Even as more and more states — and entire countries — take a step back from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with relative abandon, a landmark 15-year study appears to confirm that “gender-confused” children and teens are more likely than not to “grow out of” their feelings of dysphoria.
The Netherlands-based study included more than 2700 children beginning at age 11. They were asked every three years — into their mid-twenties—to describe their feelings about their own gender. While just over one in ten (11%) reported some degree of “non-contentedness” with their gender at some point during the study, by age 25, that number had dropped to one-in-25 (4%).
The study, titled the Tracking Adolescent’s Individual Lives Survey, began in 2001 and asked every participant to respond to this statement: “I wish to be of the opposite sex.”
They were asked to respond to that same statement every two to three years over the course of the 15-year study, and each time, they were given an array of choices:
- 0-Not True
- 1-Somewhat or Sometimes True
- 2-Very True or Often True
While the researchers did acknowledge some limitations to the study — namely that the participants were taken from the general population and had not necessarily been diagnosed with gender dysphoria — they still concluded that it lent weight to the idea that discontentment with gender was more common among teens than once they become adults.
“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,” the researchers, working from the University of Groningen, concluded.
Critics of radical gender theory were quick to point out that all the study really did was confirm what they had believed from the start: medical intervention for what is likely a phase and almost certainly has an emotional or psychological cause harms more children than it could ever help.
“There you have it. Now who is going to be held accountable for the many children that have been irreversibly damaged in our medical system due to the pushing of blind affirmation gender ideology? Anyone???” conservative pundit Amala Ekpunobi said.
There you have it. Now who is going to be held accountable for the many children that have been irreversibly damaged in our medical system due to the pushing of blind affirmation gender ideology? Anyone??? https://t.co/gppg3q9w9g
— Amala Ekpunobi (@amalaekpunobi) April 3, 2024
“This study torpedoes any argument for medically making children look like the opposite sex. But for me, the ‘most’ is irrelevant. One detransitioner is one too many, and no one should be offering ‘disguise as the opposite sex’ as ‘medical treatment’ *anyway*,” Duncan Henry added.
This study torpedoes any argument for medically making children look like the opposite sex.
But for me, the “most” is irrelevant. One detransitioner is one too many, and no one should be offering “disguise as the opposite sex” as “medical treatment” *anyway* https://t.co/iADRDoI2k2
— Duncan (@DuncanHenry78) April 3, 2024
Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, commented on the study although he was not involved in its execution.
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“This study provides even more reason to be skeptical towards aggressive steps to facilitate gender transition in childhood and adolescence,” he told The Daily Mail in a statement. “The fact that rates of satisfaction are lower even just a few years later suggests that for the vast majority of people, prudence and caution, rather than a rush towards permanent surgeries or hormone therapies, will be the best approach for teenagers struggling to make sense of the world and their place in it. As such, policies that prohibit gender transition for minors make a great deal of sense.”
Multiple states have already enacted full or partial bans on gender-related surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers for minors — and in recent weeks, both France and Britain have signaled the possibility that they could pull back from prescribing similar medical interventions in cases of gender dysphoria in minors.