Posted on 02/21/2012 1:57:13 PM PST by Morgana
BOSTON, Massachusetts, February 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Harvard study has found an association in young people who were exposed to childhood “physical, psychological, and sexual abuse” and who experienced childhood “gender nonconformity.” While it is not surprising that such a link exists, what is astonishing is how the authors of the study flip the association between the two on its head.
“We identify gender nonconformity as an indicator of children at increased risk of abuse and probable PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” the authors state.
The authors call for pediatricians and school health providers to “consider abuse screening for this vulnerable population.” They also call for further research to understand “how gender nonconformity might increase risk of abuse and to develop family interventions to reduce abuse risk.”
The above statements make clear the framework in which the authors interpret their data and reach conclusions. Instead of viewing the child’s “gender noncomformity” as the anomaly that requires professional help so that the child can become a self-fulfilled little boy or little girl, it is suggested that it is simply the parents’ negative reaction to their child’s gender nonconformity that is the cause of the child’s trauma.
“The abuse we examined was mostly perpetrated by parents or other adults in the home. Parents need to be aware that discrimination against gender nonconformity affects one in 10 kids, affects kids at a very young age, and has lasting impacts on health,” said lead author Andrea Roberts, a research associate in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
The study titled “Childhood Gender Nonconformity: A Risk Indicator for Childhood Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress in Youth” appeared online yesterday in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study is reportedly the first to use a population-based sample to look at the relation between gender nonconformity and abuse. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The researchers analyzed questionnaire data collected from a project called “Growing Up Today” in which 9000 young adults were asked to recall childhood experience about “behaviours during childhood up to age 11 years, regarding media characters imitated or admired, roles taken in pretend play, favorite toys and games, and feelings of femininity or masculinity.”
What is especially staggering about this report is while the authors make it clear that their study “cannot determine the causal relationship between abuse and gender nonconformity” they assume that it is normal and healthy for a child to choose whether or not to conform to his or her biological sex. Perhaps this is why they use the phrase “gender nonconformity” instead of “gender confused” to indicate this “vulnerable” portion of the population.
The authors wear their Kinseyian bias thickly on their sleeve, namely that children are sexual beings capable of sexual self-determination.
“Some parents may be uncomfortable with gender nonconformity in their children, possibly increasing their likelihood of being abusive toward gender-nonconforming children,” the authors state.
“Some parents also believe their own parenting can shape their child’s gender nonconformity and future sexual orientation; thus, their parenting may become more physically or psychologically abusive in an attempt to discourage their child’s gender nonconformity or same-sex orientation.”
The final advice by Roberts may leave many parents wondering if researchers have completely lost their aptitude to name a serious disorder.
“If [parents] have a kid whose behaviour is not gender typical, they really need to be supportive and protective of those kids,” she said, adding that the “consequences of intolerance can be quite serious.”
Such advice might leave parents agreeing with Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who criticized those in his profession who would rather “collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”
McHugh might berate such researchers with the final words of an article he wrote about gender reassignment surgery: “We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.”
Children deserve real help, not pseudo social science that supports a boy who thinks he is really a girl or a girl who thinks she is really a boy.
As Rush has said often, wait until if/when a “gay gene” is found. And parents decide they don’t want a gay kid.
Suddenly, the libtards will find one abortion situation they will punish with the death penalty.
gender non conforming?? You mean mental illness that should be treated as such by the medical profession so the child could actually receive help!
There are 2 genders. You are the one you are born as. Anything else is illness and we as a society have abandoned our responsibility to help people and instead have become enablers to all sorts of illness
Most psychiatrists I meet are themselves crazy.
To be quoting them as “experts” is just doubling-down on the lunacy.
So, if you take your queer son to a psychiatrist for treatment, I take it that would be discrimination since you wouldn’t take a NORMAL kid there.
Well then obviously, these children will just have to be taken from their parents and raised by the state. /sarc
That’s the plan; no /sarc tag needed.
Bollocks!
Except ... as with most nonsense, there's a grain of truth. I expect that at least 1/10 of children are asked to do something "gender conforming" that they'd prefer not to do. For example, I insist that my girls - whose chosen dress code is jeans from the thrift store and t-shirts from ThinkGeek.com - wear dresses for formal religious events and social outings involving my parents. OMG! Discrimination!
The useful information here, imo, is that parents should be pretty liberal in their evaluation of "gender appropriate" activity. If you have a son who likes to take care of babies, let him ... in a few years, girls will be throwing themselves at a young man who loves babies, especially if he's also smart and funny. If you have a daughter who wants to play war, let her. Get her an NRA life membership, a pellet gun, and a bunch of militaristic t-shirts. It's a tough world out there.
And then, if you have a child who insists that he or she has a "gender" opposite of biological sex, get him or her an endocrine workup and psychiatric help.
If one of my kids (grown or still in the home) wanted to lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, commit murder, lie under oath, engage in homosexual acts, or in any other way violate God’s laws, I would engage in “discriminatory behavior” against any of those desires. As for the amoral Harvard professors, they can kiss my . . . Bible.
Remember all those guys in the 70s, Greenwich Village, San Francisco?
All dead now. Alternative lifestyle choices have penalties.
One thing for certain: children raised by normal parents in a loving, supportive family are virtually never “gender conflicted”.
The psychiatric profession - such as it is - never acknowledges this simple fact. Despite the ridiculous determination by the APA that homosexuality is “normal”, it clearly isn’t. Unless this disease is treated for what it is, people’s lives will continue to be ruined.
There’s a difference between “gender conflicted” - or more accurately, “confused about one’s actual sex” - and “nonconforming.” Our society, at least in the media, can make “conforming” very restrictive: “masculine” means “obsessed with beer, sports, and sex” and “feminine” means “slut.”
The science-geek girls my 15-year-old son meets - he’s on two science competition teams - are used to being hassled about their looks and their interests. My daughter in the Coast Guard - guns and tattoos and she could easily tear your arm off, at 5-feet tall - gets accused of being a lesbian, when in fact, she has a very discriminating taste in hot guys, and a boyfriend who’s a spook of some sort.
One more notch on the old “you are not allowed to parent your kids yourself” socialist belt.
Why is that hard to believe? LOL!
That should be: Why is that NOT hard to believe? LOL!
SHEESH............
Anoreth has never forgiven P.J. O’Rourke for getting married while she was still a pre-teen ;-). One of her tattoos is the cover art of his book “Give War a Chance.”
We’re hoping to meet the mysterious boyfriend this spring - tickets for a Scandinavian Heavy Metal concert have arrived here, and I understand they’re for her, young Bill, and “Jason.” He’s a very tall young man who saved her life when she was going to be washed off the MELLON bridge in heavy seas!
You have an obvious disorder :-)
Poor Anoreth!!!!
Yes, it would be nice if you do get to meet the young man.
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