Increasing numbers of gender-nonconforming children are socially transitioning—changing pronouns to live as their identified genders. We studied a cohort of gender-nonconforming children ( n = 85) and contacted them again approximately 2 years later. When recontacted, 36 of the children had socially transitioned. We found that stronger cross-sex identification and preferences expressed by gender-nonconforming children at initial testing predicted whether they later socially transitioned. We then compared the gender-nonconforming children with groups of transitioned transgender children ( n = 84) and gender-conforming controls ( n = 85). Children from our longitudinal cohort who would later transition were highly similar to transgender children (children who had already socially transitioned) and to control children of the gender to which they would eventually transition. Gender-nonconforming children who would not go on to transition were different from these groups. These results suggest that (a) social transitions may be predictable from gender identification and preferences and (b) gender identification and preferences may not meaningfully differ before and after social transitions.
Previous research suggests that people encode gender starting in childhood. The present research asked whether gender diverse children (i.e., children whose gender identity or expression differs from that expected based on assigned sex) encode gender. Results showed that 3‐ to 5‐year‐old gender diverse participants (
- Award ID(s):
- 2041463
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10453167
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Child Development
- Volume:
- 91
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 0009-3920
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1877-1885
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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