The common response is that greater social acceptance and awareness, especially for transgender men, has made it easier for people to realise they are trans. That is a huge factor, but what’s more relevant is that the ones coming out now represent a much broader spectrum of trans identities than before.

Until recently, the stigma of expressing any kind of non-normative gender identity was so high (and dangerous) that many of these people dared not even wonder if they might be trans. Instead, the ones who did transition back then were those who were willing to risk their lives because they simply could not fathom any other way to live. Their gender dysphoria was so severe, or their behaviour so clearly non-normative, that they would not have been able to hide it.

This is also why trans women have historically been criticised as giving in to extreme female stereotypes: it is precisely the extremely feminine trans women who found themselves completely unable to live as men. Others would have still struggled, and some did transition, but most found that the risks far outweigh the rewards.

Today, being trans is not a death sentence. This is a good thing. We’re thus seeing a rise in masculine trans women and feminine trans men, non-binary people who do not identify as men or women, people who move between gender identities and expressions, non-heterosexual trans people, trans people with mild or no gender dysphoria, and so on.

Many would have previously resigned themselves to lives of quiet misery or resentment. Some are now finding their way out. Some may never transition, or be content with simple changes like their name or the way they dress.

This also means the rise in trans identification has not resulted in a steep rise in medical treatments. Many statistics are of those seeking counselling at gender clinics, regardless of what comes after. Even those statistics are creatively presented, such as the shocking claim that the number of natal girls visiting gender clinics in Great Britain has soared by 4,000%. What’s rarely mentioned is that the baseline number was 40 children, which had risen to 1,800 almost a decade later. There were 12.7 million children in Great Britain at that point.

Transgender identity is not the same as sexuality. A child expressing their gender is not an indication they have been inappropriately sexualised, even if the gender they say they are is not what others expect.

Young children may not yet understand what being trans is, nor have a complex understanding of gender, but they are not too young to know when something feels wrong. A child who does not want to wear a dress is not too young to know that, regardless of whether or not they are trans.

Nonetheless, children are also more susceptible to gender stereotypes and may have immature understandings of sex and gender. A young child might think that having long hair is what makes someone a girl, or express wishes to be another gender because they prefer certain clothes, toys or activities, and believe that those things are only allowed for that gender; or they may think their parents will love them more if they are that gender.

That’s where adult discernment and education come in. For the most part, those declarations are fleeting and harmless. Studies in the 1980s and 1990s found that the majority of kids who experimented with gender roles and sterotypes (as many as 80-90%) did not grow up to be trans; many ended up gay, bisexual or lesbian. This has commonly been misrepresented to suggest that most trans children will grow out of it, but most of those children were not considered transgender in the first place, and may have only exhibited some possible symptoms of gender dysphoria (much like how having a cough is not the same as having COVID-19).

However, a child who expresses persistent, insistent, consistent claims of being or wanting to be another gender, or discomfort around their body’s sexual characteristics – especially if accompanied by worsening signs of distress or depression – is more likely to be transgender. Unlike gender non-conforming children, simply allowing them to pursue the interests they want does not alleviate their distress, which instead centres around how others perceive their gender.

For example, a tomboy may be satisfied at being told that girls can do anything boys can do, and thrive when she’s encouraged to pursue the traditionally masculine activities she loves and excels at while continuing to live as a girl. In contrast, a trans boy may only be pursuing those activities because he thinks it will help him be seen as a boy. Telling him that girls can do those things too would not address the source of the pain.

A 2015 study exploring subconscious gender identity in children found that transgender children experienced their gender identities in ways indistinguishable from their non-trans peers — meaning that a transgender girl ‘feels’ like a girl in the exact same way other girls do.

If your child is experiencing deep anguish around their gender and how they are perceived, and letting them dress and play as they like has not substantially alleviated that, it might be worth seeking out a professional who works with transgender youths and children. This can help bring clarity to the situation, and assess if social transition would be suitable for them.

Sometimes, just hearing about trans people can be a source of relief for the child, helping them make sense of what they feel, learn that they are not alone, assure them that transition is a possibility, and give them hope for the future.

Transgender children who desire to socially transition and do so have consistently had significantly better mental health compared to their trans peers who wanted to but were unable to transition. A 2022 5-year study of 317 prepubescent trans children who socially transitioned found that only 2.5% eventually ceased identifying as trans and detransitioned, typically those who transitioned prior to age 6. Another 3.5% came to identify as non-binary.

Social media has heightened the visibility and awareness of transgender issues, especially among youths. This has allowed trans people to find words for how they feel, and find others who feel the same way.

It has also encouraged others to think more deeply about their own gender identities and try out different identities to find what fits best. For teenagers, this is part of the usual adolescent exploration that eventually leads to a firmer sense of who they are. Some may come to realise they are trans or non-binary; others may realise they are not.

Not having access to that exploration and education does more harm than good. For example, a feminine boy with no access to trans spaces might think he must be trans because he loves fashion and makeup and dreams of being able to wear a dress. Conversely, a trans girl may think she can’t be trans because she loves video games and is attracted to girls. A non-binary youth may meanwhile struggle to know where they fit in.

Trans youths may also end up thinking that there is only one way to transition, and feel obliged to pursue medical treatment that they may not actually want. Greater education, awareness and interaction with trans peers can help resolve these problems.

Ultimately, just as it’s not possible for social media to make a trans person no longer trans, it’s also not possible for social media to make someone trans when they are not. A major source of that belief is the theory of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD), or “social contagion”. A researcher observed some parents talking about how their teenagers, especially those who were natal females, were coming out as transgender after spending a lot of time on social media. The parents noted that their children were friends with other trans youths online. The parents concluded that those online friends had influenced them, or that their children were identifying as trans for social approval and belonging.

The ROGD paper was further criticised for how the parents were recruited from several anti-trans online forums and drew its conclusions based on their speculations, rather than actual statistics.

It is natural for young people to gravitate towards others, both online and offline, who seem to be struggling with the same things they do, including around their gender identity. When one of them then realises they are trans, their friends who feel the same way may come to that same revelation, giving the false impression that they influenced each other into becoming trans. In reality, it was that commonality of experience that drew them together in the first place.

Young people in general are spending a lot more time on social media than before, often to an excessive degree; this applies equally to those who are and are not transgender. Parents who grew up in a different time may end up linking those two concerns, but the evidence does not support one leading to the other.

Nonetheless, social media spaces can often be hostile and psychologically unhealthy. If your teenager seems to be spending too much time online and it is negatively affecting their well-being, consider finding them other ways to obtain the same benefits in a healthier space. If they are trans or are questioning their gender identity, they may wish to check out dedicated support groups for LGBTQ youths.

No.

Trans healthcare providers take a step-by-step, harm-reduction approach when it comes to youths and children.

Transition itself comes in many stages, and is not something that children are rushed into when brought to a gender clinic for assessment.

The first step is typically counselling to better understand the child’s identity, during which some may come to understand that they are not trans. (As with all healthcare – including children’s healthcare – there are bad actors, but that is a whole separate concern.)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a comprehensive set of guidelines for the care of transgender children and adolescents that lays out this process.

Among parents, even those who do believe their child is trans are very hesitant to allow them to transition, out of fears of social backlash, or how others would treat their child or respond to them as parents. Practical issues are another huge concern. In Singapore, public schools do not accommodate students who are transitioning, pressuring students to pursue private education – which is prohibitively expensive for most families – or to limit their social transition to non-school settings, where living that double life can be psychologically stressful and unsustainable. At the same time, not transitioning can be untenable for trans students with severe gender dysphoria. Many trans students end up dropping out of school as a result.

Parents are especially hesitant about any medical treatment due to fear of the risks involved. All that is exacerbated for those who are not convinced their child is really trans.

However, humans (and parents) are not a monolith. In very rare cases, there are parents who may be very enthusiastic about supporting their trans child and have their whole transition planned out. Sometimes it’s their way of showing how much they love and support their child. But if the child seems less certain than their parents, and it’s primarily the parents driving things, that’s usually a sign to hold back. Healthcare professionals who work with transgender children would be familiar with the red flags and make sure not to rush into anything.

Regardless, all this is largely irrelevant in Singapore, where social transition as a child is near impossible, and transition healthcare virtually unavailable for anyone under 18.

No.

It is common for parents to blame themselves or feel guilty that their child is transgender, wondering what they did “wrong” for their child to end up this way. However, there is no known correlation between parenting styles and gender identity. It might only determine whether or not a child feels safe enough to come out.

Some parents worry that they were too strict in enforcing gender roles, making their child think they had to be another gender in order to freely be themselves. Conversely, other parents worry that they weren’t strict enough in enforcing gender roles, such that their child’s gender-atypical behaviour wasn’t stamped out before it developed into a trans identity—even though this is not possible, and only results in children repressing who they are in order to be accepted by their parents.

For every parenting style, there are parents who did the exact opposite and whose children were still trans. Trans people come from families that are conservative and liberal, religious and non-religious, rich and poor, loving and abusive, across all classes and ethnicities and cultures.

There is some weak evidence that being transgender runs genetically in families. It is not uncommon for more than one sibling to be transgender, or for a parent to eventually come out as transgender after their child does so, admitting that they had been repressing it all these years. Multiple members of an extended family may turn out to be transgender, even those who had no idea the others existed.

The only things parents can determine are whether or not their child feels safe enough to come out to them, or to discuss any struggles around gender they may have. Having a supportive family environment will also enable children to explore any gender-atypical interests and ask questions in a safe, non-judgmental space, rather than feel they have to work things out on their own or with peers who may not have the knowledge or wisdom to provide good advice.

No.

The false claim originated from the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), a small fringe group that was explicitly established to pursue an anti-LGBTQ agenda. Their president, Quentin Van Meter, was invited to do a webinar in Singapore in 2021. We wrote a response to his webinar, which involved numerous contradictions and indicated a fundamental misunderstanding of who trans people are.

ACPeds is not to be confused with the official American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a professional association of over 64,000 pediatricians.

Snopes debunked ACPeds’s claims, and included a presentation from the AAP supporting an affirming approach to gender non-conforming children. The AAP emphasises that this does not encourage or push gender transition. Instead, it aims to provide the child with a supportive environment that lets them know they are loved and accepted just as they are, which is the opposite of abuse. Over time, the approach aims to help families differentiate between children with a persistent transgender identity and those who are gender non-conforming or exploring gender atypical interests.

For children who continue to assert a transgender identity, the AAP notes the positive outcomes when they are allowed to socially transition. Quoting the linked study:

This finding is especially significant in light of the high rates of mental health problems historically observed in transgender children and adolescents who are not able to transition until adulthood.

Trans children whose dysphoria was successfully alleviated with social transition but who experience renewed body dysphoria as they approach puberty may be further assessed for puberty blockers. We have written more about that here.