I've known a couple people who are trans or were heavily considering it, and they were all experiencing a very similar and severe identity crisis from repeated trauma and feelings of inadequacy. They'd start talking about the transition as if it would be some magic bullet to solve all their problems, but it really just came across as an escape mechanism. It felt like they just wanted a new life, and this provided them an identity that they could be proud of and easily find support for. It's this sort of anecdote that fuels a lot of society's transphobia, IMO.

At the end of the day though, it's a chicken and the egg problem -- we can't definitively say that one causes the other. Every person I've talked to who was planning on or was already undergoing transition was confident that they were born in the wrong body, even if that same person changed their mind shortly thereafter and is glad to this day that they didn't go through with it.

But what does it matter? In an ideal world, anyone should be able to wear whatever clothes, hairstyles, and makeup that they want to wear. Social constructs are fleeting. If an adult wants to do something that doesn't harm anyone else, go for it; it's your life, and everyone else can just fuck right off.

Obviously that's where the child part comes into play, though. In the real world, it unfortunately is dangerous to be transgendered. Even if you could 100% fully counteract any treatments (at best, your original hormone development would still be behind by a set amount of time), there's still a risk of irreparable social damage. At the same time, if someone's going to transition permanently, they really need to get on that during puberty for optimal results. It's a shitty situation no matter how you spin it, really.