Children with gender identity disorder: Is there a best practice?

Almost 50 years of clinical observation and research on children with gender identity disorder have provided useful information on phenomenology, diagnostic and assessment procedures, associated psychopathology, tests of etiological hypotheses, and natural history. In contrast, best practice guidelines and evidence-based therapeutics have lagged sorely behind these other domains. Accordingly, the therapist must rely on the “clinical wisdom” that has accumulated and to utilize largely untested case formulation conceptual models to inform treatment approaches and decisions. Because of this state of affairs, dogmatic assertions about best practice should be avoided.