That was disturbing news to Angelica Jadunandan, who moved to New York from Florida with her two young daughters three years ago. Her older daughter, who is eight, is transgender, and Angelica wanted to move them to a safe blue state—somewhere her family’s medical care would not be called into question. New York is a self-declared “sanctuary state” for trans people. It seemed like a good option.
Because they tell us, and we listen.
As studies show children begin to understand gender by ages 3 and are generally fully formed by 7. With ‘Affected transgender individuals are usually aware of its existence by the age of 5 years.’.
From here children are hopefully able to begin treatment, through social transitioning. Where studies show that starting transitioning at a median age of 8.1, 97.5% remained transgender either in a binary or non-binary identities.
Shocking to nobody, we understand ourselves and know we are trans from very young ages.
Not only does this align with my own lived experiences as a trans woman, but it matches what I have seen in my 10+ years of working in Early Childhood Education and seeing other trans children begin to identify themselves and maintain said identity up into their teens.
Oh and I’m downvoting you because your post doesn’t deserve attention, and is clearly being asked from an antagonistic and transphobic angle.
Are you ignoring the serious criticisms of Gillick competence?
The years I have spent crying over this… I don’t want to know what the removed comment said, but I want to reiterate how broken and sad a life unlived can be. In so many ways I’m so jealous of young trans women getting to pursue the life I never got to, but I’m also glad they get to live it at all.
Wait are you recently out? Congrats, I think, LOL (I’m one of like three trans guys on here, 14 years on T next month, I imagine coming out now is not a great time even if there’s not the same level of medical gatekeeping as when I started transition).
It seems like the only regret the vast majority of trans people have, at least those of us of a certain age, is the regret over not being able to transition sooner. It doesn’t do any good to dwell on that regret, that game isn’t productive, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all wondered how much better our lives would have been if we could have had fewer empty miserable years.
Not her, but I transitioned in early adulthood and while I’ve met many who deeply wish they could have at the age I did, I still regret not having the knowledge/courage to transition sooner
And congrats on nearing 14 years dude! I hit 11 in the spring. Things were very different when you (and to a certain degree I) transitioned, to the point where I’ve confused people who transitioned more recently by mentioning the hoops I had to jump through
You’ve posted some good information about this. I’m also wondering at what age children were exposed to information about gender norms that deviate from cis-, like through, public education, YouTube or other social media platforms. I’m not sure if it’s taught in public education curriculums to young children, but my intuition says no.
My intuition also tells me that the decision to transition wasn’t influenced by outside factors, but purely through internal motivation. If anything, I would think a lot of individuals struggle with their gender dysphoria, as they realize there can be very real social consequences to coming out.
The fact that such a high rate of individuals are satisfied after their outsides match their insides is pretty much the nail in the coffin for those who oppose transition for youth. As well as anyone who thinks someone can be programmed via education or YouTube to become trans, non-binary, etc.
Also, individuals who differentiate from socially-reinforced gender norms only account for 1-3% of the total US population, so it’s very silly it’s treated by reactionaries as some threat that is going to consume the entire population of kids.
In my case I was a child in the 90s. I wasn’t really exposed to the information until MySpace. I still knew I was different as a young kid, but I didn’t have the information and words to describe it or environment to explore it in.
Today I teach it to my 3 year old class, and I know in at least one nearby primary school they have non-binary toilets and have some education on gender. But I’m also in Australia.
Removed by mod
you quite obviously have no kids, and in the unfortunate circumstance that you have managed to procreate, I pity those children and hope they find better in life once they’re free of you.