Is The “Non-Binary” Fad Ready To Fade?

Social fads tend to have rapid rises and rapid fades. They begin with just a few people, early adopters, then grow exponentially when highly influential celebrities or “trend-setters” adopt it. They begin to fade when the novelty factors no longer operate and the celebrities and trend-setters abandon it. One of the factors that begins the fade phase of the fad is when a growing number of people point out how silly or nonsensical the fad is.

Such may be what is happening with non-gender dysphoric / gender typical / straight people, mostly teenaged girls and young women claiming to be “trans” and/or “non-binary”.

This concept probably originated in the autogynephilic male cross-dressing (i.e. transvestite) community. Decades ago, they would often describe their cross-dressing as “exploring their feminine side”. There was an organization called the Society for the Second Self, often simply called “Tri-Ess” for short. Many such men would sometimes describe themselves as “Bi-Gendered” in a direct reference to the term “Bi-Sexual”, having both a male and female gender and expression.

But sometime in the early 2010’s, a number of women started claiming first to be “trans” when they clearly were not, to be “cool”. Why? Hard to sort out the beginnings of any social fad, but I strongly suspect it had to do with the unfortunate practice of Hollywood using non-trans actors to portray transsexuals.

The use of non-trans folk as transsexuals has the unfortunate effect of misleading people about the nature and expression of transsexuality. It was bad enough when young transitioning, naturally feminine, exclusively androphilic, Male-To-Female transsexuals were represented in film and television by masculine straight men, trying to act “feminine / gay”, giving the distinct impression of such transsexuals as being more like overly dramatic drag queens. But when young, feminine heterosexual women are cast as Female-To-Male transsexuals, especially if the actor is popular and admired, portrays transmen as “cool”, as was happening in some shows and movies (e.g. Hillary Swank), it misleads teenaged girls to falsely believe that they too could be “cool” and trans.

But then, actual transmen pushed back, pointing out that claiming to be transsexual when they were clearly not gender dysphoric (the definition of “transsexual”) was “uncool”. These young women likely picked up and modified the original “Bi-Gender” concept, making a reference to “asexual” to be “agender” and then “non-binary”. The value of claiming to be “non-binary” was that one didn’t need to be gender dysphoric, nor even gender atypical. It was the perfect way to claim to be “trans” without actually being “trans” anything.

Sometime in the 2010’s, the fad took off when such celebrities as Demi Lovato declared herself to be “non-binary”. Here was a very feminine, heterosexual woman, who could be emulated by teenaged girls and young women, without the cognitive dissonance of knowing that they were NOT actually “trans”.

Looking at some data in a relatively small study by Katiala-Heino, et al, comparing 2012-13 scores to 2017,

“The aim of this study was to explore whether there has been an increase in prevalence and changes in sex ratio in feelings of gender dysphoria (GD) in an adolescent population in Northern Europe, and to study the impact of invalid responding on this topic. We replicated an earlier survey among junior high school students in Tampere, Finland. All first and second year students, aged 16–18, in the participating schools were invited to respond to an anonymous classroom survey on gender experience during the 2012–2013 school year and in the spring and autumn terms of 2017. Gender identity/GD was measured using the GIDYQ-A. A total of 318 male and 401 female youth participated in 2012–2013, and 326 male and 701 female youth in 2017. In the earlier survey, the GIDYQ-A scores, both among males and females, were strongly skewed toward a cis-gender experience with very narrow interquartile ranges. Of males, 2.2%, and of females, 0.5% nevertheless reported possibly clinically significant GD. The 2017 GIDYQ-A distribution was similarly skewed. The proportion of those reporting potentially clinically significant GD was 3.6% among males and 2.3% among females. Validity screening proved to have a considerable impact on conclusions. GD seems to have increased in prevalence in the adolescent population.”

The authors noted that testing for dishonesty was highly correlated with positive answers to GD questions, especially among males. But note that the number of girls claiming to be “trans” jumped nearly five fold, from 0.5% to 2.3%, from 2012 to 2017.

This caused the exponential growth of the fad though “social contagion”. Such ridiculously high percentage of teenagers and young people, mostly female, claimed to be “trans” and “non-binary” (the two were very often lumped together as “gender diverse”) in polls that soon headlines with claims that transfolk were common in young people. It also lead to the false notion that there was an epidemic of actual gender dysphoria, because of the use of superficial trappings of FtM transsexuals to become known as “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”. This became weaponized in the current culture and legislative war against transkids and their medical care.

To be sure, the number of female teenagers referred to therapists and clinics because they claimed to be “trans” increased, but the numbers who actually transitioned were not really out of line with the small number historically expected based on the number of adult transmen transitioning in past. Though, it was obvious that some of the increase was caused by non-gender dysphoric girls mistakenly referred to the clinics.

As I said, fads eventually fade. When will this one fade? Could it be that it already is? Demi Lovato went back to “she/her” pronouns last year, indicative of the “influencer” effect fading.

Consider that in Turbin, et al, they used a very large poll from two different years. They found 2.4% (similar to the 2.3% from Finland that same year) and 1.6% respectively. If the numbers can be trusted, the drop over the two year period from 2017 to 2019 of 50% would indicate that the fad is fading. Another researcher with extreme numbers, Kidd, found in her survey that it had dropped from 10% a few years ago to 7% in 2022, a 30% drop, also indicating that the fad is fading. What of the numbers being referred to clinics?

Our favorite Netherlands clinic recently published a paper on 20 years of treating transkids. This is a graph from that paper showing the number referred to the clinic each year.

Note that the number of those older than ten years old (pre-teens and teens) peaked in 2017 and then dramatically dropped (nearly 45%) in 2018. We don’t have more recent data, but this does agree with the other data points we have.

It looks like the fad may have peaked in 2017. I shall be keeping an eye on this to see if the apparent fade continues.

Addendum 5/9/2023:

Another paper, this one from Sweden, showing the same trend from 2012 to the sudden downturn in 2017/18 by 40% in 2020, essentially duplicating the other studies, as the authors clearly state,

“We find that the increase of young transgender men seems to have peaked around 2018 and find
no evidence for further increases in 2019 and 2020.”

Further Reading:

Autogynephilia

Butterfly Effect

Lost In The Crowd

Falsely Claiming To Be “Trans” is Cool, (NOT!)

ROGD Redux

External Reading:

Wikipedia Entry on Fads

References:

Katiala-Heino, R., et al, “Gender dysphoria in adolescent population: A 5-year replication study” Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1359104519838593

Turbin, et al., “Sex Assigned at Birth Ratio Among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents In The United States”, Pediatrics (2022), https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-056567

Kidd, K. et al., “The Prevalence of Gender-Diverse Youth in a Rural Appalachian Region”, JAMA Pediatrics (2022), DOI:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.2768

van der Loos, et al., “Children and adolescents in the Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria: trends in diagnostic- and treatment trajectories during the first 20 years of the Dutch Protocol”, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2023;, qdac029, https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac029

Kolk, Martin and Tilley, J. Lucas and von Essen, Emma and Moberg, Ylva and Burn, Ian, Demographic Trends in Sweden’s Transgender Population (1973–2020) (April 24, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4427508 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4427508

Is Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome Really Associated With Gender Dysphoria?

A couple years ago, I got an email from someone who felt that I was failing in my exploration of the science by not writing about how Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome causes one to be transgender. I was confused. I had never seen any paper to suggest such a connection. Plus, something about the way this correspondent wrote about it set off several red flags of someone seeking confirmation and affirmation, not information.

Now there is a paper that purports to provide evidence of a connection. But how and why this should be so opens up more questions than answers as I will explain.

First, one must understand that Ehlers-Danlos is one of those syndromes that is both rare and not easy to diagnose. It has been associated with several genetic variants that deal with connective tissue development. The syndrome is defined as causing very loose, “mobile” joints. Something most people call “double jointed”. It’s also said to cause “stretchy” “smooth” skin. Doesn’t sound very bad until one learns that this hypermobility is associated with disabling, even crippling, dislocations of hip and other joints.

But why should a connective tissue problem cause gender dysphoria?

In Jones, et al, he reports that among his TEENAGED patients, 17% reported gender dysphoria. Had this been published in the 1970s, I would have been astounded and would be strongly urging further research into the connection. But this was published in December of 2022. This suggests a far simpler explanation: teenagers falsely claiming to be “trans” and “non-binary”.

We already know that in some other studies up to 10% of teenagers making such a claim. Add to that number the idea of being diagnosed with a rare genetic variant and a social network of teens with said variant, all feeling “special” and told that there is an association with being “trans”, we get a perfect storm for a classic fad. A super majority of 89% of these patients claiming to be “trans” and “non-binary” were female, which fits the recent trend of “tucutes”.

But the ultimate suspicious hint that this is a social imitation phenomena among teens is this statement from the researchers, “To date, there have been no reports of prevalence of TGD youth in pediatric patients with EDS.”

But now we need to look at other data, from the other direction. We must never be blinded by confirmation bias or cherry picking. What of those who are adults receiving medical transition services? Here we find another paper, published in 2022, that reported that of over a thousand patients being treated for gender dysphoria, 2.6% had a diagnoses of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is ~136 times more than is found in the general population. Further, 67% of them were female.

So we are left with a conundrum. How is it that a connective tissue syndrome is associated with gender dysphoria?

References:

Jones JT, Black WR, Moser CN, Rush ET, Malloy Walton L. Gender dysphoria in adolescents with Ehlers–Danlos syndrome. SAGE Open Medicine. 2022;10. doi:10.1177/20503121221146074

Najafian, A.; Cylinder I.; Jedrzejewski B.; Sineath C.; Sikora Z.; Martin LH.; Dugi D.; Dy GW.; Berli JU. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: prevalence and outcomes in gender affirming surgery – a single institution experience. Plast. Aesthet. Res. 2022, 9, 35. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-9264.2021.89

Sex Reassignment Surgery Demographics in the Netherlands

Our favorite folks in Amsterdam have provided data set on MTF transsexuals receiving SRS in their clinic covering 40 years. The paper is openly available online, not behind a paywall, so you may read it for yourself. But I have a few observations and comments regarding the data and the authors’ comments.

First, let’s look at the data, reorganized into putatively HSTS vs. AGP. (Yes, given all we know about MTF transwomen, I will assume that all non-exclusively androphilic transwomen are AGP.)

Table 1

Demographics of transgender women undergoing primary genital gender-affirming surgery at the authors’ institution between January 1980 and January 2020

Demographics	Total	Vaginoplasty	Orchiectomy	GCV
Number	n=1531	n=1468	n=44	n=19
Age at surgery (SD=1)	33 (25–44)	33 (24–44)	32 (26–45)	54 (45–60)
Sexual orientation (self report) n=	699	645	42	12
HSTS n= (%)	372 (53)	357 (55)	13 (31)	2 (17)

As the authors noted, “Individuals who opted for GCV (vulvaplasty only, no vaginoplasty) were generally older, had no history of puberty suppression, and were more frequently sexually oriented towards women.” The same could be said for orchiectomy as well. HSTS are much more likely to want/need vaginoplasty over other possible choices as one would expect, so as to be able to have vaginal intercourse with men.

The authors made a comment that I found ahistorical. They believe that GCV is a relatively new procedure. It is not. In fact, Christine Jorgensen had GCV only in 1952, as reported by her surgeon, Dr. Christian Hamburger, as neither of them desired to facilitate sex with men. Similarly, “orchies”, as we called them back in the 1970s, was common for both HSTS and AGP in the early 20th through the mid- to late-20th Century due to greater ease of obtaining them. (Some of this was due to the Eugenics Movement, which was only too happy to sterilize “perverts”.)

Finally, the authors wrote about encouraging “fertility preservation” but seem to lament that it isn’t possible for those who begin puberty blockers early, “The increase in individuals starting puberty suppression at early pubertal stages, when serum testosterone concentrations are insufficient for spermatogenesis, may lead to an increase in individuals without options for preservation of fertility.” This strikes me as “unclear on the the concept” as why would such MTF early transitioners, who are all HSTS (as even this clinic’s own data attests), want or need to cryostore sperm. Just who will they impregnate, their future husbands?

Reference:

Van der Sluis, et al., “Surgical and demographic trends in genital gender-affirming surgery in transgender women: 40 years of experience in Amsterdam”, British Journal of Surgery, Volume 109, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages 8–11, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znab213

The Search For Groomers In All The Wrong Places

Child Sex Abuse (CSA) is wrong, no matter who does it or why.

Let me say that again.

Child Sex Abuse is wrong, no matter who does it or why.

Lately, homophobic and transphobic activists (lets call them who they really are) have been falsely claiming that LGBT people and allies who support transsexual children and teens are “grooming” such youth. This is a libel, a calumny, a slander, of the worst type.

Actual grooming is a practice of slowly gaining the trust (and sometimes fear) of a child so that one can perpetrate CSA with that child.

I know what actual grooming is and looks like. Please let me share a few anecdotes.

When I was nine years old, my father would take me to the bowling alley so that I might participate in a youth bowling league. Both of my parents also bowled in leagues. My father had worked at a bowling alley when he was in college, where he met my mother. The owner/managers of the lanes were neighbors and friends. Thus, I was well known at the bowling alley to all of the employees. It was one of my habits at the lanes to go to the little coffee shop in the building to buy a donut while my father practiced.

One day, as I sat at the counter eating my donut, a man sat down beside me and began to chat me up. He ordered a hot chocolate for me to go with the donut. I was very unsure about this man. On the one hand, his attentions rang alarm bells in ways that I had not the experience or knowledge to comprehend. I wanted him to leave me alone. On the other hand, I had been raised to be polite. Always.

Somebody must have seen and understood what was going on because suddenly my father was there. He was furious! He was yelling at the man to get lost. His anger frightened me. Usually when he was this angry, somebody was going to get ‘strapped’. (Recall this was the ’60s… and my father was from a working class, oil refinery town on the Gulf Coast, on the boarder of Texas and Louisiana, “Deep South” territory and mores. Corporal punishment was the norm.) The man beat a retreat. (I never saw him again.) My dad yelled at me to get in the car. He drove us home in angry silence. It would be years before I understood that he wasn’t angry with me. But at the time, I thought that he was. Further, I took it that it was me who had done something “bad”.

A year later, I was sent every Friday afternoon to “play” with Dr. Peters, a tall bearded man, in a room filled with toys… but only boy’s toys. Again, it would be years before I understood that this “play” was actually “conversion therapy” to stop me from being gender atypical / gender dysphoric. Dr. Peters must have felt that I just wasn’t connecting, trusting, him so one day, instead of trying to get me to “play” with the toys (which being boy’s toys, I had no interest), he took me for a walk down the street to an ice cream shop. He offered to buy my an ice cream cone. Can you imagine my reaction? Here was another man I didn’t trust trying to ply me with a treat?

Kay Brown with her adopted daughter Liz

Let’s fast forward a few decades. I have taken in my second foster child, only seven years old. She had “behavioral challenges” due to early abuse and neglect. No need to detail them. She attended a special school. No need to got into details there either. So, every day, a special bus would pick her up at my house and drop her off afterwards. One day, she mentioned that since she was the last child on the route, the nice bus driver would stop at a store nearby and buy her a treat before dropping her off at my house.

ALARM BELLS !!!

I contacted our Social Worker who went into action!

Whether or not the bus driver was attempting to groom my new foster daughter (later my adopted daughter) for sexual purposes, at the very least, he was deemed to be inappropriately setting her up to be so groomed by someone else! Whether it was a bus driver or a licensed therapist, such actions should not take place.

Now, on the other hand. Politically and socially supporting access to needed Gender Affirming Care in no way involves the above types of behavior. Parents, therapists, and physicians providing such care are not either. Calling LGBT people, our allies, and youth care providers “groomers” causes harm in two ways. One, it distracts from what grooming actually is and what actions are likely to indicate it, thus putting children into potential harm’s way. Two, it harms those who are falsely accused of being groomers.

To those who are calling any LGB and especially T folk “groomers”, I cordially invite you to perform an anatomically implausible act upon yourself.

More Proof That Transsexual Teens Persist

We have another paper looking at the number of transsexual teens that began puberty blockers and/or HRT who continue to take them into adulthood. That is to say, that they ‘persisted’. This is important because transphobic activists keep pushing a propaganda lie that most gender dysphoric youth ‘desist’ being such and detransition, to become “detrans”.

From the study,

“720 people were included, of whom 220 (31%) were assigned male at birth and 500 (69%) were assigned female at birth. At the start of GnRHa treatment, the median age was 14·1 (IQR 13·0–16·3) years for people assigned male at birth and 16·0 (14·1–16·9) years for people assigned female at birth. Median age at end of data collection was 20·2 (17·9–24·8) years for people assigned male at birth and 19·2 (17·8–22·0) years for those assigned female at birth. 704 (98%) people who had started gender-affirming medical treatment in adolescence continued to use gender-affirming hormones at follow-up. Age at first visit, year of first visit, age and puberty stage at start of GnRHa treatment, age at start of gender-affirming hormone treatment, year of start of gender-affirming hormone treatment, and gonadectomy were not associated with discontinuing gender-affirming hormones.”

The latest paper adds another 720 subjects from the Netherlands to the 1,057 in the UK [Butler] study earlier this year for a total of 1,777 teens who began medical transition treatment. In the UK study showed that 94.5% of the teens persisted into adulthood while the Netherland study showed that 98% did so. Combined, the number is 95.8%. Round it off to 96%.

In this study, age at beginning treatment did not correlate with ‘desistance’, which is not the case with the UK study which showed that those that did desist, had been on the younger side. This is in keeping with earlier studies from the Netherlands and Canada that showed that those that desisted, did so BEFORE puberty, and thus never began medical treatment.

Once again, we have solid, reproducible evidence that transsexual teens are unlikely to detransition, to stop medical transition. Any who say otherwise are either misinformed or are willfully lying.

Further Reading:

Transsexual Teens In UK Gender Dysphoria Treatment

Age of Innocence (Desistence)

References:

van der Loos, M. et al., “Continuation of gender affirming hormones in transgender people starting puberty suppression in adolescence: a cohort study in the Netherlands”, Lancet (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00254-1

Butler G, Adu-Gyamfi K, Clarkson K, et al., “Discharge outcome analysis of 1089 transgender young people referred to paediatric endocrine clinics in England 2008–2021” Archives of Disease in Childhood (2022) doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2022-324302

Transsexual Teens In UK Gender Dysphoria Treatment

In a spate of recent UK media there was a wild accusation that a “thousand” youths were suing the National Health Service for wrongly pushing them into transsexual medical treatments. But there is a serious problem with this statement. That number, a thousand, is roughly the TOTAL number of transsexual teens that have been treated in the UK from 2008 through 2021. Are ALL of them suing the NHS? No, the story is disinformation generated by a transphobic propagandists under the rubric of the “Big Lie” theory, that the bigger the lie, the more believable it is. In truth, very few teens would be unhappy with receiving treatment and most would be very grateful. (Though they may grumble about aspects of the hoops they had to clear to get it.)

I’m a US citizen living in California, so I have zero direct experience with the UK NHS and their gender dysphoria treatment system. But as I understand it, to get treatment, one must jump through multiple hoops, first convincing a (potentially transphobic) skeptical General Practitioner (GP) to provide a referral to the Gender Identity Service (GIDS). The GIDS does a psych and history evaluation and may or may not provide a referral to the Endocrine Service which may or may not then provide puberty blockers (PB) or cross-sex Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

If you were to believe the propaganda, you would be think that the NHS hands out HRT like candy on Halloween. They do not. Further, the real numbers from these clinics show that the number of teens treated is NOT indicative of an “epidemic” of gender dysphoria. Far from it.

We need to review some stats. The current population of the entire UK is a bit over 67 million people. The long time historical estimate of actual transsexuals, those who experience gender dysphoria, seek medical treatment, and live full time as the opposite sex is known to be less than one in ten thousand (<1:10,000). That includes those that seek treatment as adults. So, the maximum number of people we expect in the NHS system receiving HRT and later Sex Reassignment Surgery for gender dysphoria would be less than 7,000 people TOTAL. So, we expect, that the number of transsexual teens would be some lower number. And that is exactly what we see.

Consider the recent paper published in the British Medical Journals by Butler, et al. In it we learn that the NHS Gender Identity Services referred only 1,151 teens for evaluation between 2008 and 2021 inclusive. Of that only 1089 had known outcomes. Of those, 32 did NOT receive hormonal medical treatment, likely realizing that they weren’t actually gender dysphoric when confronted with the reality of what that really meant. (That is, they were likely falsely claiming to be “trans”, which has become a very popular fad among teens and young people such that there are likely over 500 people falsely claiming to be “trans” or “non-binary” for every actual transsexual.) Of the remaining 1,057 teens, 58 (5.5%) later elected to cease medical treatments leaving 999 that continued into adulthood.

Again, this is NOT indicative of a sudden epidemic of gender dysphoria among teens. In fact, it is perfectly in keeping with the number we expect from decades of clinical experience. Most especially, these numbers put the lie to the assertion that a thousand youths are planning to sue the NHS for medical malpractice. It also gives us an insight into the relative stability of gender dysphoria and of transsexual identities in teenagers, that so called “desistence” occurs before puberty onset.

Further Reading:

More Proof That Transsexual Teens Persist

How Many Transfolk Are There, Really?

Lost In The Crowd – The recent phenomena of young people falsely claiming to be “trans” or “non-binary”

Age Of Innocence – Clinical evidence that “desistence” occurs before puberty onset.

Reference:

Butler G, Adu-Gyamfi K, Clarkson K, et al., “Discharge outcome analysis of 1089 transgender young people referred to paediatric endocrine clinics in England 2008–2021” Archives of Disease in Childhood (2022) doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2022-324302

Falsely Claiming To Be “Trans” Is “Cool” (NOT!)

Yet another paper making the mistake of interpreting teenagers ticking the box that says “I am trans” as actually being trans. When that happens, the rest of the data is nearly worthless, as in found in the just published paper by Turbin, et al. I’ve pointed out that this use of self-ID in online surveys, especially for teenagers is bogus. This shows only how popular it is, how “cool” it is, to say that one is “trans” or “non-binary”, NOT how many are actually gender atypical and gender dysphoric.

First, we know, from much more careful studies using better operational definitions such as getting a diagnoses as gender dysphoric, or from US Census and Social Security Administration records showing how many changed their name/sex so as to actually live as the opposite sex, that the incidence rate of gender dysphoria is on the order of ~6 per 100,000 people. That figure would also include “late onset” transsexuals who would not have shown up in studies of gender dysphoria in teenagers. Thus, if a study had been valid, we would expect that significantly fewer than six out of one hundred thousand surveyed would be clinically gender dysphoric.

But Turbin’s paper relies on surveys conducted in 2017 and 2019 with only ~92K and ~105K teens. Thus, we would only expect less than a single handful of clinically gender dysphoric teens. Such a broad community survey is not a good means to identify gender dysphoric teens in sufficient numbers to provide any useful insights.

But that didn’t deter Turbin. Since the survey has an inadequate (read: useless and silly) self-ID question, far more (false positives) were included as “trans”, etc. How badly off are numbers? They found 2.4% and 1.6% respectively. This is about one hundred times the number we expect to find. This is on the order of the incidence rate of exclusive homosexuality, NOT gender dysphoria. Could it be that these teens are conflating and confusing the two constructs? Superficially, this would make sense, given that homosexuality is highly correlated with mild gender atypicality. Or perhaps other issues are present?

One of the explanations for this large number of teenagers claiming to be trans or non-binary is a putative phenomena, Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) in which large numbers of teens become gender dysphoric due to “social contagion”. However, there are a number of problems with this explanation. First, it has the poor evidentiary support. Second, for ROGD to exist as such, the teens would have to actually BE gender dysphoric. So far, that doesn’t hold up. While there has been an increase in the number of children and teens being referred to clinics, as those clinics have finally begun offering serviced that gender dysphoric teens actually need and want, those numbers are closer to the tiny handful that we would expect, not from a putative epidemic of ROGD. In other words, there is a disconnect between the number self-proclaiming to be “trans”/”non-binary” and the number seeking medical services for clinical gender dysphoria.

At this point, I would like to share personal experiences and observations that may shed light on this situation. I volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate and had previously been a foster/adoptive mom. Since I am transsexual, I was paired with two “transgender” teens, one FTM, the other MTF. It was instantly obvious that the CASA program, his caseworkers, etc. had no clue and had mistaken a flamboyantly queenie gay boy who occasionally performed in drag as “trans”. He was not in the least bit gender dysphoric, and would actually become angry when misidentified as such. The other teenager was indeed a classic FTM transsexual, a typical transman. At 17, if you met him, you would instantly read him as a typical boy, into skateboarding and deeply in love with his straight girlfriend. In seeking resources for him, I recommended that he attend a drop-in group for LGBT kids. I had heard that it was very trans-friendly. He refused to return, but wouldn’t, or more accurately, couldn’t explain why wouldn’t go back. — Later, I had occasion to understand why from personal observation. Only one of the teens was actually an FTM transsexual. A large majority of the teens attending the meetings were not LGBT, but mostly feminine heterosexual girls who were very obviously falsely claiming to be “trans” or “non-binary”, demanding that everyone use “they/them” or even more odd made-up pronouns. There were a few gay boys also doing this, but they were clearly doing it to fit into the gang, to be cool. They made my CASA youth uncomfortable, uneasy, and feeling unwelcome. He was in truth what they were falsely claiming to be and the obvious contrast was disconcerting for all. Frankly, these teens made ME feel uneasy and unwelcome for the same reason. This was a novel experience after decades of working as an activist and community organizer in the transsexual community.

If the putative ROGD phenomena was actually comprised primarily of these girls, it would go a long ways explain it. This phenomena has existed in very small numbers for decades (I met one such in 1980) but exploded in numbers during the mid ’10s. Turbin in mistakenly according these large numbers of teens self-identifying as “trans” / “non-binary” as being so, tried to argue that these surveys proved that it was not a “social contagion”. I argue just the opposite, that it proves that such false self-identification IS a social contagion in the sense that it reinforced a latent desire by some teens, of both sexes, to do so to be “cool”. And if anything, if the numbers can be trusted, the drop over the two year period from 2017 to 2019 of 50% would indicate that the fad is fading.

Addendum 8/10/2022:

No sooner had I posted this essay up pops another news item talking about yet another study where the authors now claim that “trans” / “non-binary” / “gender diverse” teenagers are under counted. The number quoted? Seven percent! Worse, having found this new study, I learn that the primary author, Kidd, had an earlier study that said the number was ten percent! These numbers hark back to the earlier Wernick (2017) study had found nine percent. As I pointed out in previous essays, these numbers all come from the error of asking teens if they identify as “trans”, etc. without proper operational definitions and certainly never having validated these survey items to see if they mean anything more than the popularity of (falsely) claiming to be a perceived to be “cool” marginalized minority identity.

It’s long past time that researchers stop naively using unvalidated survey items and actually conduct in-depth interviews of these teens (and their friends and families) claiming these identities. I predict that these teens will not show ANY clinical gender dysphoria nor be very gender atypical when compared to control teens who are not claiming these identities, save for a few who will be homosexual. Far from being “gender diverse”, they will prove to be rather ‘gender ordinary’. Further, I predict that while sociologically and psychologically, these teens may be an interesting group, with some risk factors that correlate to their need to identify with a stigmatized and very RARE sexual minority, they are NOT the group that has any etiological or sociological connection to gender dysphoric youth. Also, if tested for implicit self-identification I predict that these teens will very clearly identify with their natal sex and not have a significant alienation from it.

A final thought. If so many youth are “Gender Diverse”, why aren’t there more such adults? Also, as adults looking back at our own high school days, we can recall knowing kids that would later come out as gay or lesbian, maybe a couple straight transvestites, but not 7-10% “gender diverse” kids. Could it be because most adults aren’t into following silly fads that make them feel “cool” or “special” and instead just be who and what they really are, gender typical?

As a transsexual, someone who was actually “gender different”, who began transition in high school in the early 1970s, I can assure you I was the only one at either of the two large suburban schools I attended, and suffered because of it.

Further Reading:

How Many Trans Folk Are There, Really?

Lost In The Crowd

ROGD Redux

Where Are All These “Detransitioners” Coming From?

References:

Turbin, et al., “Sex Assigned at Birth Ratio Among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents In The United States”, Pediatrics (2022), https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-056567

Kidd, K. et al., “The Prevalence of Gender-Diverse Youth in a Rural Appalachian Region”, JAMA Pediatrics (2022), DOI:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.2768

Wernick, et al., “Gender Identity Disparities in Bathroom Safety and Wellbeing in High School Students”, Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2017), DOI: 10.1007/s10964-017-0652-1

Nolan IT, Kuhner CJ, Dy GW. Demographic and temporal trends in transgender identities and gender confirming surgery. Transl Androl Urol. 2019 Jun;8(3):184-190. doi: 10.21037/tau.2019.04.09. PMID: 31380225; PMCID: PMC6626314.

Transsexual Kids DO Know

Having real data trumps ideological assertions. The “ideology” I speak of is that of transphobic individuals who falsely insist that transkids are too young too “know” – to know who they are, to know their hearts, to know what social gender they best fit in as, to know their minds regarding what constitutes their best chances for future happiness and social success. These ideologist don’t actually say this in true sympathy or empathy with transkids. They say it because they don’t want transkids to grow up to be transsexual adults. They don’t want transkids to grow up to be those people. Data trumps this false assertion, this false empathy.

Over the past decades, data about transkids has been growing. One thing that former transkids (those individuals who had been “early onset”, both gender atypical and gender dysphoric before puberty and are now adult transsexuals), have been saying is that they took to social transition, at whatever age they were able, most as teens or early ’20s in the past, given parental and societal opposition, with great relief and ease. Indeed clinicians have long documented this phenomena. They have also pointed out that they would have benefited from social transition at a far younger age to avoid social difficulties growing up. They actively point out that such social transitions would also differentiate those who would be ‘persisters’ from ‘desisters’, that attempting to socially transition, even before their teens, works as a “Real Life Test”, just as is expected of adults. Those that are likely to desist, are not likely to find social transition all that appealing nor will they remain socially transitioned, if they do. We now have the data to back that up.

Dr. Olson’s latest paper in Pediatrics, “Gender Identity 5 Years After Social Transition” followed a large cohort of transkids starting at age three to twelve as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. The paper is available online, NOT behind a paywall, so it is well worth reading for yourself if you wish to follow-up on my explication of it. But before we dive into the data, I need to deal with an unfortunate misuse of language that the authors have chosen to use.

In the transsexual community, the term “retransition” has a specific meaning that the authors of the paper have turned on its head to the opposite meaning in some cases and its proper meaning in others. Specifically, in the transsexual community, the term means one has once again began living as the opposite of their natal sex after having “detransitioned”, reverted back to living as their natal sex, for a period of time. But the authors of the study use the term “retransition” for BOTH situations. The authors made clear they know that they are making this confusing misuse of the established vernacular, but chose to do it anyway. I will not. So, when I am quoting them, I will substitute the proper term {detransition} for clarity by including it in curly brackets to show when they are misusing the term “retransition” in the original text.

Let’s take a look at the abstract by way of introduction of the study and the data,

“Abstract
Background and Objectives. Concerns about early childhood social transitions amongst
transgender youth include that these youth may later change their gender identification (i.e.,
{detransition}, a process that could be distressing. The present study aimed to provide the
first estimate of {detransitioning} and to report the current gender identities of youth an
average of 5 years after their initial social transitions.
Methods. The present study examined the rate of {detransition} and current gender identities
of 317 initially-transgender youth (208 transgender girls, 109 transgender boys; M=8.1
years at start of study) participating in a longitudinal study, the Trans Youth Project. Data
were reported by youth and their parents through in-person or online visits or via email or
phone correspondence.
Results. We found that an average of 5 years after their initial social transition, 7.3% of
youth had {detransitioned} at least once. At the end of this period, most youth identified as
binary transgender youth (94%), including 1.3% who {detransitioned} to another identity
before returning to their binary transgender identity. 2.5% of youth identified as cisgender
and 3.5% as nonbinary. Later cisgender identities were more common amongst youth
whose initial social transition occurred before age 6 years; the {detransition} often occurred
before age 10.
Conclusions. These results suggest that {detransitions} are infrequent. More commonly,
transgender youth who socially transitioned at early ages continued to identify that way.
Nonetheless, understanding {detransitions} is crucial for clinicians and families to help make
them as smooth as possible for youth.”

Note that that there are about twice as many MTF transsexual children (“transgender girls”) as FtM transsexuals in the study. This is in keeping with decades of demographic data that show that there are more MTFs than FtM transsexuals. As adults, there are usually so many more “late onset” MTFs than “early onset” such that the ratio is much higher. (Note that I am excluding the recent fad of large numbers of girls and young women falsely claiming a “trans” or “non-binary” identity.)

Note also that of those who detransitioned / desisted, they did so before age 10.

“All but one of the 8 cisgender youth had {detransitioned} by age 9 (the last {detransitioned} at 11)”

This is in keeping with earlier data that showed that desisters always did so before puberty and the age of seven to ten was critical in this process. While persisters reported that the ages of ten to thirteen saw that their gender dysphoria increased and cemented their transsexual (cross-sex) gender identity. Note that of this cohort who had attempted social transition, only 2.5% of them had truly desisted. That is to say, pre-pubertal social transition was overwhelmingly comprised of persisters. The “Real Life Test” works as was predicted years ago, as the study authors also suggest, in a typical “science speak” way,

“It is possible that some youth initially try socially transitioning and then change their minds quickly. Such youth would be unlikely to be enrolled in this study because their eligibility period would have been quite short and therefore the odds of finding the study and completing it would have been low. This means the children in our study may have been especially unlikely, compared to all children who transition, to {detransition} because they had already lived – and presumably been fairly content – with that initial transition for more than a year.”

Further Reading:

Desisting vs Persisting in Gender Atypical Children

Transkids Transition Because They ARE Transkids

Reference:

Olson, K., et al, “”Gender Identity 5 Years After Social Transition”, Pediatrics (2022), 10.1542/peds.2021-056082

A Voice of Their Own

Or, What Do Transkids Think About Puberty Suppression?

Transkids after transition

In the media and especially in social media, we see lots of discussion regarding what is the appropriate standard of care for transkids.  Many adults seem to be horrified by the idea that kids should be treated at all.  Of course, anyone that thinks about it clearly will see that without puberty suppression, one is already making a decision to treat them with hormones, the ones that the body starts to make at puberty.  Thus, the justification for puberty suppression, under the notion that delaying it isn’t really making a hard and fast decision.

But what of transkids themselves?  What do they think about it all?  How about asking them?  Well, a recent paper does just that, as the paper describes them,

“They were between 13 and 18 years of age, with an average age of 16 years and 11 months, and a median age of 17 years and 4 months. All adolescents, except for one, were treated with puberty suppression. The mean age at which the adolescents started treatment with puberty suppression was 15 years and 10 months. The adolescent who was not treated with puberty suppression immediately started treatment with cross-sex hormones because she was above the age of 18 when treatment was indicated, which is in line with the Dutch protocol. Five adolescents were trans girls (natal boys with a female gender identity) and eight were trans boys (natal girls with a male gender identity).”

Note that puberty suppression was their only option until age 18, a state of affairs that I have argued, and will continue to argue, it both unnecessary and cruel, but better than nothing.  This protocol privileges desisters and indeed all non-gender-dysphoric teens in that an active or implicit decision to deliberately use endogenous hormones to masculinize or feminize (as the case may be) their bodies is socially sanctioned, actively encouraged even, but an active decision on the part of gender dysphoric teens is considered suspect and their ability to make such a decision is deemed problematic.  {Can nobody else see the double-standard?  Why, if this is all about not trusting teens to make this decision, are ALL teens not put on puberty blockers until they are adults?}  All evidence points to the age of 14 being an appropriate age to end, not begin, puberty suppression, to be replaced with conventional Hormone Replacement Therapy.  But concerns about transphobic public resistance prevents this evidence based medicine approach.

{On a personal note, I first learned about HRT at age 15, but my pediatrician recommended my mother send me to psychotherapy to “cure” me instead. I began actively requesting feminizing HRT from the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic at age 17 in 1974.  I was denied this.  I had to wait until I was legally of age and began HRT very soon after my 18th birthday in the summer of ’75.  In those days, puberty suppression was not available.  I deeply regret what that delay did to my singing voice.}

So what did these modern teens have to say?  Here’s a typical comment,

“I think it is hard to set an age requirement. On the one hand I think 12 years is a good age minimum, on the other hand I think that a transgender whose puberty started earlier should have the possibility to start treatment with puberty suppression before the age of 12.” (trans girl; age: 13)

You may wish to read the rest of what they had to say at the actual paper at the link below, as it is not behind a paywall, thankfully.

Further Reading:

Essay on evidence for best age to end puberty suppression based on age of desisting gender dysphoria

Essay by Alejandra Velasquez at the transkids.us website on treatment recommendations for MTF transkids. {Note:  Ms. Velasquez was ~20 when she wrote the essay in 2004}

Essay on Advice to Parents of Transkids

References:

Vrouenraets, L. et al. “Perceptions of Sex, Gender, and Puberty Suppression: A Qualitative Analysis of Transgender Youth”
Archives of Sexual Behavior (2016). doi:10.1007/s10508-016-0764-9

 

---

 

Fun Reading:

Sincerity Espinoza didn’t go looking for trouble, it found her. All she wants out of life is the chance to go to the stars but she is caught in a web of misunderstandings, political & legal maneuvering, and the growing threat of terrorist plots by religious fanatics. She has a secret that if found out too soon could mean not only her own death but the ruin of the hope for humanity ever going to the stars. But even amidst momentous events, life is still about the small moments of love, laughter, and sadness.   Available as an ebook at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

Raising Children is a Sacred Trust…

Parental Attitudes Towards Transsexual Children

Every now and then, I check the stats on this site.  I am gratified by the growing number of readers over the past six years.  I also check the search strings that are used to find this site.  I am happy that parents of transkids find my site and this much needed information.  But I am usually saddened by the search strings.  These are the most common, in order of frequency:

“How to cope with transgender children”

“How to deal with a transgender child”

“How to manage a transgender kid”

“My child is transgender”

Do you see the problem?  The terms ‘cope’, ‘deal’, and ‘manage’ indicate that these parents see their child as a disappointment, a burden, a problem.  One ‘copes’ with emotional loss and disappointment.  One ‘deals’ with a burden.  One ‘manages’ a problem.

I’ve known dozens of other transkids (and former transkids / adults who were transkids).  Nearly every one of them spoke of how their parents had been dissappointed by them.  Even those whose parents eventually came to support them went through a period where their parents tried to deny that they were transkids.  Many were disowned by their parents.

But every now and then, but not nearly as often as I would like, I see this search string:

“How to help a transgender child”

Today, among several like the first three, I saw this gem:

“How to protect a transgender child”

Several years ago, my husband and I hosted a lovely young couple and their two children.  Their children were around three years old, fraternal twins.  One was ‘all boy’.  He wore his favorite T-shirt sporting an image of a bulldozer that read, “I like dirt”.  The other child was a sweet natured, feminine girl wearing a yellow flowered sundress.  She gave us an impromptu ballet recital in our front parlor.  Can you see where this is going?  That sweet mannered girl is male.

This young couple loved and celebrated their children.  Both of them.  They told me that they didn’t like attending support groups for parents of gender atypical / transgender children because the other parents saw their children as disappointments, problem children, burdens.  The other parents would spend most of the time trying to convince everyone, including themselves, that they had done everything they could to cope, deal, and manage their children.  They were apologetic about their child’s behavior and even of their own eventual acceptance of their child’s atypicality, having done everything they could to prevent it.

Which brings me back to the search string that I never see, but would dearly love to:

“How to celebrate my transgender child”

(Addendum 2/4/2016:  Banner Day!  Today someone used this search string, “loving your transgender child”)

(3/26/2016:  UGLY DAY!  Today someone used this search string, “things to say to comfort parents of a transgender”, as though having a trans-child were a terrible tragedy.