Recent Studies Contradict the Dogma of ‘Gender-Affirming Care” Activists
Recent Studies Contradict the Dogma of ‘Gender-Affirming Care” Activists
Transgender activists preach a doctrine that asserts children and teens must be “affirmed” in whatever gender they claim to be in order to prevent the risk of suicide.
Such “affirmation” begins with social transition, i.e., appearance change in clothing, hair, etc., name changes, preferred pronouns, and behavior changes. Young people who receive positive reinforcement, aka “affirmation,” at this phase are likely to move onto treatment with puberty blockers, then cross-sex hormones and even surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies.
With the total backing of the Biden administration, activists have been successful in achieving a rapid surge in the numbers of young people being subjected to such “gender-affirming care.” Additionally, the administration continues to boost the activists’ claim that suicidal thoughts, depression, and other psychological disorders have nothing to do with actually believing one is in the “wrong body,” but, instead, are caused by bullying, harassment, and general non-acceptance of the “new gender” on the part of parents, friends, etc.
Now, results of several recent studies show that: questioning gender is not at all uncommon for young adolescents; that most grow out of this stage and end up comfortable with the gender that correlates with their biological sex; that discomfort with one’s gender is linked to dissatisfaction with self and poor psychological health throughout adolescence; and that the main predictor of death in gender-dysphoric young people is “psychiatric morbidity.”
A study from the Netherlands by Pien Rawee et al, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, examined “gender non-contentedness” by following more than 2,700 children into young adulthood, from age 11 to age 26.
The researchers found that while, in early adolescence, 11% of participants expressed gender non-contentedness, the majority of children grew out of it as they got older, with only 4% still reporting gender issues at the last follow-up assessment at about age 26.
The findings:
Three developmental trajectories of gender non-contentedness were identified: no gender non-contentedness (78%), decreasing gender non-contentedness (19%), and increasing gender non-contentedness (2%). Individuals with an increasing gender non-contentedness more often were female and both an increasing and decreasing trajectory were associated with a lower global self-worth, more behavioral and emotional problems, and a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
“Gender non-contentedness, while being relatively common during early adolescence, in general decreases with age and appears to be associated with a poorer self-concept and mental health throughout development,” the authors concluded.
Read more about this study here.
Another recent large study, this one from Finland, zoned in on the suicide risk often touted by gender ideologues as tied to failure by parents to immediately affirm their child’s new gender identity.
The study, published at BMJ Mental Health set out to “examine all-cause and suicide mortalities in gender-referred adolescents and the impact of psychiatric morbidity on mortality.”
At Tampere University, Ruuska S-M, et al, used national data from a Finnish cohort of 2,083 “gender-referred” young people under the age of 23, along with 16,643 matched controls.
Of the 55 deaths that occurred in the study population, 20, or 36% were suicides. While the proportion of suicides was higher in the gender-referred group, the researchers concluded, however, that gender dysphoria was not predictive of suicide when other mental health issues were accounted for.
“Clinical gender dysphoria does not appear to be predictive of all-cause nor suicide mortality when psychiatric treatment history is accounted for,” the authors noted. “It is of utmost importance to identify and appropriately treat mental disorders in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria to prevent suicide.”
Read more about this study here.
In a seemingly related report, another paper from Finland, published last month in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, showcased a new psychological assessment that measures “critical social justice attitudes” (CSJAs), or “woke beliefs.”
Oskari Lahtinen at the University of Turku conducted two studies with a combined 5,878 participants – one that created a pilot scale for CSJAs – which he then used in his second study to measure the prevalence of woke attitudes in various populations and how they correlated with psychological variables such as anxiety, depression, and life happiness, as assessed by other established measures.
Both studies revealed that “having high CSJAS scores was linked to anxiety, depression, and a lack of happiness,” wrote Lahtinen, adding, however, that results of the second study showed “this lower level of mental well-being was mostly associated with being on the political left and not specifically with having a high CSJAS score.
“The association between lower mental health and supporting the political left is in line with what other studies have found prior to this one,” the researcher observed.
Read more about this study here.
Pediatricians, family physicians, and parents faced with young people contemplating “gender-affirming” treatment with experimental drugs and life-altering surgeries have these recent large studies to introduce into discussions.
In the video below from Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, the topic is the dangers of transgender procedures for children and teens:
In a response last month to leaked internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), pediatric endocrinologist Quentin Van Meter, M.D., former president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), told “The World and Everything In It” the revelations were astounding:
There is no science to what they’re doing. There is definitely proven harm. The people within WPATH who discussed in these interviews with the whistleblower, you know, “We don’t know what we’re doing,” we surely see their problems. Kids can’t possibly make a decision when they’re a teenager about becoming sterilized and asexual as an adult. They have no way to wrap their head around it. And guess what, the parents didn’t … really understand as well.
The documents showed WPATH medical providers admitting children are developmentally unable to comprehend the consequences of the drug and surgical treatments the “gender medicine” professionals recommend.
“Puberty is not a disease,” the Atlanta-based Van Meter said. “it is a very important part of life that changes you from an infertile child into a reproductive adult. And puberty blockers should not be used during puberty.”
“[T]he sense that you’re born in the wrong body, which is entirely in your head, has no biologic basis,” he continued. “Okay, that improves and resolves in upwards of 90 to 95% of the children who grow up and who are allowed to go through their natural puberty.”
Van Meter encouraged other doctors to help young people dealing with gender issues by addressing their “mental health issues,” and to be wary of some parents who may have “agendas that they place on their child.”
“[I]t’s an awful thing to see this happen to the poor child who was getting manipulated by their parent,” he said. “It’s so important that we look after the children … ‘Do no harm,’ is what we’re supposed to do in medicine. The American College of Pediatricians stands behind that firmly.”
References:
https://catholicvote.org/study-finds-woke-beliefs-linked-to-depression-anxiety-and-unhappiness/