[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The only thing “drag” about transgender populations are the stigmas that surround them.
A new study at the University of Washington is indicating that Lady Gaga’s song “Born This Way” may have some scientific evidence to back up those lyrics. Kristina Olson, an Assistant Professor of psychology at the university, recently conducted studies on how deeply rooted a child’s gender identity is.
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In the studies, children ages five to 12 were gathered and split into three groups: one experimental group and two control groups. The experimental group consisted of 32 children who are publicly transgender and have the support of their parents. The control groups featured the siblings of the transgender children and other non-transgender adolescents. Both the experimental and control group were put to the test — an Implicit Association Test. During an IAT, automatic correlations between concepts and attributes are uncovered by matching pictures with words. For example, subjects were shown pictures of princesses along with the words “me,” “boy,” and “they.” The children were then asked to choose a word that described them immediately through a computerized test. The results were pretty incredible. When the data from the experimental group was assessed, it was almost identical to the two control groups. Children who are transgender were able to identify themselves by their adopted sex exactly the same as children who identify as their birth sex. The deeply rooted gender identity for transgender children cannot be denied, for it mirrors their siblings and peers who are not transgender.
The study is not only attempting to better explain how transgender behavior emerges and when, but also how parents and family members can respond to a child who is experiencing gender dysphoria — feelings of anxiety and discomfort in one’s physical body, usually pertaining to sex. Olson, while speaking to BuzzFeed News, said, “We are trying to track this first generation to see what their lives look like going forward, partly to help parents make decisions about what to do if they have a transgender child.”
As of right now, research is split on whether children outgrow their desire to change gender, or if they continue to experience gender dysphoria throughout their lives until their gender is changed. Gender dysphoria has been studied in adolescents for years and, according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, usually does not transcend into adulthood. Only six to 23 percent of boys and 12 to 27 percent of girls treated in gender clinics at a young age continued to experience gender dysphoria throughout their childhood and into their adult years.
Concrete results that undeniably support or disprove gender dysphoria at a young age have yet to surface. However, violence and hate crimes against transgender persons have been a definitive issue with hard statistics for years. In a study conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Gender Inequality, 6,450 participants answered a 70–question survey. The results were indicative of the maltreatment of the trans population. Forty-one percent of the transgender people admitted to a previous suicide attempt compared to 1.6 percent of the general population. Sixty-one percent had been victims of physical assault, while 64 percent were victims of sexual assault.
The correlation between being transgender and experiencing violence, bullying and harassment has been supported by research multiple times. Whether or not studies conclude that gender dysphoria is a choice, criminal acts against transgender people because of their choice to alter their sex is still, by definition, a hate crime. Right now, there are only 11 states that protect transgender people from hate crimes, according to transequality.org. Harassing, assaulting, and bullying someone because of their choice to change their biological sex is immoral and wrong. Transgender people are human beings, and as such they deserve the same protection and treatment of every other citizen in the United States. So why don’t they get it? While Kristina Olson is studying transgender children in Washington, citizens of Utah should be fighting to protect our neighbors, friends and family that make up the transgender population.
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