They were usually coming in very miserable, feeling like an outsider in school, depressed or anxious, recalled Dr. Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, a retired psychologist at the clinic. And then you start to do this treatment, and a few years later, you see them blossoming.
But before kids enter puberty, it's impossible to tell which ones will become more comfortable with their gender and which will have gender identity disorder, said Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, who works with these children and teens at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.