The number of younger teenagers who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in the U.S. over the last few years, according to a new report.
The number of transgender people aged 13 to 17 in the U.S. is almost twice what it was in 2017, according to a report from the Williams Institute, a research institute based at the UCLA School of Law.
In 2017, the Williams Institute researchers estimated that around 0.7 percent of younger teens were transgender in the U.S., about 150,000 teens. Now, they estimate that number has doubled to 300,000.
Teens and young adults make up a much larger portion of the transgender population compared to adults. About 43% of the 1.6 million transgender people in the U.S. are young adults or teenagers, and nearly one in five are minors ages 13 to 17. This is despite the younger teen demographic being less than 8% of the total U.S. population. In the same vein, young adults 18 to 24 make up just under a quarter of the transgender population, but they are only 11% of the total U.S. population.
About 1.4% of all teens 13 to 17 identify as transgender, while 1.3% of young adults 18 to 24 do so. Meanwhile, only 0.5% of adults identify as transgender, according to the study.
Adults 25 to 64 tended to identify as transgender less than their younger counterparts. That older age group makes up well over half, 62%, of the U.S. population, but less than half, 47%, of the transgender population.
As might be expected, seniors showed the same trend. People over 65 make up 20% of the U.S. population, but they are only 10% of the transgender population.
The report’s data came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, as well as the agency’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
Many medical professionals have in recent years lent their full-throated support to minors receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and in some cases surgical transitions, which can mean double mastectomies and bottom surgery.
Now though, some medical professionals are speaking out and warning about the dangers of rushing to medically transition a teenager or young person who says they identify as the gender opposite their biological one.
“It seems extraordinary that now 1 in 5 teenagers identify as trans,” said Stella O’Malley, a psychotherapist who works with young people.
“It is notable that this rise is predominantly evident among teenagers and young adults – if it was spread out among all age groups then we would be merely witnessing a correction taking place, where people who previously felt unable to live as trans now felt free to do so. But this isn’t happening; instead something else is going on among teenagers and young people and it is imperative that clinicians, educators, and policy-makers carry out an in-depth analysis on this population,” O’Malley told The Daily Wire.
O’Malley added that there are many “untrue statistics” related to transgender people, especially when it comes to suicide.
“Right now the data suggests that the risk of suicide remains both post-affirmation and post-transition. Sadly, there is no magic solution to life and suggesting that affirmation or medical transition will fix a person’s suicidality is a dangerous promise to make,” she said.
Another physician blamed the rise in gender incongruence in the population on a “social contagion” that is “fueled by social media” and “fully supported by ‘woke’ medical organizations.”
“We know that a very high percentage (60-98%) of kids who are given support will no longer identify as being the wrong sex as adults. Sex cannot be changed; it begins at conception and is solidified during embryologic development in the womb,” said Dr. Michael K. Laidlaw, MD, a board-certified physician and endocrinology specialist in California.
“There is no scientific way to turn a female body into that of a fertile adult male, nor is there a way to turn a male body into that of a fertile adult female,” Laidlaw told The Daily Wire.
Laidlaw noted as well that cross-sex hormones come with significant risks, including infertility, deadly blood clots, heart attacks, increased cancer risks of the breasts and ovaries, liver dysfunction, worsening psychological illness, and other serious conditions.
Story cited here.
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