Is transgenderism among kids largely a fad?
It certainly looks that way.
Researchers at the Netherlands’ University of Groningen recently released the results of a landmark 15-year study of 2,700 children starting at age 11.
They tracked the gender non-contentedness of these children over the years and found: “In early adolescence, 11% of participants reported gender non-contentedness. The prevalence decreased with age and was 4% at the last follow-up (around age 26).”
The researchers concluded, “Gender non-contentedness, while being relatively common during early adolescence, in general decreases with age and appears to be associated with a poorer self-concept and mental health throughout development.”
In other words, most of the children in the study who were feeling gender dysphoric in their awkward teenage years had shaken that off and adjusted by early adulthood, and their dysphoria was associated with bad self-esteem and mental-health problems.
This is fully at odds with the policy pushing its way through American schools and medical institutions: Kids who declare themselves transgender, no matter the age, need to be “affirmed,” an idea that sometimes leads to children taking hormone blockers or getting surgery to attempt gender transition.
These interventions can have lifelong consequences, but some doctors aren’t even sure if the child should be informed before they take action.
Leaked documents last month from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health found some doctors don’t think disclosing potential risks is necessary.
As The Post reported, practitioners believe telling a 14-year-old about possible fertility consequences is like talking to a “blank wall.”
A child psychologist said it’s “out of their developmental range to understand the extent to which some of these medical interventions are impacting them.”
If children can’t understand the medical consequences of an entirely elective procedure that isn’t necessary to benefit their health or save their life, perhaps it’s best not to do it?
This shouldn’t be controversial.
Yet we’ve gotten to a place where anyone who doesn’t jump at the chance to “affirm” a child in his or her quest to change genders is a transphobe or worse.
When Gov. Ron DeSantis banned such medical interventions for Florida kids, headlines like Rolling Stone’s “Ron DeSantis Just Took Two Big Steps to Make Trans Lives Illegal” were common.
Reuters noted the law “escalates a Republican political strategy to pursue bills restricting transgender rights.”
Many news stories called it a ban on “transgender treatment” because it banned puberty blockers and hormone therapy for children.
Laws like this are necessary to stem the hysteria that has developed around the topic and to protect mostly girls.
The University of Groningen study found that girls were being hardest hit by this gender dysphoria.
The report notes, “Individuals with an increasing gender non-contentedness more often were female and both an increasing and decreasing trajectory were associated with a lower global self-worth, more behavioral and emotional problems, and a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.”
Abigail Shrier was among the first to identify the social contagion of transgenderism, specifically among teenage girls, in her 2020 book “Irreversible Damage.”
Her latest book, “Bad Therapy,” looks at therapy culture that indulges teenagers in any bad idea they may have.
Perhaps the answer is to not simply accept the words of children.
The “gentle parenting” being pushed right now that makes good parents consider putting their kids on drugs to help them achieve an unattainable sex change needs to run up against tough love and fast.
Twitter: @Karol
