Eine interessante Studie zu der Frage, ob ein „Unwohlsein mit dem Geschlecht“ bei Jugendlichen eine Phase ist oder nicht:
Adolescence is an important period for the development of gender identity. We studied the development of gender non-contentedness, i.e., unhappiness with being the gender aligned with one’s sex, from early adolescence to young adulthood, and its association with self-concept, behavioral and emotional problems, and adult sexual orientation. Participants were 2772 adolescents (53% male) from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey population and clinical cohort. Data from six waves were included (ages 11–26). Gender non-contentedness was assessed with the item “I wish to be of the opposite sex” from the Youth and Adult Self-Report at all six waves. Behavioral and emotional problems were measured by total scores of these scales at all six waves. Self-concept was assessed at age 11 using the Global Self-Worth and Physical Appearance subscales of the Self-Perception Profile for Children. Sexual orientation was assessed at age 22 by self-report. In early adolescence, 11% of participants reported gender non-contentedness. The prevalence decreased with age and was 4% at the last follow-up (around age 26). 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.
Quelle: Development of Gender Non-Contentedness During Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Und noch einmal übersetzt:
Die Adoleszenz ist ein wichtiger Zeitraum für die Entwicklung der Geschlechtsidentität. Wir untersuchten die Entwicklung der geschlechtsspezifischen Unzufriedenheit, d. h. der Unzufriedenheit mit dem Geschlecht, das dem eigenen Geschlecht entspricht, von der frühen Adoleszenz bis zum jungen Erwachsenenalter, sowie deren Zusammenhang mit dem Selbstkonzept, Verhaltens- und emotionalen Problemen und der sexuellen Orientierung im Erwachsenenalter. Die Teilnehmer waren 2772 Jugendliche (53 % männlich) aus der Tracking Adolescents‘ Individual Lives Survey Population und der klinischen Kohorte. Es wurden Daten aus sechs Erhebungswellen berücksichtigt (Alter 11-26 Jahre). Die geschlechtsspezifische Unzufriedenheit wurde in allen sechs Erhebungswellen mit dem Item „Ich wünsche mir, dem anderen Geschlecht anzugehören“ aus dem Youth and Adult Self-Report erfasst. Verhaltens- und emotionale Probleme wurden anhand der Gesamtwerte dieser Skalen in allen sechs Wellen gemessen. Das Selbstkonzept wurde im Alter von 11 Jahren anhand der Unterskalen Globaler Selbstwert und Körperliches Erscheinungsbild des Selbstwahrnehmungsprofils für Kinder bewertet. Die sexuelle Orientierung wurde im Alter von 22 Jahren durch Selbstauskunft ermittelt. In der frühen Adoleszenz gaben 11 % der Teilnehmer an, nicht mit dem Geschlecht einverstanden zu sein. Die Prävalenz nahm mit dem Alter ab und lag bei der letzten Nachuntersuchung (im Alter von etwa 26 Jahren) bei 4 %. Es wurden drei Entwicklungsverläufe der geschlechtsspezifischen Unzufriedenheit festgestellt: keine geschlechtsspezifische Unzufriedenheit (78 %), abnehmende geschlechtsspezifische Unzufriedenheit (19 %) und zunehmende geschlechtsspezifische Unzufriedenheit (2 %). Personen mit zunehmender Geschlechtsuntreue waren häufiger weiblich, und sowohl ein zunehmender als auch ein abnehmender Verlauf wurde mit einem geringeren globalen Selbstwert, mehr Verhaltens- und emotionalen Problemen und einer nicht-heterosexuellen sexuellen Orientierung in Verbindung gebracht. Geschlechtsunabhängigkeit ist zwar in der frühen Adoleszenz relativ häufig, nimmt aber im Allgemeinen mit dem Alter ab und scheint mit einem schlechteren Selbstkonzept und einer schlechteren psychischen Gesundheit während der gesamten Entwicklung verbunden zu sein.
Dann die Grafik aus der Studie:
Proportion of children classified as GNC at each age in the study.
Die blauen Grafiken und die roten sind jeweils verschiedene Tests (siehe Erläuterungen) und dies sinken in der Tat relativ deutlich mit fortschreitenden Alter ab.
Aus dem Text:
As can be seen in Fig. 1, gender non-contentedness was most prevalent at T1 (age 10–12 years), and the prevalence decreased with age. The prevalence was significantly higher in girls than boys at ages 13 (T2; χ2 = 13.91, p < 0.001) and 16 (T3; χ2 = 5.43, p < 0.05) in the TRAILS cohort. Also see Appendix A in Supplemantary Material for specific prevalence rates of gender non-contentedness per sex per timepoint. Gender non-contentedness prevalence was not significantly different in TRAILS and TRAILS-CC at T1 and T2, but it was significantly more prevalent in the clinical cohort at T3 (χ2 = 6.21, p < 0.05), T4 (χ2 = 18.68, p < 0.001), T5 (χ2 = 8.64, p < 0.05) and T6 (χ2 = 11.50, p < 0.01) (Table 1 and Fig. 1).
Dazu noch eine Grafik aus der Studie:
Hier sind drei Gruppen abgebildet, die, die sich in ihrem Geschlecht wohl fühlten (78%) und demnach auch keine Nichtübereinstimmung fühlten. Die, die sich erst unwohl fühlten und bei denen es dann weniger wurde (19%) und die Gruppe, die eine gewisse Nichtübereinstimmung fühlten und sich diese dann verstärkte (allerdings der Kurve nach auch nur von knapp über Never zu Sometimes (2%).)
Und noch eine Grafik:
Distribution of gender non-contentedness within the trajectory groups
Da sieht man die gleichen Gruppen und innerhalb dieser die Verteilungen Man sieht, dass bei der mittleren Gruppe nicht viel übrig bleibt, bei der linkeren Gruppe auch viele noch im „Gelegentlich“-Bereich sind und einige im „often“ Bereich.
Man sieht: Hier ist eine gewisse Spanne vorhanden, sowohl in der zweiten als auch dritten Gruppe, bei der man gerade im jungen Alter einiges falsch machen könnte, indem man sie etwa operiert oder ihnen Hormone gibt, obwohl sich das ganze vielleicht so eingependelt hätte.
Dann noch eine Grafik, die die sexuelle Orientierung miteinbezieht:
Das ist natürlich schwierig zu lesen, aber es sollte vergrößerbar sein.
Wie man sieht ist eine Chance in der Gruppe zu sein, bei denen sich die Nichtübereinstimmung mit dem eigentlichen Geschlecht verstärkt, gerade bei Homosexualität und bei Bisexualität höher und wenn man weiblich ist.
Bei einer sich verringernden Nichtübereinstimmung ist ebenfalls Homo- oder Bisexualität ein gewisser Faktor.
Das ist wenig verwunderlich, wenn man berücksichtigt, dass beides vermutlich mit pränatalen Testosteron in Verbindung steht.
Dazu auch:
- Geschlechterunterschiede im INAH3 (interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus) und Transsexualität
(dort war ein bestimmter Gehirnbereich größer bei Frauen und bei M->F Transsexuellen und bei Schwulen)
Und hier noch eine ältere Diskussion:
Aus der Diskussion der Ergebnisse:
We found that gender non-contentedness is most common around the age of 11 and that the prevalence decreases with age. Moreover, we identified three different developmental trajectory types of gender (non-) contentedness throughout adolescence and early adulthood: (1) the majority (78% of the sample) consistently indicated to never experience any gender non-contentedness, (2) a group reporting gender non-contentedness in early adolescence, but not any longer in adulthood (19% of the sample), and (3) a small group (2% of the sample) showing the opposite pattern of increasingly reporting gender non-contentedness with age. We found that female sex and participating in the clinical rather than population cohort was associated with increasing gender non-contentedness. In addition, individuals with increasing or decreasing gender non-contentedness trajectories had lower global self-worth, more behavioral and emotional problems, and more often had a homosexual or bisexual orientation compared to individuals without gender non-contentedness.
A major strength of our study is the 6-wave longitudinal design, which allowed us to model developmental trajectories of gender non-contentedness from late childhood through early adulthood (11–26 years). Furthermore, it was conducted in a combined general population and clinical sample, while most previous studies have reported on gender non-contentedness in samples of adolescents clinically referred for their gender identity problems, often including only a single follow-up assessment. Our study therefore provides more reliable epidemiological knowledge about the prevalence of gender non-contentedness among adolescents of the general Dutch population and provides new insights into the association with mental health problems.
A majority of adolescents (78%) indicated to never experience any gender non-contentedness. This is mostly in line with existing literature, which found that 87% of a sample of Taiwanese junior high school students were satisfied with their gender and that 90% of a sample of 9–10-year-olds from the Unites States never reported a wish to be of the other gender (Kuo et al., 2021; Potter et al., 2021).
In addition, in the current sample we found that a relatively large percentage (19%) of young adolescents reported gender non-contentedness in adolescence, but not in early adulthood. This is a larger percentage than found by Kuo et al.’s (2021) study, who reported a group (8% of 1806 children) who experienced gender dissatisfaction around age 13, but not anymore around age 22. The larger percentage of individuals with temporary, declining gender dissatisfaction in our sample might be explained by the wider age range (11–26 years) of the TRAILS sample. While we found a clear declining trend in gender non-contentedness with age in the TRAILS population cohort, such an age pattern was not observed in the cross-sectional data of an older (1987) Dutch sample of 941 children between ages 11 and 19, where no significant age differences were found (Verhulst et al., 1989).
Our study identified a group that started reporting gender non-contentedness in mid to late adolescence, showing an increasing trajectory into adulthood. In the literature about clinical gender dysphoria, a late-onset type is described, referring to the onset of gender dysphoric feelings after puberty (Lawrence, 2010). Furthermore, it has been noted that late-onset gender dysphoria may be preceded by or co-occur with various adjustment problems or psychopathology (Sevlever & Meyer-Bahlburg, 2019). Our findings confirm that gender non-contentedness also may start appearing after puberty.
Using LCGA, we did not identify a group with stable gender non-contentedness. A few individuals in the current sample quite consistently reported gender non-contentedness throughout adolescence and adulthood (N = 3, 0.1% of the total sample). However, this was not identified as a separate group given the small sample size.
Girls were more likely than boys to report gender non-contentedness at ages 13 and 16 (T2 and T3). Girls also had higher odds than boys to have an increasing trajectory of gender non-contentedness throughout adolescence (instead of a trajectory without gender non-contentedness). In an older (1987) Dutch general population sample, no significant sex differences in endorsement of the gender non-contentedness item was observed, although the prevalence was higher in adolescent girls at all ages (Verhulst et al., 1989).
Regarding clinical samples, it is known that referral rates to gender clinics are higher in adolescent girls than in boys (Aitken et al., 2015). A potential explanation offered in the literature for the current sex ratio in referral rates is that there might be less stigmatization of (birth-assigned) girls who behave masculine than boys who behave feminine, making it easier for girls to articulate their opposite sex wish (de Graaf et al., 2018; Perry et al., 2019). Additionally, a potential explanation for the higher prevalence of gender non-contentedness in girls than in boys in the current sample could be that girls more often believe that being a boy would come with certain advantages than the other way around (Perry et al., 2019).
Importantly, we found that both the increasing and decreasing gender non-contentedness trajectory groups had lower global self-worth at age 11 compared to adolescents without gender non-contentedness. Earlier studies also found that children referred to gender identity clinics have a more negative self-concept compared to a Dutch norm sample, specifically in the physical appearance and global self-worth domains (Alberse et al., 2019; Rijn et al., 2013). Low global self-worth was found to be associated with having an increasing or decreasing gender non-contentedness trajectory throughout adolescence. In contrast to our hypothesis, we did not find a significant association between the physical appearance scores and trajectories of gender non-contentedness in the multinomial logistic regression analysis. However, in post-hoc analyses, we found that those adolescents experiencing gender non-contentedness “sometimes” and “often” at T1 had a more negative body image than adolescents who never experienced gender non-contentedness at T1. This finding is in line with a recent study reporting on body dissatisfaction in adolescents with gender incongruence (when an individual’s gender identity does not match their birth-assigned sex), which was associated with worse psychological functioning (Verveen et al., 2023). Thus, the current study shows that a relationship between gender non-contentedness and a negative self-concept is also found in a combined general population and clinical sample and not only in children referred to gender identity clinics.
Self-worth and self-esteem are important factors in the well-being and mental health of adolescents. Next to a more negative self-concept, we found that gender non-contentedness was more prevalent in the clinical cohort of TRAILS than in the population cohort (at 4 assessment waves, not at T1 and T2). In addition, individuals with an increasing trajectory of gender non-contentedness had significantly higher YSR/ASR total problem scores at all timepoints. Gender non-contentedness has previously been associated with mental health problems (Potter et al., 2021) and clinical gender dysphoria has been reported to co-occur with diverse psychiatric problems, such as depression and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and autism spectrum disorder (Bechard et al., 2017; Dhejne et al., 2016; Donaldson et al., 2018; Holt et al., 2016). This may potentially be due to minority stress, discrimination and/or bullying (Pellicane & Ciesla, 2022; Tankersley et al., 2021). Future research should use more extensive measures of gender non-contentedness and gender identity to further elucidate developmental patterns of these concepts in relation to adolescent well-being and mental health. Relevant to mention is that the data included in the current study were collected between 2001 (first timepoint population cohort) and 2020 (sixth timepoint clinical cohort). Societal awareness and acceptance of trans- and non-binary gender identities has improved in certain areas in the world. Therefore, future studies should examine whether more recently collected data on gender non-contentedness associate differently with measures of self-esteem and mental health.
Ein Artikel will die Ergebnisse einordnen:
It’s actually quite hard to know what to make of these results. You could argue – as the breathless headlines have done – that this shows that many transgender children stop identifying as trans as the years go by. It’s possible. But I don’t think that anyone would reasonably argue that answering “sometimes” to the question “I wish to be the opposite sex” is a reasonable measure of being trans. Frankly, even answering “often” isn’t a particularly useful measure of whether children believe themselves to be transgender, which is the thing that the study is mainly concerned with.
That being said, the “often” group is at least a reasonable proxy for transgender identification. Overall, the proportion of children at age 10-12 who said they “often” wanted to be the opposite sex fell from 2% down to 1% at age 12-14, and then stayed the same. So we could reasonably argue that, based on this study, transgender identification is largely fixed at age 12.
Of course, the data isn’t really strong enough for any of this. Without a detailed questionnaire about gender identity, we’re really just reading into what kids put as their response to one question in a fairly lengthy survey. There are many reasons kids might very occasionally “wish to be of the opposite sex” that have very little to do with gender identity.
Ultimately, despite the media furore, these results tell us very little about transgender children. At best, it seems likely that children who have a strong trans identity at ages 10-14 probably don’t change that much, while those who only sometimes think about being another gender may change their minds a bit more – how this relates to the proportion of kids who no longer identify as another gender when they grow up is anyone’s guess.
Da geht es also darum (was die Autoren auch selbst als Einschränkung der Studie darstellen) dass die Frage mit der die „Nichtübereinstimmung“ abgefragt wurde, sehr grob war (Nie, Mitunter, Häufig). Das kann man sicher detaillierter fragen, wobei das ja aber andererseits so ziemlich genau das wäre, was Trans sein ausmacht. Und wenn man detaillierter fragt, dann wird es auch immer gewisse Ablehnungen bestimmter Teile von Geschlechterrollen in sehr starker Form geben.
Es ist in jedem Fall eine interessante Studie, die deutlich macht, dass man bei einem Auftreten von einer Unzufriedenheit nicht unbedingt direkt trans sein muss und damit eine Geschlechteranpassung auch nicht notwendig sein muss.
Alles Evolution 