Gender discontent is just a phase for most kids, a new study shows. Will transition pushers leave those kids alone?
Thousands of children will likely regret going under the knife to change their sex as the majority of gender-confused kids have been found to shed the confusion by the time they are fully grown adults.
Search anywhere on social media these days and you’ll find endless chatter on the subject of young people ruminating over a sex change. Coming at a critical time in a child’s development, the messaging can sow tremendous confusion. And what has been missing from the conversation is how many of these young people eventually grow out of their feelings over time.
One such adolescent, ‘Rebecca,’ was 11 years old when she began to identify as transgender. At the age of 13, at the emotionally sensitive time when puberty sets in, she broke the unsettling news to her friends and family. That same year, the doctors prescribed her puberty blockers and testosterone. At the tender age of 16, she went under the knife for a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, however, she understood that she’d made a terrible mistake.
“I need to open up about my experience,” Rebecca told RT via email. “I want others to understand that they needn’t go through the same trauma that I did.”
At the age of 17, Rebecca belongs to a growing number of individuals known as “detransitioners,” those who hope to reverse a sex-change operation, often after coming to the conclusion that they are comfortable with their biological sex. But making the journey back from such extreme medical procedures is far from easy, and many young people will suffer for the rest of their lives with an irreversible decision they made as minors.
In the West, the number of minors experiencing gender dysphoria has exploded. Between 2009 and 2019, the number of children being referred for transitioning treatment in the United Kingdom surged 1,000% among biological males and 4,400% among biological females. In the US, the number of young people identifying as transgender has almost doubled since 2017, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
Now, a landmark 15-year study concludes that what this new medicine recognizes as “being transgender” is, more often than not, just a passing phase for kids. Researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands monitored more than 2,700 people from age 11 to their mid-twenties, questioning them every three years for sentiments about their gender.
At the start of the study, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, about one in ten children (11 percent) expressed ‘gender non-contentedness’ to varying degrees. By age 25, however, just one in 25 (4%) said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ were discontent with their gender, the Daily Mail reported.
The researchers concluded: “The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.”
Will this revelation slow down the advent of sex-drenched lessons in ‘progressive’ Western classrooms? Will educators stop and consider the findings of the data and let kids enjoy their childhood years before they are introduced to these radical ideas? Of course, shielding kids from the messaging in the age of social media is virtually impossible, and questions will naturally arise from some of the students. So if teachers feel the need to breach the subject on an individual basis (as opposed to discussions in front of the entire classroom), this should be done privately in the company of parents and counselors as the children are reassured that they will likely grow out of their mixed feelings over time. The problem, however, is that the wheels of change have already been set in motion and it is doubtful they will reverse anytime soon.
In 2022, members of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teacher’s union in the US, laid out ways for teachers to introduce gender pronouns to children starting in pre-kindergarten, in a webinar titled “Using Pronouns to Create a Safe, Welcoming, and Inclusive Environment.” It was recommended that schools ask students their preferred pronouns and add LGBTQ+ books to school library shelves.
In light of the latest findings, will these methods be re-evaluated? If doubting their gender identity is only a passing phase for most children, then aggressively pushing the ideas of transgenderism and things like gender fluidity seems like a sure-fire way to exacerbate this phase and turn it into full-blown gender dysphoria. This, in turn, can possibly lead to a sex-change operation somewhere down the road that will be largely irreversible.
Meanwhile, there are other ways that children are being set up to question their gender identity. Public libraries have gotten in on the action, hosting Drag Queen Story Hours where books heavily laced in sexual innuendo are the main feature and read by grown men dressed in women’s clothes, some of whom are convicted child sex offenders. It’s anybody’s guess what these salacious exhibitions do to the psychology of a developing child, but certainly nothing good. All this proves what is becoming increasingly obvious: Western society has become a lewd no-go zone for the most vulnerable segment of the population, where not even religious feast days can avoid getting caught up in the transgender net.
Trans rights were thrust onto the national stage this month after Easter was superseded in the US by ‘Trans Visibility Day.’ While President Joe Biden was accused by some of specifically targeting the holiday, the White House later clarified that the awareness day is recognized every year on March 31 and only coincided with Easter this year by chance.
But couldn’t the Biden administration have moved the celebration this year to a different date out of respect for one of Christianity’s holiest days? Nobody in the US should expect such miracles to happen anytime soon. Craziness is in the saddle and it’s riding America, and it will likely take many more studies to slow the gallop down.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
