@Alexa CD - there is no possible way to coerce gender variant kids into transition. The bullying and stigma they face in schools *all* schools, pretty well insures only the most desperate come out. Your claim of 60 out kids is *really* hard to believe. The largest high school in America is the Brooklyn Technical High School in NY, with 8076 students. My fiancé is a police sergeant here in Dallas, and one of his schools is Skyline #12 in the nation, with 4697 students. I don't know what it's like in the Brooklyn Technical High School, but I can tell you at Skyline there are only a handful of trans kids. And for good reason - being in Skyline is a risky proposition, even if you aren't transgender. So for a school to have that many trans kids, well, it would need to be a pretty huge school. Using the BATHROOM is a hardship for trans students in many places. I can't speak for other places, but I am actively involved with this here in Texas, and I can tell you we don't have a school with 60 out trans kids - no freaking way. And I can also tell you that even with the more tolerant attitudes of many youth, there are enough hateful bigoted little troglodytes who'll make sure the trans kids get the crap kicked out of them.

So I apologize, but based on firsthand knowledge and experience as an activist in this area, your claims seem specious to me.

As for people who detransition, yeah that happens. It's relatively small, and it generally happens early on, either because:
- they lack resources and fail to launch
- they are on HRT for a while, and realize this isn't the right path for them

The first one is pretty sad, but usually they end up trying again later. I see a fair number of these, I don't see this as "it was wrong for them", just that the barrier to entry is still too high. The second group is what most people think of when they think of detransition, and out of the VERY LARGE number of trans people I know, I know four who've detransitioned, two MtF, two FtM. One of the MtF's, it just wasn't right for them. The other MtF dropped out for a woman. She'll be back. Both of the FtM's tried to transition, and realized they simply weren't transgender. It's a really low percentage though, I can tell you that. Nobody had surgery. (LOL, people who desperately need surgery can't get it here - it's not like they perform them at the Minute Clinic!)

As for gatekeeping, the only medical trans youth program in Texas is quite gatekeepery, and looks for kids who are persistent, insistent, and clearly binary before putting them on blockers - which are reversible. It's probably TOO gatekeepery, really. Because at a young age, I knew who I was. And look, here I am now. The kids who transition face enormous obstacles. They generally know what they are doing. The transtrenders are unlikely to come out, and sure as hell are unlikely to transition. They may talk about it, but talk is cheap.

The number of us have increased because the barrier to entry has lowered - there is still massive pressure to not come out, to not transition. I can't believe I am even having this discussion with a faceless, closeted CD, but here I am. Hey - if the barriers to entry are so low, why aren't you showing your face in your profile picture, sweetie? Oh right, the adults who'd make your life a living hell don't exist for kids. Oh puh-lease!

I'm sorry that you are trying to talk yourself out of whatever it is you are trying to talk yourself out of with all this stuff you are saying. Or rather that you are pretty obviously trying to talk yourself INTO staying closeted. And it's fine for you to do whatever it is you are doing with your life. It's your life and you should live it as you see fit. But I'm telling you that the figures you quote on desistence, post transition suicide, etc. are wrong, and the issues trans people face who DO end their lives well into transition are social in nature. Transition, at least for binary trans people, generally works GREAT. If only society didn't treat us like we were sub-human.

BTW, I believe a large number of older trans people who regret their decisions (and there aren't many of these) are likely non-binary and were shoe-horned into a binary gender by a system that only allowed for "male" and "female."