Daughter is being told people are born trans..

[Swearymum83]

My daughter (12) who I am encouraging to be gender critical was being told by a friend of hers today that some people are born trans. She referred to Jaz Jennings as an example. I'm very passionate about protecting the rights of women and girls and aim to keep my own children away from the influence of t activists, so it disturbs me that kids at her school are preaching this rubbish.

It was a proud moment for me though, when my daughter told me she disagreed with her friend and asked her 'what does it mean to be born trans?' Of course, her friend couldn't answer her.

GenderApostate

Here is the study - Genomics of Gender Diversity (scroll down the page)

Looks like it's still going

complextraitgenomics.org/about-6/projects/

And some early research from that project

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29460079

And an accessible summary is here

medium.com/@elilla/new-study-on-genetic-influences-on-gender-identity-and-gender-diversity-e0662f4853f2

I am in no way qualified to know if this is good research or not

Trans is not short for transition. "Trans" in the context of 'transgender' means opposite. That is, your 'innate gender identity' (which I don't believe is a real thing) is the opposite to your biological sex.

I'd understood 'transgender' to be a portmanteau of 'transition/ing' and 'gender' - i.e. to transition from one to the other. Either way, I am in agreement with you that 'gender identity' is nonsense.

BlackForest - I agree. I feel very, very sorry for Jazz. The 'gender confirmation surgery' has been held out as the last thing to validate female identity. What happens when the depression and anxiety doesn't magically melt away and it dawns that the whole thing is just a lie?

There is a big push to treat GD as a biological phenomenon - distress that can be corrected by cross sex hormones being some kind of proof of this.

What I have wanted to know is:

Has anyone tried treating children with GD with SAME sex hormones (to make them more feminine or more masculine). It sounds really creepy and horrible - "Little Johnny is really girly, isn't he - let's see if we can make him more butch with some extra testosterone".

But somehow treating teenagers with puberty blockers leading to cross -sex hormones is OK?

GenderApostate

I found this paper. Lea Davis, mentioned in the article you linked to, is one of the authors, and the title looks like the right sort of thing. Published earlier this year. Haven't read it yet.

I see dot already linked to it while I was searching. My link goes to the full article if anyone's interested enough to read the whole thing.

Really young is not convincing, really young is really unconvincing. Young children usually have deeply embedded ideas of stereotypes. They'll say I'm a girl because I like pink, or I like pink because I'm a girl. If the adults around them reinforce their idea that I hate dresses so I'm not a girl or whatever rather than educate them about what sex really is and anyone can wear anything - no wonder they grow up dysphoric. Identities don't spring into life fully formed, they are built up as children learn about the world and categorise stuff and influenced by environment. Even with super nonsexist parents, they'll be surrounded by stereotypes in popular culture and from peers.
The trans kid I know has very liberal parents - dad has long hair, child was offered free choice of girls' and boys' clothes etc. They were a happy boy in a pink dress. Until they hit school culture, at which point they were an unhappy boy in a pinafore, then a happy transgirl in a pinafore. The trans identity didn't come from the child or the parents, it came from the stereotyped culture of their peers. Which is really sad and worrying. Transgirl unlikely to stay happy when puberty hits with the reality of medicalising or maturing contrary to their identity. But they have socialised as a girl for so long by that point it'd be really hard to change their identity back.

Gender apostate - I couldn't find a study by that author either, but here is a good resource for future searches of ongoing studies

I found this study for example by searching "transgender" which is somewhat promising in that it is at least longitudinal - it follows trans identified kids from pre puberty onward and measures outcomes like depression, etc.

Unfortunately it seems they will be looking only at the effect of medicalized treatment (puberty blockers and later cross-sex hormones) without a control group. There is no mention of comparing to a therapy only intervention. Probably because if they had it would have been boycotted / called unethical by TRAs.

OldCrone

It sounds like they found a non-zero heritability and weak associations across the genome. Well this is obvious.

As personality (and behavioral traits in general) are partially genetically heritable then so "gendered" aspects of personality will be as well.

Not to mention that Gene by Environment interactions are rampant and cannot be controlled for in this type of study. So this does not in any way rule out or diminish the impact of environment.

Thank you OldCrone and Dot and lurker 🙂
Research obviously isn’t my forte .

My daughter is GNC and would be trans if we adhered to that narrative. She is also autistic. Autism is genetic. If she has children (which she may do thanks to us not adhering to boy brain narrative) they or their children are more likely to be autistic and therefore also to display gender variance or to identify as transgender depending on the narratives they are exposed to. Autistic child plus boy brain girl brain narrative from parents/teachers/friends often = trans.

I therefore fully expect scientists to decide that being trans is genetic

So they'll be transing all the autistic kids -- and all the nice polite liberals will be fine with that.

SaraCarer, exactly correct. You can and will pick up knock-on genetic effects due to associated disorders and other shared features and it's nearly impossible to properly control for everything. E.g. depression, and anxiety are partially genetic as well. Heck you might pick up ancestry markers if transgender ID are enriched within related groups...

Behavioral genetics as a field in general is lousy with over interpretation of these data. It's almost as bad as Evo-Psych...

But it's worth pointing out that genetics is not necessarily about heritability. "De novo" variations (mutations) can and frequently do arise spontaneously as the new organism is growing.

Hypothetically, if in the future particular mutations or combinations of mutations could be reliably linked to (childhood gender dysmorphia or to autogynephilia, then that would be worth knowing, it seems to me. Projects like the 100,000 Genome Project are still busy sequencing lots and lots of genomes in order to build the evidence base for bioinformatics to identify gene variants (mutations) linked to all sorts of conditions. This work is ongoing and still has lots of insights to yield. (I wouldn't expect it to pick up any straightforward markers for ROGD, obviously.)

"if in the future particular mutations or combinations of mutations could be reliably linked to (childhood gender dysmorphia or to autogynephilia, then that would be worth knowing, it seems to me)..."

The thing is, this is a bit of a lost cause, in my opinion (as are studies into the "genes for" intelligence, for example).

Here's an example of an issue that could come up. In this hypothetical example, let's say there are no "genes for" dysphoria / autogenephilia. It's all environmental. Nevertheless, we will expect to find genes that are reliably linked to these disorders.

Here's why - imagine there is a rare dominant gene which causes male individuals to have strongly nurturing aspects of personality. In the context of patriarchy, nurturing males are abused by men for violating patriarchal rules. Much of this abuse will be specifically mysoginistic and homophobic abuse "what are you a p***?" A subset of these abused individuals will associate this abuse with their the male sex, wish they were female so they did not have to experience such abuse and could just "be themselves", and will begin to despise their own bodies. Years go by, and the result of a genetic study would find that there is a very strong enrichment for this dominant gene among individuals identifying as Transgender. Although the gene simply impacts personality - not transgender identity per se - it will be announced in the media that scientists have found the "transgender gene"!

Now, imagine the same gene exists in a genderless utopia. In this non discriminatory environment the individuals are free to express their nurturing aspects of personality, and are praised and supported in this. They feel very comfortable in their skin and contribute successfully to society. They do not have any psychological to be seen as female as they were never exposed to misogynistic or homophobic abuse for being male.

Obviously it's a cartoon example but it illustrates the major issue in behavioral genetics. You can't control for gene by environment interactions until you have a utopian (or at least non-patriarchal) environment to compare to. Of course there COULD BE "genes for" autogenephilia and sex-based dysphoria. But we can't distinguish them from the above until we have a utopia to compare to. Which we won't have.

This thread has probably moved on since I opened it two days ago, forgot about it, and just now had a look. But I just had a chilling realisation.

Here's why - imagine there is a rare dominant gene which causes male individuals to have strongly nurturing aspects of personality. In the context of patriarchy, nurturing males are abused by men for violating patriarchal rules. [...] A subset of these abused individuals will associate this abuse with their the male sex, wish they were female so they did not have to experience such abuse and could just "be themselves", and will begin to despise their own bodies...

That hypothetical nurturing gene is fucked.

Because what do we do to boys who have it? We trans them. Sterilise them. Castrate them.

That hypothetical nurturing gene makes it less likely that the boy-organism will reproduce its constituent genes. Less likely that the nurturing gene survives in the next generation.

Sterilising the boys with the nurturing gene = breeding out the nurturing trait from males = actual fucking eugenics aimed at further disadvantaging females.

Now there's some nightmare fuel.

@HairyStorm - MIND.BLOWN.

Could provide a motive for why this ideology has taken off like it has? Gov does like to have it's soldiers.

Jazz Jennings was really young. Susie Green's son was 4 when Susie says she became aware.

I don't buy it. At that age it has to be attributed to the parents. No child of 4 or 6 can think that without parental influence.

There was a mother on Twitter whose two teenage sons were both 'trans'. Nature or nurture? Given that gender dysphoria was deemed "vanishingly rare" again, it must come back to the parents.

Amanda Knoxx says both her husband and son are 'trans'

I think we have growing numbers of adults who do not have the capacity to understand fact from fiction.

I think it's the same people who believed poor Charlie Guard could be cured and were prepared to put him through pain and bully medics (sorry if that sounds harsh and please report if this seems inappropriate, but I can't think of another recent 'belief' system where just willing something and forcing/bullying decision makers and inflicting pain on children when it was not in that child's best interests, would make it true.

I wasn't on Twitter at the time, but am.I right in thinking Harrop, a doctor, led the campaign on that too?)

No. He didn't.

I think there is a lot of truth in what you say about parental influence, but I think it's a little harsh to compare parents so wedded to gender ideology that they will set their children on a path of sterility and mutilation to parents whose child was actually dying and were quite, quite desperate.

The only similarity perhaps is the weight of misinformation flying about.

OMG! They'll be telling her that people are born gay next!

Nah, mate, they'll be telling her that gay people can be made 'acceptable' by becoming the opposite sex. That's the way you chaps roll, innit.

Yeah, what exactly is the treatment pathway recommended by gay groups for children born gay? Sterilisation, hormones, double mastectomy?

Oh wait, absolutely nothing.

Exactly the same thing, right......

@MsVanillaRoseAuntof7 - people are born gay though. I don't know or understand how anyone can conflate sexual preference with the delusion that one can change their entire sex by playing dress ups. Honestly.. I'm embarrassed that so many people lack the ability to think critically and disappointed that it isn't encouraged in schools, hence why my daughters friend sounds like a ta in the making 🙄.