|
 They were just as likely as non-transgender children to say their
gender as grownups would be the same as their gender in preschool.
"These new findings show that, for example, transgender girls
believe they will grow up to be women just as much as other girls
believe they will grow up to be women," said senior author Kristina
Olson, of the University of Washington in Seattle. "Same thing for
transgender boys. Our groups were equally confident about their
future gender being stable."
People who are transgender do not identify with the sex assigned to
them at birth. A person born with the anatomy of a female may
identify as male, or vice versa. Sometimes, people don't identify
with either gender. People whose gender identity and anatomy do
match are known as cisgender.
Writing in the journal Child Development, Olson and her co-author
Anne Fast quote a previous study from New Zealand that estimates
about 1.2 percent of people are transgender.
Olson's previous research found that transgender and cisgender
elementary school students reach gender-related milestones at a
similar pace.
The new study focused on preschoolers. Researchers interviewed
children between the ages of 3 and 5 years, including 36 who were
transgender, 24 who were cisgender with a transgender sibling and 36
cisgender children without transgender siblings.
Along with observing how the children dressed, the researchers also
asked how they saw themselves as adults, what they thought of the
adult or childhood genders of people in pictures, what toys they'd
like to play with and who among people in pictures would be their
friends.
Overall, transgender children answered similarly to their cisgender
peers of the same gender.
For example, children who identified as male were likely to
gravitate toward objects that are stereotypically masculine, like an
orange tool set or red barbecue set. Meanwhile, children who
identified as girls gravitated toward stereotypically feminine
objects, like a pink and sparkly dress.
[to top of second column] |
Transgender children did differ from their cisgender peers when
asked about their gender as babies. For example, a transgender child
identifying as female would say she was a boy as a baby, while a
cisgender preschooler identifying as female would say she was a girl
as an infant.
Olson's team isn't sure why transgender children view their gender
in infancy as different from their gender in preschool. The children
may be parroting what they've heard from adults about their birth,
Olson said in an email.
"They might also hear this question as being about how people used
to treat them versus how they treat them now," Olson added. "More
research is necessary to figure out exactly what is happening here."
The new study shows transgender children demonstrate the same
developmental gender hallmarks as children who are not transgender,
she said.
"So this paper, like our past study, shows that from the perspective
of the child's identified gender, these socially-transitioned
transgender children look just like most other kids," said Olson.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2pf6lKf Child Development, online April 25,
2017.
(In paragraph 12, corrects to Olson from Olsen)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
