It's awfully difficult to separate social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and what might be considered data.
Indeed. Which is why the fact that the data comes from the CDC is so important. They're a solid and reputable source.
I think it's important that the CDC included data for a range of age groups. If there weren't any social influences on child and adolescent development, no ideology, agendas, etc., you'd expect the prevalence to be the same across age groups.
On the other hand, if people are claiming to be transgender because of social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like -- influences, ideology, and agendas that have appeared or increased over the last 50+ years -- and if you thought those influences, ideologies, agendas, etc., were causing non-trans people to identify as trans, you'd expect the number of trans people age 13-24 to be greater than the number of trans people age 65+.
And it is: 0.7>0.5.
The question is, is that the difference that you should see, based on the influences, ideologies, etc.? Or are other variables influencing the numbers.
For example, there are powerful social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like, that may cause trans people to identify as not-trans. (Believing, for example, that you will lose your family, your friends, and your God if you transition is a powerful social influence on teens and young adults.)
And there are other variables: the suicide rate of trans people who are not able to transition, for example, is much higher than the suicide rate of the cisgender population, and folks who are 65+ have had more years to attempt/commit suicide. There's also the fact that trans women (particularly trans women of color) are more likely to be murder victims than other people.
So, even though 0.7>0.5, it might be that social influences, agendas, and the like haven't increased the number of cisgender teens and young adults that identify as trans; rather, social influences and the like may have suppressed the number of transgender folks over 65 who identify as trans.
There's a lot still to learn. But we're not going to learn it if the first response to unexpected data is to, in effect, call it fake news.
The suppression of trans identity is explained by various influences, as josephine says,. Obvious pointers are the shame stemming from some religious and political views, family prohibition, and various internal negative voices, and the lack of practical help. As far as I know, there is not a lot of research in this area, but no doubt more will be forthcoming, as suppression is relaxed, well, hopefully relaxed.
It's awfully difficult to separate social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and what might be considered data.
Indeed. Which is why the fact that the data comes from the CDC is so important. They're a solid and reputable source.
I think it's important that the CDC included data for a range of age groups. If there weren't any social influences on child and adolescent development, no ideology, agendas, etc., you'd expect the prevalence to be the same across age groups.
On the other hand, if people are claiming to be transgender because of social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like -- influences, ideology, and agendas that have appeared or increased over the last 50+ years -- and if you thought those influences, ideologies, agendas, etc., were causing non-trans people to identify as trans, you'd expect the number of trans people age 13-24 to be greater than the number of trans people age 65+.
And it is: 0.7>0.5.
The question is, is that the difference that you should see, based on the influences, ideologies, etc.? Or are other variables influencing the numbers.
For example, there are powerful social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like, that may cause trans people to identify as not-trans. (Believing, for example, that you will lose your family, your friends, and your God if you transition is a powerful social influence on teens and young adults.)
And there are other variables: the suicide rate of trans people who are not able to transition, for example, is much higher than the suicide rate of the cisgender population, and folks who are 65+ have had more years to attempt/commit suicide. There's also the fact that trans women (particularly trans women of color) are more likely to be murder victims than other people.
So, even though 0.7>0.5, it might be that social influences, agendas, and the like haven't increased the number of cisgender teens and young adults that identify as trans; rather, social influences and the like may have suppressed the number of transgender folks over 65 who identify as trans.
There's a lot still to learn. But we're not going to learn it if the first response to unexpected data is to, in effect, call it fake news.
It isn't going to be called "fake news". It's going to be called the results of a very lengthy telephone survey where there was one question asked about transgender, and only one question. The specific question is right after questions about sexual orientation and before questions about children. I didn't find anything relating suicidality, ethnicity nor murder rates to this question. There's only a single survey question. So we can't really conclude too much.
The data was collected with something called Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The link provides the actual lengthy telephone survey questions asked by the interviewers. In the English questionnaire, the questions about Transgender are in Module 21, page 99. The question is entitled M21.02. It reads
Do you consider
yourself to be
transgender?
The responses are numbered 1 to 4
1 Yes, Transgender,
male-to-female
2 Yes, Transgender,
female to male
3 Yes, Transgender,
gender
nonconforming
4 No
with additonal answers 7 and 9 coded if the person refused or said they didn't know.
We'd have to go through the data set itself to determine how many refused the question, level of sampling bias**. We cannot simply say that "the CDC collected the data and the proportions of people are the statistic cited by the law school institute which crunched the numbers are reliable and valid". We don't know if the sampling method causes people to over-report, under-report, exclude themselves from answering honestly. So I'm at the level with this report of proportions calling themselves transgender of "interesting", let's see some more data. In the case of children and adolescents, I'd like to see re-surveying the same people in follow-up, say 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years, or mid-adolescence, and mid-20's. I'd also like to see confirmatory data from collateral sources for the survey respondents.
** sampling bias: the survey was instantly terminated if the person answered "yes" at the beginning "is this a cell phone?". There are many other sources of unknown but potential sampling bias.
If it were a social change driving a change in the number of trans people, given gender is a social construct would this be surprising ? And also would those people be any less trans ? Social change is a real rather than imaginary thing.
Social change versus social influence I think.
Given the one sampling issue re cell phones, I wonder if this one question survey under-represents at the younger ages. My reasoning is that younger people with parents, thus answering the survey on the family landline are less likely to freely express transgender on a phone question with a stranger than cellphone-using younger people.
If it were a social change driving a change in the number of trans people, given gender is a social construct would this be surprising ? And also would those people be any less trans ? Social change is a real rather than imaginary thing.
This is a can of worms, I think. Many trans people say that you cannot become trans. And the whole issue of social constructs has become complicated, since again some trans people argue for an innate sense of gender, see for example, Julia Serano's stuff. Of course, others are positing a contagion idea.
There seem to be lots of contradictions going on, for example, some feminists who are hostile to trans, seem to be arguing from biological essentialism, a woman has a vagina, and so on, which position was hotly opposed in earlier times.
I suspect that a lot of derepression is going on, that is, the lifting of taboos.
At the moment, there is plenty of rhetoric, and dust and clamour in the air, in terms of gender theory. Of course, gender clinics continue to treat people who have some kind of gender variance. As I've said before, I remember people doing therapy, expressing disquiet with conventional gender, and this seems real enough, or if you like, it's empirical.
I found this article - Guardian comment piece (link) interesting, discussing as it does the expectations of transgender women and the realisations of the author as to how difficult it is being a woman, and particularly a trans woman:
I began to realise how much society’s already-small acceptance of trans women was based on our willingness to perform a specific kind of femininity, enact these gendered expectations. I was a trans woman but not trans femme – a conundrum on top of a conundrum for society’s binary idea of what gender looks like.
Ultimately, a patriarchal society punishes women, and in particular trans women, no matter what their proximity to femininity. It demands you stay within an extremely narrow set of boundaries for how you can present yourself – and straying too far away in either direction faces consequence.
Fascinating stuff. I was struck by her point at the end, why should I let "other people and internalized ideas dictate how I dress, or look, or act". This is something of a hand-grenade, but I think it also misses the point that gender conformity is probably reassuring for many people, and you can't dismiss that.
In relation to trans people, ironies abound, you don't look feminine enough, you look over-feminine, and so on. There are also plenty of stories of cisgender women being hounded for looking too masculine.
This is a can of worms, I think. Many trans people say that you cannot become trans. And the whole issue of social constructs has become complicated, since again some trans people argue for an innate sense of gender, see for example, Julia Serano's stuff. Of course, others are positing a contagion idea.
Given that developmentally children cannot reliably tell that an object out of direct view still exists until sometime in the first or second year of life, and the gender/sexual identity of persons is not reliably distinguished until at least that time, that is merely an assertion by whatever group of trans people about which the burden of proof is upon them to prove.
Object constancy / object permanence - that something that is not within the view of the person is perceived to still exist even though it cannot be seen.
On the point of innate gender, there are arguments that intersex babies, who used to be operated on if they had ambiguous genitalia, sometimes claim a gender identity different from their anatomy. The puzzle is, how gender is arrived at subjectively in such cases. But then there are so many possible influences, such as chromosomes, hormones, and so on.
I suppose a reverse point is that if gender is not innate, it should be switchable, which is doubtful. (Plus usual confusion about sex/gender).
I find the knowledge of how complicated the in utero processes are for forming the sex/gender of individuals convinces me that there are many ways that these processes may be disrupted, which would leave the individuals at different points on the sex/sexuality/gender spectrum. Intersex individuals often have genetic differences, which will change things again.
Just thinking about the radical feminist view, which partly argues that gender is a tool of of patriarchy, and oppresses women. They therefore dismiss the idea of gender identity as imaginary, and stress the biological nature of male/female. (If I have got this wrong, please correct).
Of course, this means that the notion of a trans identity is nonsensical, as are other non-binary identities. In fact, some feminists would argue that trans women are colonizers of women's bodies and women's spaces..
There's no space to do a full critique of this view, but it strikes me that it's a full-on biological view, in which gender practically disappears, except as gender roles. It seems ironic to go back to biology, which early feminists deconstructed, (de Beauvoir, "one is not born a woman").
It also makes the whole discussion very complicated, and you have to keep stopping and asking, "how is the notion of gender being used here?"
. In fact, some feminists would argue that trans women are colonizers of women's bodies and women's spaces..
I have come across people who have experienced some transwomen - few, but vociferous and aggressive - doing just that, this leading to the above argument. Not helpful to the many who don't do anything of the sort.
. In fact, some feminists would argue that trans women are colonizers of women's bodies and women's spaces..
I have come across people who have experienced some transwomen - few, but vociferous and aggressive - doing just that, this leading to the above argument. Not helpful to the many who don't do anything of the sort.
Yes, there are aggressive trans people, but I think the gender critical view is that a trans woman automatically and always colonizes female physicality, by saying I'm a woman. Furthermore, "she" is not a woman, but a man in drag.
Just thinking about the radical feminist view, which partly argues that gender is a tool of of patriarchy, and oppresses women. They therefore dismiss the idea of gender identity as imaginary, and stress the
If that is true it is hilarious, as they are buying hook, line, and sinker the Patriarchy view of gender.
Yes, and it seems to boil everything down to anatomy, so that my subjective experience of sex/gender, mine and other people's, vanishes. I can't even understand this, let alone experience it.
A further point that the proposed plan of the Trump administration to define gender also seems to be anatomically based. However, I suspect reverse engineering here, they just want to abolish trans identities and other noncoforming positions, and anatomy is a quick way of doing it. I guess it also accords with conservative and evangelical views.
That intersex article above was interesting on anatomy too. The existence and size of organs fit along different spectra too. So anatomy doesn't allow judgements to be made with the certainty implied.
Intersex people seem to break down many categories, for example there are women with XY chromosomes, there are people with ovaries and penises, and so on. Of course, such groups are small in number, but they have had a big effect in sport, where various bodies have wrestled with defining sex/gender, see for example, the long history of the Olympics in relation to intersex women, still not resolved.
An interesting event took place in Allahabad on Sunday, with a procession of trans holy people, leading up to to the major Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela. Difficult to get more information, for example, the connection with major third gender sects. Nice pictures, sorry no link, but BBC report easy to Google. "Hinduism has always acknowledged the existence of transgender people", according to one priest, but these people seem to be treated as sadhus.
Human diversity being what it is, the descriptive term "rapid onset gender dysphoria" more likely than not describes the experience of some adolescents, particularly girls, and does not describe all of them. Nor does the innateness of gender idea describe all. Nor can we argue from the individual experience of one person or family to suggest that their experience describes all experiences. From a completely different area of inquiry, we might note that people describe their Christianity quite differently, in terms of how they sorted it out, were born into a family faith, had a sudden spiritual crisis resulting in a conversion, slowly built their faith over time. It's not a fair comparison, but it raises some points.
So basically nothing applies to anything and everyone is an individual and every family is different, but even so, you're sure ROGD is real and everyone needs to know about it because ... why? Your whole argument seems to be that a transphobic blogger's made-up label is something all parents of trans kids need to explore because ... why? It seems like we're just playing a no-true-trans-Scotsman game here where every trans kid has to be explained away.
Still, since you brought up the comparison with faith journeys, I have a new term for "convertitis": rapid onset religious douchebaggery (ROGD).
So basically nothing applies to anything and everyone is an individual and every family is different, but even so, you're sure ROGD is real and everyone needs to know about it because ... why? Your whole argument seems to be that a transphobic blogger's made-up label is something all parents of trans kids need to explore because ... why? It seems like we're just playing a no-true-trans-Scotsman game here where every trans kid has to be explained away.
Still, since you brought up the comparison with faith journeys, I have a new term for "convertitis": rapid onset religious douchebaggery (ROGD).
It seems that the popularized version of rapid onset is being used to dismiss gender variance, although I doubt if this happens in gender clinics. There is quite a widespread campaign to dismiss and even ridicule gender nonconformity, particularly trans kids. I don't think this is helpful at all to the kids themselves. If you are a parent of such a child, you want practical help, not conservative polemics.
It seems that the popularized version of rapid onset is being used to dismiss gender variance, although I doubt if this happens in gender clinics. There is quite a widespread campaign to dismiss and even ridicule gender nonconformity, particularly trans kids. I don't think this is helpful at all to the kids themselves. If you are a parent of such a child, you want practical help, not conservative polemics.
Back in 2007 Jim Burroway of the now dormant blog Box Turtle Bulletin wrote a five part series (plus a prologue) about attending a conversion therapy convention. (Turning gay people straight, for those unfamiliar with the term.) Part 3 of that series is particularly interesting. It deals with the specialized vocabulary and language use of that movement.
Focus in the Family and Exodus have expended a great deal of resources to develop the phrases and the terminology they use. In doing so, they’ve crafted an entire language, complete with its own lexicon and syntax. For example, the terms they used for describing gay people were very different from yours or mine, and Mike Haley’s problem with “love the sin, hate the sinner” provides a glimpse into that difference. Their language is specially designed to treat people and their sexuality as if they were two completely separate entities, as if sexuality were a separate thing outside of the person. As Melissa Fryrear put it in a breakout session, they constantly work to “separate the ‘who’ from the ‘do’,” or, as others have put it more crudely in Mike Haley’s example, “the sinner” from “the sin”.
<snip>
Since the language of Love Won Out represents a distinct dialect of Evangelical Christianity, the first order of business for the day was to teach us the elements of that dialect. First up was Dr. Nicolosi. He began his talk by proclaiming that “there is no such thing as a homosexual.” Knowing this was a head-scratcher to most people there, he repeated it again: “There is no such thing as a homosexual… He is a heterosexual, but he may have a homosexual problem.”
So here’s the first lesson: the words “gay,” “lesbian,” and “homosexual” aren’t nouns; they’re adjectives. And even as an adjectives they are never used to describe a person. There are no gay teenagers, there are no homosexual men, there are no lesbian women. Instead these adjectives are always used as modifiers to something else: a problem, a struggle, an identity, or an issue that is separate from the person. This is important because it’s very different from how these terms are normally used in the broader culture. It is also very different from how these terms are used even by other anti-gay activists.
The whole thing is worth a read, but the way homosexuality was pathologized as a way of trying to define it away as a personal attribute seems very similar to the idea of "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" and other ways to dismiss any kind of gender non-conformity as something external to gender non-conformists
That's fascinating, Croesos, many thanks. I remember some of the pathologizing, as I was a member of Pink Therapy. The psychoanalytic wing of the therapy world was caught in two minds, as there was a traditional reductive angle (you had a possessive mother), but fortunately, a more radical wing began to speak. I remember when some training organizations would not accept gays. And of course, gays/lesbians were rarely allowed to speak, they were spoken about.
It's often said that conservative groups which used to train their fire on LGB, have turned to gender itself as a way to bash vulnerable people, don't know if this is true.
But I think in the UK there is quite a lot of empathy for gender nonconformism, the NHS is OK, except for long queues. Of course, tabloids and TV enjoy their shock horror "trans woman in ladies toilets" titillations, and some feminists are hostile.
Human diversity being what it is, the descriptive term "rapid onset gender dysphoria" more likely than not describes the experience of some adolescents, particularly girls, and does not describe all of them.
I think the word to watch here is "some." If "some" means "more than two" - and if two or more people recant their trans identity, either freely or under duress - that is taken as proof that Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is real. (Because the anecdotes of the few people recanting are data, following the rule that any anecdote that supports one's own position is data. )
I am not at all surprised that you specified girls, because panic over the loss of fertility (cough Handmaid's Tale cough ) seems to be a big part of the belief in ROGD. It seems to me to be a leftover patriarchal attitude of "All your fertility are belong to us!" and not to the person in question.
It works both ways. Trans women are scary cos they want to spy in the ladies toilets, and, FFS, they wear lipstick. Trans men are obnoxious because all that girlyness would have been nice, plus, as Leaf specified, babies.
What I gather is that "rapid onset" isn't a diagnosis. It's a description of the pattern seen with some young people, adolescent aged. Typically those at highschool ages who are developmentally at the stage of life where they're working out their personal identity, life direction, and how their relationships will form or whether they think they will be loved at all. The influences are very strong from peers at this time of life. Parents see the sexual issues and gender issues in the same vein as substance use, eating disorder, self harm, and other things that we know have strong peer influences. Parents are then told gender identity is entirely different than these things but they observe that with their children that it doesn't seem to be different than all of the other things.
Consider also adolescent first love relationships and sexual experiences. How influential this is. The discussions between the two. The discussions with other friends and not-friends on social media. The level of self esteem, the level of confidence the young person has in their identity at all. Can young people be led into consideration of gender change in this context? It's an empirical question; I only have a sample of one and an anecdote of another; this second is suggestive but not persuasive. When I say suggestive, I mean qualitative info but it is from parents who're horrified about the possible factuality of their child's trans. The one I know well is understood to have been other-influenced as I describe on a teen vulnerable previously to other things.
I'm not willing in this context to foreclose on the idea that there are probably a number of patterns developmentally. Nor I am willing to discount the social influence that rapid onset implies. I get that people in general prefer an either/or type of answer to complex questions, including on this forum. But that does not appear to represent very well.
The problem with all this is that it's fairly well-known that gender dysphoria often crystallizes in early adolescence. Nobody really disputes that. The controversial step is the one that says GD crystallizes in early adolescence; therefore, social contagion. That step seems really improbable to a lot of people and reliable clinical support for this hypothesis just doesn't seem to be there, at the moment.
Let's just shift the terminology to more usual language. Read "social contagion" as "peer influence". The fact the something may be used as a political weapon doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Unless you discount peer influence.
Then consider social media as an extension of that influence. "pro-ana" being something noted as a social influence re anorexia nervosa, as an example of such social influence. We might also note the influence of media I general on sexuality, with comparison of the epidemiology when Kinsey surveyed sexual behaviour in the 1950s to present day re oral and anal sexual behaviours. Or perhaps you don't agree that ideas and behavioural scripts are passed around by humans in social contexts.
On the other hand, we can be pretty sure that some trans children stay in the closet because of peer influence. Do we ask our cis-seeming children whether they might really be trans but are staying in the closet because their peers will mock them for being trans? Because if not then it isn't really about caring about children being affected by peer pressure.
I cannot imagine how peer pressure can account for people going against the peer norm. It's counter-intuitive at best. A generation ago the conservatives were trying to claim peer pressure from our mostly straight culture was somehow making people gay.
In fact, as the two previous posts indicate, it's arguable that gender conformity is reinforced by peer pressure. How many boys have been told not be a sissy?
You can in fact see gender historically as a strait-jacket, which suppressed individuality and self-expression. As to why people today are resisting this suppression, and struggling towards their own identity, that is a big historical question.
And it's at this point in time that the cry of social contagion goes up from the anti-trans media! How much irony can one digest in a day?
Parents see the sexual issues and gender issues in the same vein as substance use, eating disorder, self harm, and other things that we know have strong peer influences.
Yes, some parents might do that. Some might adopt the trope, similar to the one going around in church circles in the 80's, that homosexuality is like alcoholism: hate the sin and love the sinner. That doesn't seem to have been a helpful trope for anybody, except as a temporary mental zone for confused parents to maintain connection with their children until they accept their children for who they are.
Parents are then told gender identity is entirely different than these things but they observe that with their children that it doesn't seem to be different than all of the other things.
All the behaviours you listed are coping behaviours for shame. It is hardly surprising that some people who have been made to feel ashamed of who they are might also turn to dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
I get that people in general prefer an either/or type of answer to complex questions, including on this forum. But that does not appear to represent very well.
Yes, how frustrating when people insist on inappropriately applying binary categories!
In any event, that's not what I was doing. I think it is possible there is a very small proportion of people who sincerely believe they are trans, transition, and then work out that they believe they have another gender identification instead. I think there are some people who have been made to feel so ashamed of who they are that they turn to dysfunctional coping mechanisms, which further messes up their stability and clarity. I think that in the vast majority of cases, it is better to believe and support the transitioning person rather than submit them to the insulting and damaging inquisition of what social influences "made" them this way. I think the latter is borne of unresolved parental shock, grief, and fear; in my view the parents have a responsibility to deal with their own issues rather than foist them on the transitioning person.
I cannot imagine how peer pressure can account for people going against the peer norm. It's counter-intuitive at best. A generation ago the conservatives were trying to claim peer pressure from our mostly straight culture was somehow making people gay.
You didn't grow up in the long haired drug taking freaky people era I think. Peer pressure within group and against other rejected peer groups was awfully common.
I cannot imagine how peer pressure can account for people going against the peer norm. It's counter-intuitive at best. A generation ago the conservatives were trying to claim peer pressure from our mostly straight culture was somehow making people gay.
You didn't grow up in the long haired drug taking freaky people era I think. Peer pressure within group and against other rejected peer groups was awfully common.
Within what peer groups today is it the norm to be transgender? Are you really proposing people are saying "all my friends are transgender; I should be too!"?
My son, who came out to me as transgender three years ago,
has had issues with low self esteem, self harm depression and anxiety.
This I have seen is very common among young people in our support group for parents of transgender youth.
What seems to help the most is supporting them were they are. To let them express their needs. Not trying to make them conform to a "norm". In either direction. Not pushing them towards transition or away from it.
I have looked for signs of peer pressure in my sons case as any parent would. And I have seen no indication that that is the case. Actually the peer pressure I have seen is in other directions like towards substance abuse or away from transitioning.
The pressure is usually to conform, not to be different. Even in the most "affirming" families the first reaction is usually to push back against it not to exert pressure for it.
Being transgender is not a ticket to being popular or to easy street. The only reason
it seems that it is "trendy" is that people have been allowed able to be more open about it recently. So kids that would never have said anything before or had no words to express how they felt now do. My advice to anyone who wants to understand transgender people is to meet at least some of them in real life. You will be able to see them as real people not as abstract objects of debate. It helped me a lot to understand what my son was going trough to meet other parents and other teenagers going trough the same experience.
There seem to be very few transgender people (probably more who are out now than were a decade ago but still small numbers). I find it hard to think of enough in a school to form a peer group, let alone one big enough to apply much in the way of pressure.
Yes, but there are more who see themselves as non-binary or nonconforming or agender. Some schools seem to have dozens of pupils like this, but I don't know if they are seen as cool or admirable.
Well, one school in Brighton reported 76 pupils with gender variance. The right wing press seized on it as showing brainwashing, contagion, bad teaching, over-indulgent parents, take your pick. I think this is unusual.
Amongst my kids' friends and acquaintances, there are seven or eight who are transgender, from four different schools. There are not "dozens" here, but I would be surprised if there are any teenagers in this area who don't know someone, or know of someone, in their school who is transgender.
"Non-binary" would be a much larger group, but from observation that seems to me to be much vaguer; it's on a par with my own generation opposing apartheid by boycotting South African oranges and wine, which we might not have bought anyway. Many teens can just carry on with their ordinary lives, but badge themselves as "gender non-conforming" because they eschew the pinker end of female fashion, or watch rom-coms or something. If you go into, for example, Tesco, their children's clothes are strictly sex-segregated. Boys' clothes are blue with tractors and robots. Girls' clothes are pink, with butterflies, unicorns and rainbows. Anyone with half a brain ought to reject that sexist crap, and, it seems to me that some teens, whom I would describe as "sensible and intelligent" are describing themselves as non-binary or nonconforming.
I think there is a big difference between "gender non-conforming" and "transgender."
Comments
Indeed. Which is why the fact that the data comes from the CDC is so important. They're a solid and reputable source.
I think it's important that the CDC included data for a range of age groups. If there weren't any social influences on child and adolescent development, no ideology, agendas, etc., you'd expect the prevalence to be the same across age groups.
On the other hand, if people are claiming to be transgender because of social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like -- influences, ideology, and agendas that have appeared or increased over the last 50+ years -- and if you thought those influences, ideologies, agendas, etc., were causing non-trans people to identify as trans, you'd expect the number of trans people age 13-24 to be greater than the number of trans people age 65+.
And it is: 0.7>0.5.
The question is, is that the difference that you should see, based on the influences, ideologies, etc.? Or are other variables influencing the numbers.
For example, there are powerful social influences on child and adolescent development, ideology, agendas, and the like, that may cause trans people to identify as not-trans. (Believing, for example, that you will lose your family, your friends, and your God if you transition is a powerful social influence on teens and young adults.)
And there are other variables: the suicide rate of trans people who are not able to transition, for example, is much higher than the suicide rate of the cisgender population, and folks who are 65+ have had more years to attempt/commit suicide. There's also the fact that trans women (particularly trans women of color) are more likely to be murder victims than other people.
So, even though 0.7>0.5, it might be that social influences, agendas, and the like haven't increased the number of cisgender teens and young adults that identify as trans; rather, social influences and the like may have suppressed the number of transgender folks over 65 who identify as trans.
There's a lot still to learn. But we're not going to learn it if the first response to unexpected data is to, in effect, call it fake news.
It isn't going to be called "fake news". It's going to be called the results of a very lengthy telephone survey where there was one question asked about transgender, and only one question. The specific question is right after questions about sexual orientation and before questions about children. I didn't find anything relating suicidality, ethnicity nor murder rates to this question. There's only a single survey question. So we can't really conclude too much.
The data was collected with something called Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The link provides the actual lengthy telephone survey questions asked by the interviewers. In the English questionnaire, the questions about Transgender are in Module 21, page 99. The question is entitled M21.02. It reads The responses are numbered 1 to 4 with additonal answers 7 and 9 coded if the person refused or said they didn't know.
We'd have to go through the data set itself to determine how many refused the question, level of sampling bias**. We cannot simply say that "the CDC collected the data and the proportions of people are the statistic cited by the law school institute which crunched the numbers are reliable and valid". We don't know if the sampling method causes people to over-report, under-report, exclude themselves from answering honestly. So I'm at the level with this report of proportions calling themselves transgender of "interesting", let's see some more data. In the case of children and adolescents, I'd like to see re-surveying the same people in follow-up, say 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years, or mid-adolescence, and mid-20's. I'd also like to see confirmatory data from collateral sources for the survey respondents.
** sampling bias: the survey was instantly terminated if the person answered "yes" at the beginning "is this a cell phone?". There are many other sources of unknown but potential sampling bias.
Given the one sampling issue re cell phones, I wonder if this one question survey under-represents at the younger ages. My reasoning is that younger people with parents, thus answering the survey on the family landline are less likely to freely express transgender on a phone question with a stranger than cellphone-using younger people.
This is a can of worms, I think. Many trans people say that you cannot become trans. And the whole issue of social constructs has become complicated, since again some trans people argue for an innate sense of gender, see for example, Julia Serano's stuff. Of course, others are positing a contagion idea.
There seem to be lots of contradictions going on, for example, some feminists who are hostile to trans, seem to be arguing from biological essentialism, a woman has a vagina, and so on, which position was hotly opposed in earlier times.
I suspect that a lot of derepression is going on, that is, the lifting of taboos.
At the moment, there is plenty of rhetoric, and dust and clamour in the air, in terms of gender theory. Of course, gender clinics continue to treat people who have some kind of gender variance. As I've said before, I remember people doing therapy, expressing disquiet with conventional gender, and this seems real enough, or if you like, it's empirical.
In relation to trans people, ironies abound, you don't look feminine enough, you look over-feminine, and so on. There are also plenty of stories of cisgender women being hounded for looking too masculine.
Given that developmentally children cannot reliably tell that an object out of direct view still exists until sometime in the first or second year of life, and the gender/sexual identity of persons is not reliably distinguished until at least that time, that is merely an assertion by whatever group of trans people about which the burden of proof is upon them to prove.
Object constancy / object permanence - that something that is not within the view of the person is perceived to still exist even though it cannot be seen.
I suppose a reverse point is that if gender is not innate, it should be switchable, which is doubtful. (Plus usual confusion about sex/gender).
Of course, this means that the notion of a trans identity is nonsensical, as are other non-binary identities. In fact, some feminists would argue that trans women are colonizers of women's bodies and women's spaces..
There's no space to do a full critique of this view, but it strikes me that it's a full-on biological view, in which gender practically disappears, except as gender roles. It seems ironic to go back to biology, which early feminists deconstructed, (de Beauvoir, "one is not born a woman").
It also makes the whole discussion very complicated, and you have to keep stopping and asking, "how is the notion of gender being used here?"
I have come across people who have experienced some transwomen - few, but vociferous and aggressive - doing just that, this leading to the above argument. Not helpful to the many who don't do anything of the sort.
Yes, there are aggressive trans people, but I think the gender critical view is that a trans woman automatically and always colonizes female physicality, by saying I'm a woman. Furthermore, "she" is not a woman, but a man in drag.
If that is true it is hilarious, as they are buying hook, line, and sinker the Patriarchy view of gender.
Still, since you brought up the comparison with faith journeys, I have a new term for "convertitis": rapid onset religious douchebaggery (ROGD).
If you've got a better parallel, that'd be great to know.
It seems that the popularized version of rapid onset is being used to dismiss gender variance, although I doubt if this happens in gender clinics. There is quite a widespread campaign to dismiss and even ridicule gender nonconformity, particularly trans kids. I don't think this is helpful at all to the kids themselves. If you are a parent of such a child, you want practical help, not conservative polemics.
Back in 2007 Jim Burroway of the now dormant blog Box Turtle Bulletin wrote a five part series (plus a prologue) about attending a conversion therapy convention. (Turning gay people straight, for those unfamiliar with the term.) Part 3 of that series is particularly interesting. It deals with the specialized vocabulary and language use of that movement.
The whole thing is worth a read, but the way homosexuality was pathologized as a way of trying to define it away as a personal attribute seems very similar to the idea of "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" and other ways to dismiss any kind of gender non-conformity as something external to gender non-conformists
It's often said that conservative groups which used to train their fire on LGB, have turned to gender itself as a way to bash vulnerable people, don't know if this is true.
But I think in the UK there is quite a lot of empathy for gender nonconformism, the NHS is OK, except for long queues. Of course, tabloids and TV enjoy their shock horror "trans woman in ladies toilets" titillations, and some feminists are hostile.
I think the word to watch here is "some." If "some" means "more than two" - and if two or more people recant their trans identity, either freely or under duress - that is taken as proof that Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is real. (Because the anecdotes of the few people recanting are data, following the rule that any anecdote that supports one's own position is data.
I am not at all surprised that you specified girls, because panic over the loss of fertility (cough Handmaid's Tale cough ) seems to be a big part of the belief in ROGD. It seems to me to be a leftover patriarchal attitude of "All your fertility are belong to us!" and not to the person in question.
Consider also adolescent first love relationships and sexual experiences. How influential this is. The discussions between the two. The discussions with other friends and not-friends on social media. The level of self esteem, the level of confidence the young person has in their identity at all. Can young people be led into consideration of gender change in this context? It's an empirical question; I only have a sample of one and an anecdote of another; this second is suggestive but not persuasive. When I say suggestive, I mean qualitative info but it is from parents who're horrified about the possible factuality of their child's trans. The one I know well is understood to have been other-influenced as I describe on a teen vulnerable previously to other things.
I'm not willing in this context to foreclose on the idea that there are probably a number of patterns developmentally. Nor I am willing to discount the social influence that rapid onset implies. I get that people in general prefer an either/or type of answer to complex questions, including on this forum. But that does not appear to represent very well.
Then consider social media as an extension of that influence. "pro-ana" being something noted as a social influence re anorexia nervosa, as an example of such social influence. We might also note the influence of media I general on sexuality, with comparison of the epidemiology when Kinsey surveyed sexual behaviour in the 1950s to present day re oral and anal sexual behaviours. Or perhaps you don't agree that ideas and behavioural scripts are passed around by humans in social contexts.
You can in fact see gender historically as a strait-jacket, which suppressed individuality and self-expression. As to why people today are resisting this suppression, and struggling towards their own identity, that is a big historical question.
And it's at this point in time that the cry of social contagion goes up from the anti-trans media! How much irony can one digest in a day?
All the behaviours you listed are coping behaviours for shame. It is hardly surprising that some people who have been made to feel ashamed of who they are might also turn to dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
Yes, how frustrating when people insist on inappropriately applying binary categories!
In any event, that's not what I was doing. I think it is possible there is a very small proportion of people who sincerely believe they are trans, transition, and then work out that they believe they have another gender identification instead. I think there are some people who have been made to feel so ashamed of who they are that they turn to dysfunctional coping mechanisms, which further messes up their stability and clarity. I think that in the vast majority of cases, it is better to believe and support the transitioning person rather than submit them to the insulting and damaging inquisition of what social influences "made" them this way. I think the latter is borne of unresolved parental shock, grief, and fear; in my view the parents have a responsibility to deal with their own issues rather than foist them on the transitioning person.
Within what peer groups today is it the norm to be transgender? Are you really proposing people are saying "all my friends are transgender; I should be too!"?
has had issues with low self esteem, self harm depression and anxiety.
This I have seen is very common among young people in our support group for parents of transgender youth.
What seems to help the most is supporting them were they are. To let them express their needs. Not trying to make them conform to a "norm". In either direction. Not pushing them towards transition or away from it.
I have looked for signs of peer pressure in my sons case as any parent would. And I have seen no indication that that is the case. Actually the peer pressure I have seen is in other directions like towards substance abuse or away from transitioning.
The pressure is usually to conform, not to be different. Even in the most "affirming" families the first reaction is usually to push back against it not to exert pressure for it.
Being transgender is not a ticket to being popular or to easy street. The only reason
it seems that it is "trendy" is that people have been allowed able to be more open about it recently. So kids that would never have said anything before or had no words to express how they felt now do. My advice to anyone who wants to understand transgender people is to meet at least some of them in real life. You will be able to see them as real people not as abstract objects of debate. It helped me a lot to understand what my son was going trough to meet other parents and other teenagers going trough the same experience.
"Non-binary" would be a much larger group, but from observation that seems to me to be much vaguer; it's on a par with my own generation opposing apartheid by boycotting South African oranges and wine, which we might not have bought anyway. Many teens can just carry on with their ordinary lives, but badge themselves as "gender non-conforming" because they eschew the pinker end of female fashion, or watch rom-coms or something. If you go into, for example, Tesco, their children's clothes are strictly sex-segregated. Boys' clothes are blue with tractors and robots. Girls' clothes are pink, with butterflies, unicorns and rainbows. Anyone with half a brain ought to reject that sexist crap, and, it seems to me that some teens, whom I would describe as "sensible and intelligent" are describing themselves as non-binary or nonconforming.
I think there is a big difference between "gender non-conforming" and "transgender."