1 in 10 kids gender nonconforming, more likely to be abused

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I'm not real crazy about the medical model approach and over-emphasis. But these are some important issues.

I personally never believed in gender roles. It's a disease to society... putting us in boxes and pushing expectations on us because we're male or female is wrong. I don't believe in 'looking male' or 'looking female'. I'm just me. My gender doesn't define me. We should look whatever way we wish without being judged. I'm not 'girly'. I never was. I'm happy that way. I never wear make-up and my sense of dress is androgynous. At school I was always told I "need a makeover" and my family have always given me quite upsetting comments about how I should change my appearance to be accepted more in society. I rejected them, angrily. I've heard sh*t for years from my brother and mother about how I need my hair done and stuff. It's had the opposite effect on me, actually. It's made me into someone who stands by their individuality and I'm also now a firm feminist.

What has REALLY annoyed me about that pathetic article is this:

"Gender nonconforming behavior occurs in one out of 10 children, according to the study. A vast majority of these kids do not need medical interventions, because the behavior tends to fade as they grow older."

Medical interventions? It's not a disease! That's written as if gender nonconforming is abnormal. It isn't. That writer needs to be shot. That's absolutely ridiculous! "Oh no! My child isn't how I want him/her to be. I know! Let's try and cure them!" Pathetic! And, no, I am a walking, talking example that the 'behaviour' doesn't always tend to fade with age.

My personal experience confirms this.

Other kid's biggest beef with me was that I "dressed like a boy" and had a "boy haircut."

The idea that there are such things as "men's clothes" and "women's clothes" struck me as so absurd that I was fairly certain that the other students HAD to be mentally deficient. "Gender roles" are ridiculous constructs that society clings to without any semblance of thought or reflection.

I was assuming that "medical intervention" meant getting gender reassignment surgery.

Ah. I hope they meant that.

When you think about it it's because of gender roles that makes kids grow up wanting gender reassignment surgery. We wouldn't put so much significance behind having particular genitals if gender roles didn't exist.

I agree that this is a very sh!tty part of the article. In fact, I hesitated posting the damn article in large part because of this part.

And it could be an example of the "safe," timid, tepid writing that passes for journalism. That they feel the compulsion to rewrite in order to get a "transition," something like that.

I mean, I would be willing to bet even money that what the study showed that most people do not need medical intervention because any PTSD does not "significantly" interfere with life functions, whatever that means. And of course we can still improve on this.

And I very much take the view that "normal" should not be such a small box.

Now, all this said, the child will catch a lot of grief at school for being different in small ways. Maybe the parents could be more matter-of-fact about the whole thing, and if the child still wants to do or be something different, be behind them. Of course be behind them. But a lot of parents really struggle with this.

My Dad does not feel good about himself and he projects this onto me and my younger sister. Of course, as a kid I did not fully pick up on this dynamic. At various times in my childhood and teenage years my dad would criticize me in different tricky indirect ways for not being sufficiently masculine.

This is a very poor study by very poor scientists.

Individuals who do not conform in general, and cause themselves to stand out in general, are more likely to be abused. Bringing gender roles into it is only a means of twisting the evidence to support an agenda which is specifically against gender roles, which is made even more obvious by the fact that they were trying to study them in the first place. Such bias should be avoided if a person is seeking valid scientific information.

The fact that these researchers consider long hair to be a feminine characteristic only shows their own belief in the importance of stereotypes, when in reality the person with long hair could have been abused simply for having long hair, not for being feminine, with his abuser making no reference to gender at all. They could have been targeted because they were considered to be a hippy, or someone who is lazy and untidy.

The researchers who automatically assume that it is related to gender are the ones who are sexist, as so many people who blame gender for everything often are.

Gender roles are irrelevant here. It is not really even the non-conformity in general which is to blame, it is the fact that violence and abuse are common, regardless of what kind of excuse is used to justify them. People who are abusive will take the opportunity to abuse someone whenever they can, regardless of whether or not the victim conforms to their expectations. That is what abusive people do, they couldn't care less who the victim is or what they are doing.

Trying to pin it down to intolerance of gender roles only serves to distract focus from the real issue (people who are abusive), just so that pedantic activists and terrible scientists can try to take advantage of the situation and trivialize it to draw attention to their own little "cause".

Promoting equality is great and all, but not if we have to distort the truth and make a mockery of both science and logic to try and make a point, especially when doing so makes people overlook important facts about much more significant problems, just so some rabid feminist thinkers can bitterly indulge in their own bias.

I knew lots of tomboys at school, and I had 3 cousins who were tomboys, and tomboys never got teased or anything, in fact the boys actually prefered to play with them better than the girly girls (until they reached puberty, then both girls and boys changed the way they think).

The article also explicitly says this isn't the same as being transgendered though.


Just...wow.

The fact second part of that quote bothers me just as much " because the behavior tends to fade as they grow older".

So, its saying that we don't need interventions because it goes away on its own? That still says that me being a non-feminine female is wrong.

I don't know how to respond to this article.

saying *any* type of children is more likely to be abused is crossing a line for me, because it seems to be blaming child victims for 'not conforming' (what a wording!) and rationalising with the perpetrators. I don't think young children fully well internalise what they're 'not conforming' into, I don't think it's even a question of gender at that stage eg., a boy might want to wear pink because it's a nice colour. Plus, I never got the idea of 'tomboys', practically any girl that plays outside, mixes with nature etc., is a tomboy?

Nonsense.

You're basically stating that we shouldn't write articles about bullying unless we include ALL of the possible reasons a child could be bullied. THIS article was SPECIFICALLY about children who are abused on the basis that they do not conform to gender roles as currently dictated by society. Children who do not conform to current gender roles ARE abused by their peers for the reasons of not conforming to current gender roles. This is what this article is SPECIFICALLY about.

There was nothing about "feminism" or "equality" in this article. The fact you think there are "more important" issues than children who are picked on for reasons of gender non-conformity" doesn't indicate that the researchers are "biased" or that this is an example of "bad science." The idea that we can't/shouldn't address SPECIFIC reasons why children are bullied is rather mind-boggling to say the least.

I don't like that article, either. I'm living proof that such children don't conform with expectations of their biological genders when they get older. I don't feel female at all. I feel like a male who's lost his penis at birth.

Agreed. It's like saying "Oh, it's only a phase." It's like when in denial, and perhaps homophobic, people say their gay child is just going through a phase that will go away in time and they'll finally "see sense" or whatever. It's ignorant and narrow-minded.

I would like to respectfully agree with both these views.

Often it is the internal dynamics of a bully, and who he or she focuses on and the traits, are largely merely an excuse for the bullying, are largely merely accidental. The whole dynamic of viewing someone as the "other," often for traits the bully finds both scary and fascinating at the same time. Like in the 1500s, the English viewed the Irish as sexually promiscuous. Or, during the whole McCarthy witch hunt of the 1950s, people who were brainy and intellectual and quirky and original and independent could be labelled "communist" by people more conventional, that is, by people who found these traits both scary and fascinating.

At the same time, Civil Rights movements seem to make progress by focusing on first one issue and then another. So, one sequence might be freedom and equality for African Americans in my United States in the 1950s and 60s and 70s (and continuing til today). Equality for women in the 1960s and 70s and 80s (and continuing til today). Some overlap, but it seems to help to make some progress on the first one before we can take another one. Now, with the 1970s, things kind of branched out and flowered, Civil Rights for persons of Latino and Hispanic heritage, Civil Rights for persons of Native American heritage, for persons who are physically disabled including roll-in protests at federal Health Education and Welfare offices (I think) in the mid-70s. All the same, the main sequence seems to be racial equality, equality for women, equality for persons who are gay or lesbian. The current Civil Rights movement may be for Trans Equality, including the right to live ones life as a person so chooses and not be in such a narrow box. And I really hope the next Civil Rights movement is for acceptance and inclusion and respect and appreciation of persons on the Aspergers-Autism Spectrum.

So, to summarize.

Abusive behavior seems like an issue the bully has.

But then, progress sure seems to come in stages where we emphasize first one issue, then another.

I never felt like I was male or female. My problem was feeing as if I was born in the body of the wrong species. I felt like I was supposed to be a cat (spefically a jaguar).

I've always felt female but I wanted to play sports and do dangerous things, invent etc. etc. I'm still like that to this day and any women I admire are/were like that. I was bullied by teachers and peers at a younger age. All of this abuse occured at a Christian Kindergarten, I almost died when two little girls shoved rubber bands up my nose when I was asleep. They shoved them so far up I had to go to the ER to get them cut out. The teachers also discriminated against me because I was black. We all had Ice Cream and they wouldn't give me vanilla because I was black. They also gave me strange looks every time I wanted to play soccer instead of play with dolls. I wasn't there very long but I think certain groups are more likely to care than others. No problems in all the other schools.