A long-term study shows that the majority of children with gender confusion grow out of the feeling by the time they reach adulthood.
Researchers in the Netherlands followed more than 2,700 children from eleven years old to their mid-twenties and asked them every three years about their feelings about their gender.
The results showed that at the start of the study, approximately one in ten children (11 percent) expressed varying degrees of ‘gender dissatisfaction’.
But at age 25, only one in 25 (4 percent) said they were ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ dissatisfied with their gender.
The researchers concluded: ‘The results of the current study may help adolescents realize that it is normal and relatively common to have some doubts about self-identity and gender identity during this age period.’
It comes amid a boom in transgender children being given drugs to change their gender in the US – as critics say doctors and parents aren’t challenging young people enough.
Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who was not involved in the study, told DailyMail.com: ‘This study provides even more reason to be skeptical of aggressive steps to reverse gender transition in childhood and adolescence. ease.
‘The fact that satisfaction rates are lower even a few years later suggests that for the vast majority of people, caution and caution, rather than a rush to permanent surgery or hormone therapies, will be the best approach for teens who are struggling to to make sense. of the world and their place in it.
“As such, policies that prohibit gender transition for minors make perfect sense.”
The study is one of the longest on the issue of gender in children, but the researchers point out that it has some limitations.
First, it looked at a mix of children from the general population and children receiving mental health care, but not specifically for anything related to their gender.
Therefore, it does not necessarily reflect the attitudes of children clinically diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The researchers from the University of Groningen analyzed the data of 2,770 people who participated in the Tracking Adolescent’s Individual Lives Survey.
Participants were asked to respond to the statement ‘I want to be of the opposite sex’ at six different times over a period of fifteen years.
They were given a multiple choice option: 0-not true, 1-somewhat or sometimes true, and 2-very true or often true.
From the beginning of the study in March 2001 until the end, the same prompt was given every two or three years.
Over the past five years, rates of gender dysphoria have skyrocketed in every state but one
Across all age groups, the number of surgeries has increased most dramatically in 2021
Researchers looked for people who expressed “gender dissatisfaction,” or dissatisfaction with being the gender that matches their biological sex.
The studypublished in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that a total of 78 percent of people had felt the same way about their gender over the past fifteen years.
About 19 percent became more satisfied with their gender and about 2 percent felt less comfortable.
Participants were also asked to rate their self-esteem by rating how they felt about their physical appearance and self-esteem.
According to the findings, women were more likely to report being dissatisfied with their gender, and both increasing and decreasing ‘dissatisfaction’ was associated with lower self-reported self-esteem, more behavioral problems and an increase in emotional problems.
The authors said: ‘Gender dissatisfaction, although relatively common during early adolescence, generally declines with age and appears to be associated with poorer self-concept and mental health across development.’
Brown told DailyMail.com: ‘As anyone who has ever been a teenager knows, puberty and its aftereffects can be a confusing time of hormonal fluctuations, physical changes and social insecurity.
‘It is not surprising that the highest levels of body dissatisfaction peak during this period.’
Cases of gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis by a healthcare professional that is distinct from gender dissatisfaction, have skyrocketed in every U.S. state but one since 2018 — with the average age of diagnosis increasingly younger.
The above map shows the share of children aged 13 to 17 who identified as transgender by state, with darker colors indicating a higher share of young people
The number of gender reassignment surgeries has skyrocketed in recent years, with one in six trans adults in the US opting for gender confirmation surgery
An analysis of insurance claims conducted by Komodo Health Inc found that approximately 121,880 children aged six to 17 were diagnosed between 2017 and 2021.
In 2021, 42,000 people were diagnosed, an increase of 70 percent compared to 2020.
And children under the age of 18 now make up a fifth of new diagnoses each year.
In the United States, 1.6 million people aged 13 and older identify as transgender.
A report from health data analytics company Definitive Healthcare found that rates of gender dysphoria increased between 2018 and 2022 in every state except South Dakota, among all ages.
The sharpest increases over those five years were seen in three Republican-led states: Virginia (274 percent), Indiana (247 percent) and Utah (193 percent).
South Dakota experienced a 23 percent decline between 2018 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the report also shows that the number of gender reassignment operations performed annually is increasing rapidly: in some years even by 40 percent.
Greater social acceptance and greater awareness of the condition among doctors may partly explain the increase in cases.
Unlike other countries, such as Britain, in the US there is no federal lower age limit for when children can receive “top” or “bottom” surgeries, leaving it up to the states.
In the Netherlands, debate on this issue has heated up as more Dutch experts have raised concerns about the potential adverse effects of puberty blockers and hormonal therapies on minors who want to transition.
And recently in the US, transgender rights were put in the spotlight after critics criticized President Joe Biden for declaring Easter ‘Trans Visibility Day’.
However, the President says that he did not make this statement, but that Awareness Day is celebrated every year on March 31 and this year only coincidentally coincided with Easter.
Dr. Jay Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, told DailyMail.com, “We have known for more than a decade that most children who experience issues with their sexed bodies resolve these feelings after they passed away. through natural puberty.
‘We can indeed deduce from the DSM 5 (2013) and other sources that as many as 88 percent of gender dysphoric girls and as many as 98 percent of gender dysphoric boys in previous generations refrained from going through natural puberty.
‘These two facts make it clear why ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors is such a shame. It ultimately leads to sterilization and in many cases to a complete loss of natural sexual function.
‘There is no good evidence that this helps minors in the long term. Furthermore, it medicalizes what could very well be temporary psychological symptoms.
“History will judge this medicalized ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors the way we now judge eugenics and lobotomies.”
The research was published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.