I never said that they don't, just that the opportunities to do so diminish post-puberty and with age, and many people give up on the dream of being themselves.
> But plenty of them come out as gay later in life.
Some do, but statistics show that the majority don't. At some point it stops making sense to identify as a gay/bi person if you've been married for 20 years and have no intention of leaving. That ship has sailed, so to speak. The same thing happens with trans people for very practical and biological reasons post-puberty.
The majority of patients stop experiencing gender dysphoria. The analogy to a married person "stuck in the closet" is not correct: in that scenario this person is still same-sex attracted but suppresses that desire. In the case of ~80% of gender dysphoric youth, they stop desiring to be the cross-sex gender altogether. They are not refraining from transition on account of doubting their ability to pass after having gone through natal puberty.
> Some do, but statistics show that the majority don't.
Well, yeah. That's because it literally was a passing phase that the child experienced. That's why there's so many studies (some of them linked in this thread) showing that if you simply defer the decision until the minor is a major , the majority of gender dysphoria desists.
IOW, once the child has actually matured a little, their identity confusion goes away.
Deferring is the path of least harm; is it any wonder then that most of the people in the world, including highly secular countries, go that route?
The statistics I am talking about are the rates of gay/bi identification by generation.
There's a reason there's nearly 10x as many gay identifying people in recent generations compared to past, and you can't generalize it as being a "phase". The true rates are likely the same, but people who identify that way dip off as you go back generations.
You notice the same pattern with left-handedness and those who identify as left-handed over time.
> But plenty of them come out as gay later in life.
Some do, but statistics show that the majority don't. At some point it stops making sense to identify as a gay/bi person if you've been married for 20 years and have no intention of leaving. That ship has sailed, so to speak. The same thing happens with trans people for very practical and biological reasons post-puberty.