Young & Restless

The Instability of "Transgender"

Are more young people coming out as transgender, or is the media over-emphasizing some statistics and under-reporting others? Among pre-pubescent teens and pre-teens, for instance, it turns out that while the number of those who identify as transgender has increased, the majority of them no longer identify as transgender after puberty. Here are some other noteworthy statistics.

Teens & Pre-teens:

2.7% The percentage of teens who identified as transgender or gender nonconforming in a Minnesota study of 81,000 ninth and eleventh graders.¹

7.8% The percentage of teens in a Dutch study who were both gender-dysphoric and autistic. The prevalence of autism in the general Dutch population is 0.6 to 1%.²

70-98% The percentage of boys with gender dysphoria who accept their biological sex after puberty, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, or DSM-5 (2013).³

50-88% The percentage of girls with gender dysphoria who accept their biological sex after puberty, according to the DSM-5.⁴

70-80% The number of children in a Vanderbilt University study who, after initially reporting having transgender feelings, "spontaneously lost those feelings" over time.⁵

Millennials (ages 18-34):

Based on a Fusion.net telephone surtvey of 1,000 millennials in 2015⁶: Percent who agreed with the statement, "There are only two genders, male and female" versus percent who agreed with the statement, "Gender is a spectrum, and some people fall outside conventional categories."

Surgery Stats:

20%  The percent increase in gender confirmation surgeries from 2015 to 2016 in the U.S. More than 3,000 such surgeries were performed in 2016.⁷

10.9% The percentage of people diagnosed with transsexualism or gender identity disorder who went to a hospital to receive gender affirmation surgery. This study looked at medical records of 37,827 people from several institutions during 2000-2014.⁸

And the Clincher:

0  The number of formal studies on how many people de-transition or experience sex-change regret after sex-reassignment surgery. Several surgeons have reported increased requests for reversal surgeries, particularly among males who transitioned to female. One therapist who works with transgender people was told by his university that he could not conduct a study on de-transitioning because it was "potentially politically incorrect."⁹

Terms Commonly Used in Mainstream Journalism

Cisgender: A person who identifies as male or female in accord with his or her biological sex.

Transgender: A person who identifies as being of a different gender than that which conforms to his or her biological sex. This term is also broadly used to include everything from transsexual to gender nonconforming.

Transsexual: Often used interchangeably with "transgender," this term specifically refers to a person who has had medical procedures to change his or her appearance to that of the opposite sex.

Gender nonconforming: A person whose behavior does not conform to the cultural norms associated with his or her biological sex. Such a one may or may not also identify as transgender.

Gender dysphoric: A person who identifies as being of a different gender than that which conforms to his or her biological sex and who suffers significant distress over that dichotomy.

Gender confirmation (or affirmation) surgery: Surgery that changes the physical appearance and function of a person's sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex.

Discarded Term

Gender identity disorder: Condition suffered by a person who does not self-identify with the gender that conforms to his or her biological sex. Significantly, this term was eliminated from the DSM-5.

Notes
1. G. Nicole Rider et al., "Health Care Utilization of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth: A Population-Based Study," Pediatrics (March 2018): http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/3/e20171683.
2. Annelou L. C. de Vries et al., "Autism Spectrum Disorders in Gender Dysphoric Children and Adolescents," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (August 2010): ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904453.
3. DSM-5. "Rates of persistence of gender dysphoria from childhood into adolescence or adulthood vary. In natal males, persistence has ranged from 2.2% to 30%. In natal females, persistence has ranged from 12% to 50%."
4. Ibid.
5. Paul McHugh, "Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution," The Wall Street Journal (May 13, 2016): wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120.
6. https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/fusion-poll-gender-spectrum.pdf.
7. Lizette Borreli, "Transgender Surgery: Regret Rates Highest in Male-to-Female Reassignment Operations," Newsweek (Oct. 3, 2017): newsweek.com/transgender-women-transgender-men-sex-change-sex-reassignment-surgery-676777.
8. Joseph K. Canner et al., "Temporal Trends in Gender-Affirming Surgery Among Transgender Patients in the United States," JAMA Surgery (Feb. 28, 2018): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2673384.
9. Borreli, idem note 7; Sally Weale, "University 'turned down politically incorrect transgender research,' The Guardian (Sept. 25, 2017): theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/25/bath-spa-university-transgender-gender-reassignment-reversal-research.