Transgender Kids NOT Confused About Identity
Study proves transgender kids aren't confused about their identities
A study in this month's issue of Psychological Science shows that transgender children are actually fully capable of understanding what gender means, along with their personal gender identities. The study followed 32 transgender children, 18 of their siblings, and a control group consisting of 32 gender-typical children, all between the ages of 5 and 12.
Nicholas Eaton, an assistant psychology professor at Stony Brook University and author of the study report, said, "We found that gender cognition in the transgender kids was indistinguishable from their non-transgender peers and siblings." By testing the answers surrounding how a child identifies against their reaction time to computerized tasks, the study was able to determine that there is no perceptible difference between the responses of a transgender girl and a cisgender girl, nor between a transgender boy and a cisgender boy.
"Across all these tasks—across the more and less controllable measures of gender development—our transgender participants look just like other kids, but in the direction of their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth," said Eaton in a news release.
The study is deeply affirming for children who are transgender. Allegations that transgender children are confused about their identities, are too young to understand, or that allowing a child to transition is "child abuse" have been debunked, time and again, as nothing more than biased rhetoric.
Ideally, the information obtained from this study will help contradict the stigma surrounding transgender children, and encourage sources to cease spreading false information regarding the transgender community.
-by Sarah Furlong
