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Original poster

Trans Kids Are Less Conservative About Gender Roles Than Cis Kids

182 replies

WAKAME · 02/06/2018 12:16

It is often suggested in gender critical circles that trans people have very rigid and conservative views of gender roles and stereotypes, but a recent study has found that trans kids (and their siblings) are actually less rigid about gender stereotypes than their cis peers.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28913950

This is no surprise to trans people of course - we spend our lives fighting against imposed gender roles - the pre-transition life of a trans woman for example, is typically spent being told by homophobes not to be so girly, whilst her post-transition life is typically spent being told by TERFs how manly she is.

So it is a sad irony that whilst trans kids are "more willing to indicate a desire to befriend and attend school with someone who violates gender stereotypes", it is be amongst gender non-conforming women that they will find many of the people who repeatedly accuse them of perpetuating gender stereotypes.

Still, from a feminist perspective, it's nice to know that trans kids are leading the way by helping to support their gender non-conforming peers, whilst also helping to educate the people around them about the acceptance of human diversity. And as more and more trans people come out in childhood and access the help they need, I am sure things are only going to get better :-)

OP posts:
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/06/2018 12:42

It's a shame it not a free to view article as the abstract raises a few questions for me:

-Define gender stereotypes
-Define gender non-conforming
-How did they select the control participants (eg did they exclude GNC children)

  • How and under what conditions where the children questioned / observed
  • And finally, at this age, surely parental influence should have been looked at?
HerFemaleness · 02/06/2018 12:37

And then you have middle aged trans identifying males who think leg hair on a woman is dirty.

Mossandclover · 02/06/2018 12:33

I couldn’t see the full article but my guess is the ‘trans’ 6-8 year olds have been defined as trans due to their gender non-conforming behaviour. So if you put the kids who are gender non-conforming into one group because they are gender non-conforming then it is hardly surprising to find the kids in that group are gender non-conforming. Hmm

Wanderabout · 02/06/2018 12:28

whilst her post-transition life is typically spent being told by TERFs how manly she is.

People with penises are male. That's about biology not imposed gender roles. Society should allow people to be who they are gender-role wise whatever sex they are. That is different from having sex-segregated areas and services for reasons of privacy, dignity and biological need.

MaterialReality · 02/06/2018 12:28

Labelling 6 year olds 'trans' or 'cis' is a problem, to begin with.

I suppose if a 6 year old were 'cis' they'd have some fairly strong views about conforming to gender roles. Since they'd identify with them and all. I notice the word isn't used in the abstract. I can't access the full article - is that a label it gives the control group? Or one you're giving? (If the latter, that tells me a lot about your motivations in posting).

Let children be children.

Wanderabout · 02/06/2018 12:25

That's not really surprising though is it? The feminist objection to extremist gender ideology is against the idea that gender non conforming kids should be encouraged to think they need to live as though they actually are the opposite sex just because they don't conform to imposed cultural gender role norms.

Mossandclover · 02/06/2018 12:22

Transgender 6-8 year olds? By what definition?

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