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The finding comes as dozens of US states and many European countries abandon gender alchemy, putting protections in place for the young, vulnerable and gender-confused.

Two-thirds of children experiencing gender confusion in early adolescence grow out of those feelings by their mid-20s, according to a landmark, multi-decade study published in February.

Coincidentally, the finding was made by a team of researchers in the Netherlands, home of the so-called Dutch protocol, which since gave rise to the infamous treatment known as “gender-affirming care”.

“We found that gender non-contentedness is most common around the age of 11 and that the prevalence decreases with age,” the team reported.

Published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, the study tracked 2,700 participants who were followed up every three years from age 11 to 26.

Of the 11 percent who expressed varying degrees of “gender non-contentedness” at the beginning, only 4 percent still reported these feelings by the end of the study period.

In real terms, that means 305 pre-teens began adolescence with feelings of gender confusion, and only 111 felt the same way by their mid-20s — a decrease of almost two-thirds.

What Researchers Learnt About Gender-Confused Kids

“The results of the current study might help adolescents to realise that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common,” the researchers concluded.

Researchers sourced their data from Tracking Adolescent’s Individual Lives Survey (TAILS), an ongoing, longitudinal, general population cohort study that began in the year 2000.

At the outset and then at three-year intervals, TAILS participants were asked to respond to the statement, “I wish to be of the opposite sex.” They could respond “Not True”, “Somewhat or Sometimes True”, or “Very True or Very Often”.

According to the Dutch research team, “Three developmental trajectories of gender non-contentedness were identified: no gender non-contentedness (78%), decreasing gender non-contentedness (19%), and increasing gender non-contentedness (2%).”

While members of the 2% cohort felt less comfortable with their gender by age 25, the entirety of the 19% cohort had desisted from feelings of gender incongruity by study’s end.

“At the sixth assessment wave (around age 25), none of these individuals reported experiencing gender non-contentedness anymore,” the team observed.

The team also found that gender non-contentedness did not take place in a vacuum.

“Individuals with an increasing gender non-contentedness more often were female and both an increasing and decreasing trajectory were associated with a lower global self-worth, more behavioural and emotional problems, and a non-heterosexual sexual orientation,” they wrote.

The researchers acknowledged certain limitations to the study, such as using participants from the general population who may not have been formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Despite these limitations, however, they expressed certainty about their observation that gender confusion is much more prevalent among teenagers than adults.

Another Victory for Gender-Confused Kids

The finding comes in the wake of several devastating months for “gender medicine” enthusiasts.

In February, a Finnish study published in BMJ Mental Health made a dramatic double discovery: that gender dysphoria does not place youth at a higher risk of suicide, and that so-called “gender-affirming care” does not alleviate suicide risk in the youth who seek it out.

Weeks later, the scientific journal Environmental Progress released a damning, 240-page report exposing brazen violations of medical ethics and informed consent at the World Professional Association For Transgender Health (WPATH), the supposed “leading global authority on gender medicine”.

Then in late March, NHS England made the bombshell announcement that puberty blockers will no longer be prescribed to children at gender identity clinics across the country.

So scandal-ridden is the entire gender-bending enterprise that, shortly afterwards, the prestigious Times newspaper labelled puberty blockers “Quack Medicine” and warned that its victims were “guinea pigs in unregulated mass experiments with potentially life-altering and irremediable consequences”.

The finding also comes as dozens of US states and many European countries abandon gender alchemy, putting protections in place for the young and easily-preyed-upon.

It would seem that, as with children and gender dysphoria, so with nations and “gender-affirming care” — most grow out of it eventually.

For the kids’ sake, we can only hope so.

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Republished with thanks to Mercator. Image courtesy of Unsplash.