Similarity in transgender and cisgender children’s gender development

Selin Gülgöz; Jessica J. Glazier; Elizabeth A. Enright; Daniel J. Alonso; Lily J. Durwood; Anne A. Fast; Riley Lowe; Chonghui Ji; Jeffrey Heer; Carol Lynn Martin; Kristina R. Olson

doi:10.1073/pnas.1909367116

New Research In

Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved October 22, 2019 (received for review May 30, 2019)

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Significance

Questions of nature and nurture have dominated efforts to understand human gender development. Today’s transgender children provide a unique window into gender development: They have been treated as 2 different genders (1 gender before transition and 1 gender after their social transition) and are the first sizable group of children living as a gender that differs from their assigned sex. As such, their experiences enable insight into gender development that is otherwise not possible. The current study provides the largest report to date of the experiences of these early-transitioning children’s gender development.

Abstract

Gender is one of the central categories organizing children’s social world. Clear patterns of gender development have been well-documented among cisgender children (i.e., children who identify as a gender that is typically associated with their sex assigned at birth). We present a comprehensive study of gender development (e.g., gender identity and gender expression) in a cohort of 3- to 12-y-old transgender children (n = 317) who, in early childhood, are identifying and living as a gender different from their assigned sex. Four primary findings emerged. First, transgender children strongly identify as members of their current gender group and show gender-typed preferences and behaviors that are strongly associated with their current gender, not the gender typically associated with their sex assigned at birth. Second, transgender children’s gender identity (i.e., the gender they feel they are) and gender-typed preferences generally did not differ from 2 comparison groups: cisgender siblings (n = 189) and cisgender controls (n = 316). Third, transgender and cisgender children’s patterns of gender development showed coherence across measures. Finally, we observed minimal or no differences in gender identity or preferences as a function of how long transgender children had lived as their current gender. Our findings suggest that early sex assignment and parental rearing based on that sex assignment do not always define how a child identifies or expresses gender later.

Footnotes

↵¹To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: sgulgoz{at}fordham.edu.

Author contributions: S.G. and K.R.O. conceptualized paper, acquired funding, and supervised project; K.R.O. designed research; S.G., J.J.G., E.A.E., D.J.A., L.J.D., A.A.F., R.L., and K.R.O. performed research; D.J.A., R.L., and C.J. curated data; S.G. and J.J.G. analyzed data; S.G., E.A.E., A.A.F., and J.H. visualized data; S.G., J.J.G., E.A.E., and L.J.D. prepared original drafts; C.L.M. provided background on theories; and S.G., J.J.G., E.A.E., D.J.A., L.J.D., A.A.F., R.L., J.H., C.L.M., and K.R.O. wrote and reviewed the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: The data presented in this article were deposited on Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/q2kuw/.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1909367116/-/DCSupplemental.

Published under the PNAS license.

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