[Image caption: excerpt from the linked article above, as follows.]
But to dig deeper, Olson and her team focused on more than 300 children who had undergone a social transition.
About two-thirds were transgender boys, meaning boys who had been assigned a female gender at birth; about one-third were transgender girls.
All were enrolled in the TransYouth Project between 2013 and 2017. The project tracked transition experiences over a five-year period, with children being between the ages of 3 and 12 when first socially transitioning.
Though Olson’s focus was on social transitioning, she noted that some of the children had embarked on a medical transition as well, though she emphasized that was only the case among the oldest kids, given that “youth are not eligible for medical transition until after the onset of puberty.”
Specifically, nearly 12% had begun taking puberty blockers during the study period. (After the study period ended, however, 190 kids ultimately began taking blockers; nearly 100 of those children also started taking gender-affirming hormones, Olson noted.)
Solely on the social transition front, Olson noted that over five years only about 7% of the children transitioned back at least once.
By the end of the study period, 94% of the kids continued to identify as the gender they had embraced when first socially transitioning. (That figure includes the just over 1% who had at one point re-transitioned back to their birth gender, before then returning back again to the gender to which they had initially transitioned.)
Of the 6% who did not stick with their initial transition, a little more than 3% described themselves as non-binary by the end of the study period, while just under 3% said they identified with their birth gender. (Identifying with one’s birth gender was notably more common among kids who had socially transitioned before the age of 6.)
“Interestingly, we are not finding that the youth who re-transitioned in our study are experiencing that as traumatic,” Olson noted. “We’ve been finding that when youth are in supportive environments — supportive in the sense of being OK with the exploration of gender — both the initial transition and a later re-transition are fine.”
the thing that strikes me about this latest wave of anti-trans hate and legislation in the U.S. is that it feels like it’s *kind of* about trans people but really about a fear fundamental to all conservatives that a day will one day come when they will no longer be able to completely control their children
american conservatism is a death cult. trump made this incredibly obvious but it’s been trending that way for a while. it is spiteful, bigoted, cruel, morally bankrupt, and all evidence in support of it has either been fabricated, forged, deceptively edited, or disproven. being conservative goes against a fundamental human desire to be kind to those around you and I think on some level conservatives know this, and thus, they know that the only reason children would subscribe to these values is if they are indoctrinated into them with cult-like single-mindedness
Conservatives have been pushing for homeschooling for decades, they’ve been raising concerns about teaching evolution in schools since the early 20th century, they’ve made wedge issues out of sex ed, history textbooks, and now gay and trans teachers. They want a world in which children are taught to be conservative from birth and any attempt to teach them anything else is a literal crime. They want this because they know, deep down inside, that most children would not agree with them unless they were literally brainwashed into it.
also worth pointing out that most child abuse (sexual or otherwise) takes place within a “traditional” family structure or a “traditional” religious institution and I have to wonder if people who want to abuse kids have a fundamental investment in preserving strict hierarchies in which adult men have unquestioned authority over children
Like I’m not saying *every* conservative is like this but perhpas their emphasis on “groomers” is a wee bit of projection
Anyway abolish the family trans rights are human rights institute fully automated luxury gay space communism now
i knew the state of society’s view of children was bad but i didn’t realize just how dire the situation was was until the lockdown began. this last month or so has really opened my eyes to how much people dislike children, even their own children, simply because they exist and they need them because you know… they’re small humans without the capacity to care for themselves.
it seems harmless but memes talking about how parents need alcohol to deal with their kids or can’t wait for their kids to go back to school so someone else can deal with them does harm in that it dehumanizes children and puts blame on the children for existing when it’s not the child’s fault they were brought into the world. it also brings about another uncomfortable fact: if you don’t like the way your children behave, barring them having a behavioral disorder or disability, you’re probably to blame and need to reevaluate how you’re raising them.
children are more than innocent bystanders… they are helpless and absolutely reliant on the adults around them to not only provide for them, but to show them love which in turn sets the precedent for how they will love in the future. this attitude implying they asked to be here and that it’s okay to joke about how annoying they are has got to stop.
all the comments on this post trying to take away from the fact that it’s a post specifically about children getting treated like shit, not adults, that this is not discussing adult problems, that this is solely about the abuse a lot of kids are currently enduring, need to make their own damn post. for fucks sake let something be about just the treatment of children for once
This is so true. Children are not mini-adults. They are children and to them you - their parents - are everything. You are their provider, their source of comfort in a world they are trying to figure out. Acting as though they are a burden is something that will stay with them in a very bad way. Believe me, I know.
READ THIS AGAIN
I’m so sick of parents getting MAD that they didn’t birth a 30-year old.
I’ve been trying to think of something to write and I can’t. I feel burned out on my life. The weekend comes along and I’m thinking great I’ll be rested and ready for Monday and, well. I never am.
I’m tired of dishes and cleaning and sweeping and the grocery and trying to entertain two kids and keep them from destroying the house and injuring each other. I fail at those last two every day.
“We had happy years together, nine of them, the last four she was mine alone. …
Since her second mother was fully as good as the first, better in some ways perhaps; since the father longed for his child and had a right to some of her society; and since the child had a right to know and love her father – I did not mean her to suffer the losses of my youth – this seemed the right thing to do. No one suffered from it but myself. This, however, was entirely overlooked in the furious condemnation which followed. I had ‘given up my child.’ …
I lived without her, temporarily, but why did they think I liked it? She was all I had. …
That was thirty years ago. I have to stop typing and cry as I tell about it. There were years, years, when I could never see a mother and child together without crying, or even a picture of them. I used to make friends with any child I could so as to hold it in my arms for a little. …”
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman on allowing her daughter to live with her father, in The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, An Autobiography (1935) p. 162-164
My 5yo wanted to ask me to play Animal Crossing and decided to confirm I wasn’t busy first, which is pretty sensible. But how he did it was to walk into my office while I had Facebook open and say “Dad. It doesn’t look like you need to do anything.”
Digital illustration of an Asian woman with long black hair with a shaved side part. She’s wearing a purple skater dress and holding a chubby baby. The baby is wearing a green striped onesie and holding a panda toy. They are among a leafy background and there’s a speech bubble that reads, ‘motherhood by choice, not force.’
We are loving new brand Jill and Jack Kids, making gender neutral clothing for kids with a positive message. Our favorite shirt? The one that says “Half of all T. rexes were GIRLS” just to remind us that the ferocious reptiles were both male and female!
Episode 3 of our new Mom/Daughter series is all about dealing with teen attitudes and mood swings from the teens point of view and the parents point of view! (more…)
Behind every great daughter there is an amazing dad who bestowed his trust in her, raised her, supported her , nurtured her and always reminded her ‘ SHE IS A BORN WARRIOR’. I found no point in raising girls with so comfort and delicacy. I am not questioning anyone’s upbringing. But girls should be raised in a way that they are ready to face all hardships. They should know how to make and where to make sacrifices, compromises and where not. They should be taught raising the voice is their birth right and in no circumstances they should be suppressed by the society norms . Because parents will be for a short time with their daughters what will left at the last is the advice, the love , the lessons taught to them which they can pass to their generation. This is necessary because a woman is one who can build a family or destroy it. My Grandpa says “ I have raised my daughters like a tree full of fruits,flowers and green leaves so that if anyone tries to shake them they will always shed gratitude , love and kindness ,if anyone tries to break them they will not because their roots are firm.”
Not having kids (by choice or by chance) is a perfectly healthy and normal thing to do. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Just listen to the women who attended the first-ever Not Mom Summit, a safe-space conference for those who are childfree. They put forward a solid list of what you should never say to people who don’t have children.
I have had zero desire to have a child my entire life. My dreams were never filled with white picket fences or a host of small children clamoring about my feet. Instead I dreamt of traveling, of exploring new places, of my partner and I having lazy sleepy Sundays with our furbabies curled in fluffy balls on the bed, of creating a beautiful and rewarding career in my passions (photography & feminism); not changing dirty diapers, morning sickness, crying toddlers, jam hands, bullies at school torturing my child, agonizing over college savings,.. I could go on like this for days. (Not that I think there aren’t amazing, wonderful, magical aspects to motherhood; they just aren’t worth the downsides for me, personally. There are just as many people who would say the same of my dream described above).
I have had people tell me I am selfish, self-absorbed; that I would make a great mom, that I’ll change my mind; how would I feel if my parents had done the same? My dreams don’t seem to matter if they don’t adhere to what society has come to expect of my anatomy. Just because I don’t ascribe to the expectations you have placed upon me does not make me somehow lesser or worse of a person, and certainly not any more selfish than the woman over the moon about having her child and th
I am a woman first and foremost,which obviously gives me the potential to be a mother, but why would you expect I must be a mother as well as a woman, if we do not assume the every adult male should also be a father?
I have been waiting for the day since I was 13 that I wouldn’t be told I’ll change my mind; I’m 26 now, and still my knowledge of myself and my desires is still constantly combated and always questioned. Maybe 2 decades will be enough to convince others that I know myself and what I want from my own life better than you.
anon: My parents are both from India, and they constantly say that the way they parent me is “the Indian way”. Does this justify my abuse? Am I taking this the wrong way, and just over reacting?
This is an argument that some parents of non-white-Western ethnicities make, be it Indian or Chinese or Latino or African American or other. Something like, “This white Western parenting style is permissive and leads to disrespectful kids, I’m certainly not going to do that. We parent the traditional way.” It’s also an argument that e.g. traditional, authoritarian Christian parents might make, believing that “spare the rod and spoil the child” has to be part of good Christian parenting.
Yes, certain groups of people might have a certain traditional view of children and a certain way of raising them, but just because something is the norm that doesn’t mean it can’t be abusive.
And. For any group, you will always also people within the group who do it differently, who parent gently while still maintaining a strong sense of connection with their culture/religion, and you will find advocates who take a critical look at the traditional views of child rearing and point out abusive patterns and show alternatives. I’m adding a list of such advocates below. (’Keep reading’ added so I can add more resources as I find them.)
