Parents’ Survey of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoric Kids Finds Preexisting Mental-Health Issues and Pressured Parents

A new survey of parents whose children experienced rapid-onset gender dysphoria contains some very interesting information.

First, rapid onset impacts girls earlier than boys. And it appears to be associated with social contagion. From “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Cases,” published in Archives of Sexual Behavior (my emphasis throughout):

Asked whether the youths were friends with others who “came out as transgender around the same time,” 55.4% of parents (N = 917) said “yes.” That response was significantly higher regarding natal females (60.9%, N = 760) than natal males (38.7%, N = 157), χ²(1, N = 1655) = 61.0, p < 0.0001. Among those who answered “yes,” the mean number of transgender friends was 2.4 (Mdn = 2). Having friends come out as transgender contemporaneously was significantly related to the likelihood of social transition, statistically adjusting for natal sex, χ²(1, N = 1655) = 63.5, p < 0.0001. Among females, 73.3% with contemporaneous transgender friends had taken steps toward social transition, compared with 54% without such friends; for males, respective figures were 39.5% and 21.7%.

Informants estimated that before developing gender dysphoria, their children spent an average of 4.5 h per day “on the Internet and social media” (Mdn = 5).

Many parents reported being pressured to transition their children:

Parents were asked whether they had felt pressure from a “gender clinic or specialist” to transition their child socially or medically. Of the 390 parents who answered this question, 51.8% (N = 202) answered “yes,” 23.6% (N = 92) were unsure, and 24.6% (N = 96) said “no.” Treating this item as a 3-point scale (from 1 = “no” to 2 = “unsure” to 3 = “yes”), parents who felt pressured were more likely to believe their children had deteriorated after transition, r(197) = 0.22, p = 0.002…

The finding is particularly concerning given that parents tended to rate their children as worse off after transition.

Fifty-seven percent of parents reported that their gender-dysphoric children had preexisting mental health issues:

One statistically robust finding was both disturbing and seemingly important. Youths with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to have taken steps to socially and medically transition. This relationship held even after statistically adjusting for likely confounders (e.g., age). The finding is concerning because youth with mental health issues may be especially likely to lack judgment necessary to make these important, and in the case of medical transition permanent, decisions.

Even though many parents who answered the survey are socially progressive, critics blasted the findings. From the Daily Mail story:

Critics have derided the survey as self-selecting. Alejandra Caraballo, a prominent male-to-female transitioner and Harvard Law School instructor, dismissed the findings as ‘surveys of anti-trans parents recruited from online anti-trans sites.’

Of course. Data that do not validate the zeitgeist are always “anti-trans.”

The point here isn’t that this survey resolves all of the controversies in this highly contentious issue. Of course it doesn’t — as the study’s authors readily acknowledge. But it does indicate that contrary to those who claim the “science is settled,” there is more than one legitimate “side” to this question and still very much that we don’t know about why there has been such a tremendous increase in the number of children who believe they are not their biological sex.

(Note, this survey does not include parents of children whose transgender ideation was not “rapid onset.”)