Increase in the number of people identifying as transgender in the UK - UCL research from GP records

There are no codes for desistance/detransiton. You could make the code 'inactive' but ime that will not consistently have happened. You can search on gender codes and then look for interventions but you miss the ones on referral waiting lists. If they change their NHS gender marker, and redact notes, then it becomes really difficult - a man taking testosterone or a woman oestrogen is not uncommon. A patient getting private treatment with no shared care will not appear on gp list if they didn't ever present to gp or weren't coded when they did (particularly relevant for <18yos).

It is time consuming manual work and only realistic at practice not population scale.

The article uncritically refers to the % of trans identified people in the recent census. I know it can take time for research articles to get published so maybe it's not entirely their fault, but by now the BMJ and researchers must know that's a discredited statistic and the National Statistics Office have had to review it. The NSO put out a rather pathetic defence but it was hardly convincing, and if the researchers were without bias they would have taken note that the census data isn't robust.

@RethinkingLife Is your thought here that transgender identifying children are more likely to be fleeing persecution in the original countries and so represent a higher percentage within the Refugee population?

The follow on question would be - are these numbers big enough to skew the statistics when added to the general UK population?

It would be useful to have breakdowns by whether people were/are 'looked after children'.

Matthews, T., Holt, V., Sahin, S., Taylor, A. and Griksaitis, D., 2019. Gender Dysphoria in looked-after and adopted young people in a gender identity development service. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24(1), pp.112-128.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1359104518791657?

There's currently a steady year-on-year increase in 'looked after children' (which includes unaccompanied young refugees/asylum seekers).

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/11/20/15th-rise-in-care-population-england/

I used to once know about the high level nhs datasets but that was a while ago. But there might be restrictions on doing too much cross-referencing as that may lead to the data becoming identifiable.

Once the researchers have isolated the set of people who meet their conditions for being transgender, they go on to look at the codes for the treatment received to try to determine which members of the cohort might be male to female or female to male.

Couldn't this same treatment data be used to determine the subset of people who went on to things like puberty blockers, cross sex hormones or surgery?

This approach would give some indication as to how many of the group solely socially transitioned or changed their minds.

Or even people whose personality doesn't match their height.

I have a tall personality. I struggle with being short because people don't see the true me. They react to me badly because i don't meet their expectations of short people, but if they saw my true tall self they would accept me.

I need to be accomodated by tall women's clothes shops stocking 28" leg trousers, getting the front seat in the because I need the extra legroom. Also as a tall person I expect to earn 5% more than my shorter peers, so I need transheight opportunities at work.

Those numbers would be heavily contested now because gender dysphoria has become an umbrella term and these days is pretty much something that one can self-identify into.

But you have to think. If, say, the prevalence of meaningful gender dysphoria is 0.01%, and the prevalence of "trans" is 0.5%, then only 2 trans people out of a 100 have meaningful gender dysphoria. What about the other 98?

Not a bad guess FlowerBarrow:

How common is gender dysphoria?

According to the DSM-5, among individuals who are assigned male at birth, approximately 0.005 percent to 0.014 percent are later diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Among individuals who are assigned female at birth, approximately 0.002 percent to 0.003 percent are later diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Because these estimates are based on the number of people who seek formal treatment—including hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgery—these rates are likely an underestimate.

This is just a shorter way of saying what's already been said, but...

Men who picket feminist conferences/join the women's football team/photograph themselves in the ladies

= people with the PC of gender reassignment under the ea, but

=/= people who ever see their gp, probably.

Well the actual percentage of transgender people will be far less than this study indicates as it’s not captured that data.
This is 0.05% of population has expressed symptoms of gender discontent at some time. A completely different thing to actually being transgender which my totally random guess would put at a maximum of 20% of those patients, so 0.01% max.

You know that when they talk about "people" they're trying to hide the shameful increase in girls & social contagion. Pretending that there hasn't been a systematic assault on girls, gaslighting them that their uncomfortable pubertal bodies are wrong and can be fixed with drugs and surgery. Because if people could really see what we all know - that this is a homophobic, sexist assault on the safety & wellbeing of girls - more questions would be asked.

I could not determine if once one of these markers has appeared on a subject's record, will they always be considered transgender for the purpose of the study - i.e. I talked to my GP for a couple of months about it but then changed my mind

There are a couple of problems here.

Firstly, is there a code for detransition/desistance? I've not checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't - especially for the latter, which requires no action from the NHS.

And secondly, even if there is a code it would only be in the records if the person has gone back to their doctor and said 'Actually ....'. Whereas we known from other studies that in many cases even if they are actively attending gender services they are likely to simply drop out rather than discussing leaving. If they've only got to the 'talking' point rather than having had interventions that need reversal, there is no reason for them to record their change of mind with their doctor.

Also that fairly exponential increase amongst teenagers has continued over the last five years. Even five years ago the situation was very different in schools to what it is today.

I think the difference is that by using medical data they're going some way to identifying those with meaningful gender dysphoria and this group is small. However, over the time period of the study, particularly the latter part, "trans" has come to mean something much broader, RebelliousCow's "way of framing one's identity" where some of the identities are very much outside the mainstream. This group is huge compared to the meaningful gender dysphoria group. This would all be fine were it not for the astonishing grip gender identity ideology has got on society in terms of it needing to reconfigure itself to suit a (still small) group of people going on their own explorations of their own identities, some of which really should be kept in the privacy of their own homes.

Rates were highest amongst people aged 16 to 29. In 2018, around one in every 2,200 people aged 16 to 29 were recorded as transgender.

This is still very small. I don't understand how this squares with the stories most of us have heard from parents of teenagers, who often report that there are several trans-identifying children amongst their peer group. Certainly teachers will tell you that in any typical large secondary school there will be numerous children identifying as trans. I'd expect the number among 16-29 year olds to be nearer 1 in 100.

I wonder if the reason is that lots of young people don't bother telling their doctor that they identify as trans because, deep down, they don't really think they are - they are trying the identity on as a costume that they can discard later.

The campaign to conflate identifying as trans with being gay has managed to influence the discourse. Without any further critical thought some people now just assume some people are "born trans" - as if it is an inherent condition rather than a way of framing one's identity.

If we take the numbers as sound, that suggests that maybe 10% of the people now classified as "trans" are those who in the past had crippling gender dysphoria and the other 90% are something else. Have they made any effort to investigate what the "something else" might be?

The research "estimate[s] the number of people whose gender identity is different to their sex assigned at birth"

So why can't they disaggregate by "sex assigned at birth"?

I'm still curious to know what number of middle-aged people "assigned female at birth" crops up in the study.

But it is clear that the vast majority of the increase is down to teenagers who are being indoctrinated in school; social contagion.

Doesn’t seem to be. they probably no longer have an accurate record of sex

Am I missing something? (Quite possible, eyesight is currently crap.)

Is there a breakdown by male and female?

What possible justification can there be for invading single sex spaces and sports, and demanding others lie about your sex and change their language if you do not have dysphoria or distress?

The 'justification' involves clown fish and the enlightened having a seventh sense that gives them knowledge about themselves that overrides material evidence.

Here you go (from BMJ paper the article references):