Two recent studies in the journal Pediatrics provide evidence that gender-dysphoric children generally have improved mental health outcomes when therapeutic measures such as hormone blockers are employed early on. Of course, this data is consistent with a subset of children having worsened mental health outcomes (e.g. gender dysphoria dissipating naturally thereby leading to regret over earlier therapeutic choices). The real question that interests me is the extent to which Christians are willing to consider the weight of clinical evidence in favor of proactive therapeutic treatment or whether they are closed, a priori to such evidence. And if the latter, on what basis?
Consider a hypothetical scenario in which a child named David is suffering from severe clinical depression and threatening self-mutilation. Desperate, her parents agree to use her preferred name and pronouns and to allow her to begin therapeutic treatments that will lead to her body conforming with her self-understanding of gender. Fast-forward fifteen years and Daisy is flourishing as a young woman, at least by all external measures of mental health treatment. Does that positive outcome provide evidence that the therapeutic decisions to treat her gender dysphoria were correct? And if not, why not?
