Transitioned Trans Kids Act and Develop Similar to Cis Kids According to Study

The Largest Yet Study of Trans Children Debunks Some Myths

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Yesterday Newsweek published an article about a new study of trans kids. Some of the findings were interesting, though not surprising to those of us who know any trans kids. The article, as well as an article from University of Washington News, and a listing of the study’s findings appear below this story.

According to Newsweek,

To conduct the study, the researchers met families across North America, study co-author Selin Gülgöz, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, told Newsweek. They spoke to children and parents about the former’s gender identity. That included showing kids toys and asking which ones they preferred, and quizzing them on how similar they felt to boys or girls. The cisgender control group followed the same steps.

The results were pretty clear. There was virtually no difference in answers between the trans kids and the cisgender control group. One of the authors of the authors of the study remarked that the data looked similar from one group to the other and that they would not be able to tell the difference in the data without knowing which group it came from.

What Does This Mean?

Although the study was not designed to determine whether kids should be raised in the gender of which they identify, several of the findings seem to counter popular arguments against allowing children to transition.

For instance, there is this from the study’s co-author:

“Within both transgender and cisgender children, we find a wide range in the strength of their identity and preferences. For example, we had some ‘tomboy’ transgender girls in the study, just as we had ‘tomboy’ cisgender girls."

In other words, this blows out of water the idea that a trans boy might be “just a tomboy,” or that gender presentation plays a part at all.

Likewise, gender stereotypes.

From co-author Selin Gülgöz again:

“This study does show that in fact not all trans girls (or cis…