Parents Pressured by Gender Clinics to Transition Kids, Study Finds

An attendee at a planned "walkout" at the University of Florida holds a sign that says "Trans Healthcare is a Human Right, Not a Political Pawn!" on the Gainesville, Fla. campus on Feb. 23, 2023. Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times

Parents are being pressured into transitioning their children by gender clinics, according to a new study, with the parent-child relationship suffering a qualitative drop following such procedures.

The study, published in the “Archives of Sexual Behavior” on March 29, looked at the impact of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) among adolescents and young adults (AYA) as well as how it affected their relationship with parents.

The study asked parents whether they felt pressure from a “gender clinic or specialist” to transition their children medically or socially. “Of the 390 parents who answered this question, 51.8 percent answered ‘yes,’ 23.6 percent were unsure, and 24.6 percent said ‘no,’” the study stated.

“Treating this item as a 3-point scale (from 1 = ‘no’ to 2 = ‘unsure’ to 3 = 'yes’), parents who felt pressured were more likely to believe their children had deteriorated after [the] transition.”

The relationship quality between the parents and children was found to have become “strongly negative” after the transitioning process.

Prior to the onset of gender dysphoria, the average score of the parent-child relationship was 4.8, indicating that ties were “fairly close.” But after transitioning, the score fell to 3.6, a value between “neutral” and “don’t get along very well.”

The decline in relationship quality was found to be “especially severe” among mothers, among whom the score fell by 1.5 points. Among fathers, the relationship score declined by 0.9 points. The survey focused on 1,655 AYAs who experienced gender dysphoria beginning at 11 to 21 years of age.

Mental Health Issues

A “statistically robust” finding made by the study that was “both disturbing and seemingly important” was that youths with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to initiate the process of medically or socially transitioning to a new gender identity.

The study stressed that the finding is “concerning” since youth with mental health challenges might not have the judgment necessary to make important decisions like transitioning.

“The finding supports the worries of parents whose preferences differ from their gender dysphoric children. It is consistent with another finding of this study that parents believed gender clinicians and clinics pressured the families toward transition. The finding is particularly concerning given that parents tended to rate their children as worse off after transition,” it said.

In an interview with EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program last year, psychiatrist and author Dr. Miriam Grossman pointed out that health professionals will likely not address the possible mental health issues among individuals seeking medical gender transition.

The only response from doctors and therapists would be to affirm the person’s preferred identity, leading the individual to believe that transitioning will solve all of his or her mental issues, she said.

Social Influences

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, or ROGD, is a theory proposing that flawed coping mechanisms and social influences could contribute to the development of gender dysphoria. When the survey asked parents whether their children were friends with others who “came out as transgender around the same time,” 55.4 percent said “yes.”

The positive response was higher among natal female AYAs at 60.9 percent than natal male AYAs at 38.7 percent.

“Having friends come out as transgender contemporaneously was significantly related to the likelihood of social transition, statistically adjusting for natal sex. Among females, 73.3 percent with contemporaneous transgender friends had taken steps toward social transition, compared with 54 percent without such friends; for males, respective figures were 39.5 percent and 21.7 percent,” the study said.

Respondents also revealed that before their children developed gender dysphoria, the kids spent an average of 4.5 hours on the internet and social media.

In her book “Irreversible Damage,” author Abigail Shrier proposed that trans trends were being pushed via social media influencers, educators, and psychologists.

Social media transgender influencers are said to be encouraging kids to keep their trans identity a secret from parents and deceive doctors in order to transition, and even telling children that their parents do not actually love them if they fail to affirm the new gender identity—creating a dangerous wedge in the relationship.