Paths to coming out for trans*people: The importance of the social environment and the internet for the discovery, acceptance and realisation of one's own gender identity

Over the past two decades, the number of cases of young people presenting to the healthcare system with indications of a transgender identity and associated gender dysphoria has risen sharply in Western countries. At the same time, social and legal transitions as well as medical transition treatments in adulthood are also on the rise. With regard to adolescence, there is controversy about the extent to which "social contagion", e.g. via social media, can play a role in this phenomenon, a controversial theory that has been described under the term "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (Littman, 2018), the empirical basis of which has so far been based exclusively on surveys of parents of adolescent trans* people, without directly examining the perspective of those affected. The planned study examines various indicators and conditions of the coming-out behaviour of trans* people on the basis of self-reports.