life and decreased incidence of depression. Those who choose to undergo sex reassignment surgery report high satisfaction rates with the outcome, though these studies have limitations including risk of bias (lack of randomization, lack of controlled studies, self-reported outcomes) and high loss to follow up.For adolescents, much is unknown, including persistence. Disagreement among practitioners regarding treatment of adolescents is in part due to the lack of long-term data. Young people qualifying for biomedical treatment according to the Dutch model (including having GD from early childhood on which intensifies at puberty and absence of psychiatric comorbidities that could challenge diagnosis or treatment) found reduction in gender dysphoria, although limitations to these outcome studies have been noted, such as lack of controls or considering alternatives like psychotherapy.In its position statement published December 2020, the Endocrine Society stated that there is durable evidence for a biological underpinning to gender identity and that pubertal suppression, hormone therapy, and medically indicated surgery are effective and relatively safe when monitored appropriately and have been established as the standard of care.