View article

In a previous Letter to the Editor (Zucker, Bradley, Owen-Anderson, Kibblewhite, & Cantor, 2008), we provided data on the number of referred children and adolescents to a specialized gender identity service between the years 1976–2007 (grouped by 4-year intervals). In that Letter, we noted three key observations:(a) the number of children assessed on an annual basis substantially exceeded the number of adolescents assessed;(b) the number of referred children increased sharply for the 1988–1991 cohort and had remained stable since that time; and (c) in the last cohort of adolescents (2004–2007), there was a sharp increase in the number of cases. Regarding the last point, we queried whether gender identity disorder in adolescents was “coming out of the closet” and suggested a number of reasons why this might be the case.