Young children moving to a new gender with social change – adopting new names, pronouns, hairstyles and clothes – are likely to continue to identify with that gender five years later, according to a report released Wednesday, the first study of its kind.
The data comes from the Trans Youth Project, a well-known effort after 317 children in the United States and Canada went through a so-called social transition between the ages of 3 and 12. Participants passed on average at the age of 6.5.
The majority of the group still identified with their new sex five years later, according to the study, and many of them started hormonal drugs in adolescence to cause biological changes to adapt to their gender. identity. The study found that 2.5% of the group returned to identifying their gender at birth.
As tensions in courtrooms and state houses across the country grow over appropriate health care for transgender children, there is little hard data to use for their long-term development. The new study provides one of the first large data sets for this group. The researchers plan to continue following this group for 20 years after the start of their social transitions.
“There’s a kind of idea that kids are going to start these things and change their minds,” said Christina Olson, a psychologist at Princeton University who is leading the study. “And at least we don’t find that in our sample.”
However, Dr. Olson and other researchers have suggested that the study may not be generalized to all transgender children. Two-thirds of the participants were white, for example, and parents tended to have higher incomes and more education than the general population. All parents provided enough support to facilitate full social transitions.
And since the study began nearly a decade ago, it’s unclear whether it reflects today’s patterns, when many more children identify as trance. Two-thirds of the participants in the study were transgender girls who were assigned boys at birth. But in the last few years, youth clinics around the world have reported an increase in adolescent patients who are assigned girls at birth who have recently been identified as trans boys or non-binary.
The group also has a high rate of mental health problems, including autism and ADHD, said Laura Edwards-Lipper, a clinical psychologist in Oregon who specializes in caring for transgender children. “This is really the group I’m most concerned about these days,” she said.
“I would say that this study tells us nothing about these children,” added Dr. Edwards-Lipper. “It’s just so different.”
Researchers from the Trans Youth Project began recruiting participants in 2013, traveling to more than 40 states and two Canadian provinces to interview families. Such in-depth data are rare in this type of research, which is often obtained from online surveys or through children referred to gender-specific clinics, which are usually older and often from more limited geographical areas.
Previously published work from the project showed that children who were supported by their parents during social transitions were approximately equal to non-transgender children in terms of the degree of depression, with slightly increased levels of anxiety.
A new study published in the journal Pediatrics follows this group as they reach a milestone approximately five years after their initial social transitions. The survey found that 94 percent of the group still identified as transsexual five years later. Another 3.5 percent identify as non-binary, meaning they do not identify as boys or girls. This label was not as widely used when researchers began research as it is today.
By the end of the study period, in 2020, 60% of children had started taking either puberty-blocking drugs or hormones. Researchers are still collecting data on how many teenagers have undergone sex surgery, Dr. Olson said.
Eight children, or 2.5 percent, have passed back to the sex assigned to them at birth. Seven of them underwent a social transition before the age of 6 and went back before the age of 9. The eighth child, aged 11, returned after taking anti-puberty drugs.
Studies from the 1990s and 2000s suggested that many children diagnosed with sexual dysphoria or gender identity disorder (a psychological diagnosis that no longer exists) would resolve their gender problems after puberty, usually between the ages of 10 and 13. . Some of these earlier studies have been criticized because children’s doctors advise their parents to divert them from transgender identity.
In the decades since this work was done, public acceptance of gender diversity has increased, medical practices have changed and the number of transgender children has increased significantly.
Pressure to restrict the rights of young transgender people
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Growing trend. Measures that could change the lives of young transgender people are at the center of heated political debates across America. Here is how some countries approach the topic:
Indiana. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed a bill that would ban transgender girls from competing in sports for girls approved by the school. The governor said the bill, known as HEA 1041, is likely to be challenged in court.
Utah A day after the decision in Indiana, Gov. Spencer Cox, also a Republican, vetoed a similar bill that would ban young transgender athletes from participating in sports for girls. Subsequently, Republican lawmakers voted to repeal the veto and passed the legislation.
Other countries. Since 2019, lawmakers have introduced bills aimed at banning transgender young people from joining school sports teams according to their gender identity. They have become law in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
For these reasons, it makes no sense to compare the new study with older research, said Russ Toomey, a professor of family research and human development at the University of Arizona.
“It’s really comparing apples to oranges,” said Dr. Tumi. Many of the children in earlier studies were female boys whose parents were upset by their behavior, they said. “Many of these children in these early studies, who are often cited, have never even been labeled or have been labeled as transsexual.”
New research may suggest that transgender children, when supported by their parents, thrive on their identity. But it is also possible that some of the children who still identified as transgender by the end of the study – or their parents – felt pressured to continue on the path they had begun.
“I think, depending on your point of view, people are likely to interpret this data differently,” said Amy Tischelman, a clinical psychologist at Boston College and lead author of a chapter on child care at the World Professional Association for Transsexual Health.
“Some people may say that children are on this trajectory of development and cannot go down, and that medical interventions may be irreversible and they may regret it,” she said. “Other people will say that children know their gender and when they are supported in their gender, they are happy.”
While most clinicians agree that social transitions can be beneficial for some children who question their gender, Dr. Tischelman said, it is also important to support those who change their minds. “It’s just very important for children to be able to continue to feel good, to be fluent, to keep researching,” she said.
More data on the cohort, as it continues into adolescence, may reveal how many children choose to move after starting hormone therapy.
Dr Olson said her group would soon publish additional qualitative research describing the experiences of the relatively small number of children in the cohort who had moved back to their original gender identity. These children were doing well, she said when supported by their families.
“In our work, we don’t just want to know which category they fit into today compared to tomorrow,” Dr. Olson said.
“I think of all these children as different sexes in different ways,” she added, “and we want to figure out how to help make their lives better.”
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