And it’s getting to the point where therapists are instructed NOT to deal first with the underlying or pre-existing depression or other issues in someone who claims a transgender identity. The American Psychological Association recently released guidelines (written by a task force composed largely of transgender adults) which conflate “gender nonconformity” with having a trans identity; they actually coin a new acronym TGNC, and I could find no real support for helping kids who don’t fit stereotypes to feel comfortable in their own bodies.  The guidelines strongly discourage clinicians from attributing any causality link for gender dysphoria to underlying mental health issues.  It appears to only be acceptable to claim causality in the opposite direction–that depression, anxiety, and so forth are caused by GD.

http://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/transgender.pdf

There are certainly some clinicians who don’t go along with all of this, but increasingly, they feel unable to openly buck  the trend. See this account from a clinician who describes in detail her concerns and her reasons for resigning from a practice that served adolescents because she felt railroaded into diagnosing teens as trans, no questions asked. She says that her clinical judgment was no longer valued in this one area of practice.

http://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exiles-in-their-own-flesh-a-psychotherapist-speaks/