Colorful picture books like ‘Payden’s Pronoun Party,’ about a boy who discovers that ‘gender neutral pronouns personally fit best’ for him, are part of the pro-LGBT effort to ‘mainstream’ gender confusion to impressionable children. A new Virginia study on rising ‘gender dysphoria’ among youth makes no mention of this ubiquitous ‘progressive’ campaign aimed at kids to explain its findings (screenshot/Amazon)
A new study finds that the mean age for people diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” has plummeted from 2017 to 2021, and that girls on average experience severe gender confusion at earlier ages compared to boys.
Conservatives aren’t buying the lead academic’s explanation for the sex disparity.
The May 2024 study, authored by Ching-Fang Sun, a psychiatry resident physician at Virginia-Tech’s Carilion Clinic, School of Medicine, is titled, “The mean age of gender dysphoria is decreasing,” and is published in the journal General Psychiatry. It analyzes electronic medical records data between 2017 and 2021 from approximately 66 million patients from 49 healthcare organizations.
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Sun’s study uses the politically correct, trans-activist terms “assigned female at birth” (AFAB) and “assigned male at birth” (AMAB) to describe newborn girls and boys.
“We found that the estimated prevalence of GD [gender dysphoria] in AFABs [girls] sharply increased at the age of 11, peaked at 17–19, and then decreased below AMABs at 22. The estimated prevalence of GD in AMABs [boys] started to increase at the age of 13, peaked at 23, and then gradually decreased,” the study states.
Sun is no ally of conservatives and feminists opposing radical trans ideology. She tweeted out Monday: “The decreasing mean age of gender dysphoria diagnosis suggests the emergence of a generation embracing gender diversity. It is important for parents to feel comfortable discussing gender-related topics with their children with a non-judgmental stance.”
The decreasing mean age of gender dysphoria diagnosis suggests the emergence of a generation embracing gender diversity. It is important for parents to feel comfortable discussing gender-related topics with their children with a non-judgmental stance.https://t.co/CAgxzRdeoK pic.twitter.com/YzZkEnRdLz
— Ching-Fang Sun (@ChingFangSun) June 27, 2023
Is most “gender dysphoria” just a trendy fad?
“Our study demonstrated a climbing prevalence of gender dysphoria especially in those assigned female at birth,” Sun told UPI Wednesday. “While further studies are warranted to determine the persistence of the diagnosis, we encourage youth to explore their gender identity with a non-biased stance, the public to be educated on gender diversity, and clinicians to provide timely assessment for children and youth with a concern of gender dysphoria.”
Not so fast, responds conservative writer Bethany Mandel, commenting on the study in the New York Post Wednesday. Mandel sums up the study’s findings as follows:
- 80% of those were from the U.S.;
- People assigned female at birth seek professional help at about age 11 on average (!), while those assigned male at birth seek help at about age 13, the study reported;
- In 2017, the average age for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was 31.49. By 2021, that age had dropped to 26.27;
- Researchers reported a “significantly increased” number of people diagnosed between 2017 and 2021.
Regarding the latter point, Mandel offered a common-sense explanation for the “trans” uptick among youth: “Well why do you suppose that is? Could it be that this is a fad, driven by social media, that tells young people – particularly girls – that transgenderism is cool, far more common that it really is, and changing your gender is a snap?”
Mandel blames “adults, now fancying themselves experts in gender medicine and mental health” for “wreaking havoc on an entire generation, encouraging them to follow their feelings, and follow the crowd, even when they’re at risk of permanent and irreparable harm by doing so.”
Sun and her academic team said the difference between gender confusion between girls and boys can be explained because “the time of physical and hormonal change during puberty” is earlier for girls.
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Regarding the difference between boys and girls, the study adds: “The reversed gender ratio could be explained by environmental factors. Social movements and media encourage AFABs [girls] to embrace diversity and independence. Minority AFABs [girls] are more likely to want to express their identities. In contrast, AMABs [boys] have been less motivated to express their gender diversity, which may lead to delayed care for AMABs [boys] with GD.”
In addition, it states, “Social attitudes at an early age are more favorable for girls with GD to reveal their identity. School-age gender noncongruent AFABs are more likely to be accepted by peers, even categorized as the leader of their class. By comparison, gender non-congruent AMABs are more likely to face bullying and rejection, which suggests effeminate characteristics are less tolerable in AMABs than masculine characteristics in their GD AFAB counterparts.”
UPI reporter Denise Mann then writes: “Exactly why numbers are rising and people are seeking gender-affirming care at younger ages isn’t fully understood.”
But Mandel and other critics of trans ideology were not mystified, nor are they buying Sun’s admonition about parents being “non-judgmental” toward their child’s extreme gender confusion as the main takeaway from the study.
Graph in Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine study shows declining mean and median ages of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria (screenshot/General Psychiatry)
Writes Mandel in her Post column titled, “New study on ‘rise’ in transgender shows it’s a fad, especially among young girls,” “Assigned female at birth.’ We used to call them girls. … Unfortunately, researchers spend more time discussing how we can help young people “affirm” their gender – through surgery and drugs – than whether these children will regret these decisions.”
“It’s telling that the Virginia Tech study estimated that for every 100,000 people, there are 155 who identify as transgender – with is much, much lower than the 600 out of 100,000 reported in a 2019 study,” she writes. “I would posit that it’s even lower than that. There are people who legitimately deal with gender dysphoria, but the ‘sharp rise’ in the past few years has more to do a societal fad rather than finding a vast group that was misdiagnosed in the past. … And the main reason is that we’re relying on the feelings of children, who are not fully mature nor able to rationally decide what they are.”
“Gender dysphoria is the medical term for the conflict between the sex one is assigned at birth and the gender with which a person identifies,” UPI reports.
Sun’s study discounts a previous one pointing to increasing “gender dysphoria” among girls as “a consequence of peer influence and mental vulnerability” – factors cited by “detransitioning” young women like Helena Kirschner who describe how they succumbed to intense pressure on apps like TikTok and Instagram.
In a comment reported by UPI attempting to explain the escalating “trans youth” numbers, and relying on trans-activist euphemisms like “gender care” and “gender minority youth” that are rejected by critics of transgender ideology, Sun states: “The phenomenon might be related to increased accessibility of gender care as well as a gender-minority-friendly social context. … There is now acceptance of gender-neutral pronouns and gender non-congruent chosen names, and gender minority youth are no longer receiving consistent toxic feedback regarding their identity.”
But Mandel, pointing to the testimony of “detransitioners” and the cessation of “gender transition” youth “care” in the U.K., Sweden and Finland, counters: “The rest of the world is waking up to the dangers of lifelong medicalization of patients with ‘treatments’ like surgery or hormones that inflicts irreversible damage to preteens and teens. … But the U.S., we’re left with so-called experts who lack the critical thinking skills necessary to discern that the uptick is fueled by what is clearly a social contagion.”
Sun’s study makes no mention of school and cultural indoctrination of young children into accepting transgender ideology and questioning their “gender identity” as partly explaining the growth of “gender dysphoria” among children.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s hard to believe it’s really happening, but it is. Male athletes pretend to be females, dominate their sports, and are thereby rapidly destroying women’s competitive sports worldwide. Convicted male criminals suddenly claim to be transgender so they can be confined in a women’s prison and sexually abuse the female inmates there. Men claiming to be female likewise invade women’s locker rooms, bathrooms, schools, dormitories, sororities, shelters, spas and social organizations – and in the process steal women’s scholarships, advancement, honors and myriad other opportunities.
Meanwhile, transgender groomers and recruiters in schools and on social media platforms like TikTok are continually feeding and expanding the current “mass hysteria” craze that has already led countless teen girls to take testosterone and undergo double mastectomies in a pathetic effort to become boys. No wonder the CDC reports 3 in 5 teen girls say they feel “persistently sad or hopeless” and almost 1 in 3 say they have seriously considered committing suicide.
All of this on top of the radical left’s renewed obsession with killing women’s unborn babies via abortion.
The “woke” left’s maniacal attack on women and girls, virtually unreported by the rest of the media, is the entire focus of the sensational June issue of WND’s critically acclaimed WHISTLEBLOWER magazine, titled “THE LEFT’S TOTAL WAR ON WOMEN.” WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
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