ABSTRACT
Gender identity-disordered adolescents have greater difficulties in achieving a sense of their own distinct personality during their normative adolescent crisis. It needs to be stressed that young people with a gender identity disorder face the same risk factors for depression and suicidal behaviour that affect other youth. Loneliness, social withdrawal, and isolation are common in male and female youngsters with gender identity disorder. Premature fixations could be questioned in order to help the adolescent remain flexible enough to think about different possible solutions to overcoming the internal split between biological sex and mental identification. The retrospective studies support the clinical experience that adult transsexuals have a high lifetime prevalence of attempted suicide and depression. Two important risk factors for suicidal behaviour are emerging from retrospective studies of gay adults: a feminine gender role in boys and an adolescent-loner status both in females and males.
