Concerning Data on "Trans Kids" in Canada That Activists Need to Address

People pushing childhood transition can't be allowed to shy away from these stats.

Trans Youth CAN! was a study of 174 minors aged 15 or younger who were referred for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones that ran from September 2017 to June 2019. I wish we had more updated data, but it’s the best snapshot we have of children accessing these services in this country. I often reference this study because what it does show us about the demographics of these children is highly concerning, and it is data that should be grappled with by anyone, especially any politician, who supports the transitioning of minors.

In short, these children are disproportionately (by massive margins), female, indigenous, and struggling with other mental health conditions.

And no, the data didn’t end up concerning because the study was run by '“transphobes”—in fact, it was run by avowed trans activists. One of the principal investigators was Dr. Greta Bauer, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and a member of WPATH. Bauer was also the main witness to testify for the college in the witch trial of Amy Hamm.

During her testimony, Bauer could not define terms like “gender,” “sex,” “women,” and “female.” She claimed that toddlers have gender identities and said that lesbians should examine why we aren’t attracted to men who say they are women. We also got insight into why Bauer doesn’t see her own study’s data on “trans kids” as concerning. When confronted with the astronomical rise of trans-identifying children over the past decade, Bauer simply said that, based on adult population estimates, there should actually be more “trans kids” than there currently are. Basically: the more trans kids, the better. That’s why she was happy to share the results of her study in a series of bright and cheerful infographics.

Let’s start with the ages of the participants. Obviously, the study looked at youth aged 15 or younger, so the kids are going to be young. But that in itself is concerning.

An entire third of the kids enrolled in this study started to believe they had a different “gender” when they were just nine years old or younger. Who in their right mind thinks this is a proper age to “realize” something so fundamental about yourself in regard to a concept that most adults don’t even agree about?

What exactly is gender? You’ll get a different answer from every activist and “professional” you ask. Is it “socially constructed”? Is it in the brain? Is it a “strongly held feeling,” as so many will say? All the explanations differ, and none of them provide a good rationale for confusing kids about their sex and setting them down an impossible pathway to changing it. Not to mention that children so young are probably not even fully aware of the fundamental differences between the sexes and often believe it comes down to hairstyles and fashion choices.

It is no solace that the other kids in the study were the wise old ages of 10 to15 when they had their gender epiphany, and it is no solace that most only started “living in their gender” after the age of 11. These are still children we are talking about, children who have little experience of the world trying to grasp completely meaningless concepts. It is cruel to ask them to even consider these ideas.

Now, let’s look at the incredible sex breakdown of these children:

The language here is convoluted, so let me help clear it up. An astounding 82% of the children that participated in this study were young girls. Only 18% were young boys. And note that it isn’t young girls who are just disproportionately showing up at gender clinics. As the graphic says, these ratios are similar to what was found in a national survey, meaning it is young girls disproportionately identifying as “trans” overall.

This matches up with statistics I have seen from other Western countries which tend to show a 75%/25% split for girls/boys, though it is even more disproportionate. It is also curiously a complete reversal of the traditional population of gender dysphoric children, back when there was actually some semblance of diagnostic criteria for the condition of gender dysphoria rather than the state of being we now call “trans.” At that time, the ratio was closer to 3:1, boys to girls.

I’m not arguing that this was necessarily a helpful diagnosis and that we should go back to fully embracing it. I think I would have met the criteria myself, and I think that would have been a travesty. But it’s interesting that the patient population has changed since we saw children being confused and ruminating about their sex as something distressing as opposed to a sign of a secret and unassailable inner identity.

I challenge trans activists and gender “professionals” to not only consider how these sex ratios have changed but to please explain to me why, today, so many more girls than boys just happen to be “born in the wrong body” or “have a brain of the opposite sex” or whatever your pet explanation for gender identity is. Please tell me why those who are “assigned female at birth” are so much more likely to be assigned wrongly.

And now for the concerning ethnoracial breakdown:

What should make anyone stop in their tracks here is the fact that an astounding 19% of kids showing up at these clinics are indigenous, when indigenous people, according to the graphic itself, make up only 5% of the Canadian population. It is quite frankly insane that anyone could look at this discrepancy and not wonder what is going on and why so many more indigenous kids reject or are confused about their sex.

Just as I asked when it comes to girls, I will repeat my challenge to trans activists here: please explain to me why indigenous kids are so much more likely to be born wrong than other Canadian children. Why are they disproportionately targeted for a medical pathway that leads to sterilization? This should concern anyone, and it should particularly disgust those who are aware of Canada’s history when it comes to sterilizing indigenous women. It seems the practice continues and has simply found a different mask to hide behind.

Activists and activist clinicians must also be made to grapple with the fact that the kids they are doing this to are more likely to struggle with other mental health conditions, a fact that is again reported by the Trans Youth CAN! study itself:

Personally, I think kids in general are overdiagnosed with mental health conditions, but that wouldn’t change the fact that trans-identified kids still show these problems at disproportionate rates. To overlook this and to consider a child’s trans identity on its own does these children a horrible disservice because, very often, it is not a separate issue at all. In fact, when mental health conditions are controlled for, the seemingly higher rate of suicide among trans-identified youth disappears. This destroys the activist position that not allowing children to transition is part of what creates these higher suicide rates.

Yet focusing solely on “gender identity” and trans rumination can cause clinicians to overlook other problems. At its most extreme, it can cause clinicians even to overlook the possibility of sexual abuse. The Cass Review specifically noted that, though there are few studies on the issue, the ones available do report a higher incidence of adverse childhood experiences like sexual abuse among these children.

For activists and clinicians to not even want to consider the possibility that a child may want to “change sex” in order to flee abuse is shockingly irresponsible. Many detransitioned women report that childhood abuse did indeed cause them to want to escape being a woman. One of the most recent and high-profile such examples is Tiger Reed, the partner of youth transition whistleblower Jamie Reed. In a poignant piece for The Free Press, Tiger Reed writes:

As I look back, I see how all this shaped my sense that becoming a woman would mean subjecting myself to a lifetime of assault and abuse, and experiencing relentless mental and physical pain.

[…]

Around that time I watched a reality series called TransGeneration, which followed four transgender college students. The show was life-changing for me—I felt it presented a solution, a way out of the pain of being a woman.

Trans Youth CAN! shows us that gender ideology is harming some of the most vulnerable kids in our society. And don’t think for one second that the researchers published these stats out of some kind of spirit of transparency and openness. They published these stats because they see nothing wrong with them. They fundamentally do not care that it is disproportionately girls, indigenous kids, and kids with mental health issues who are targeted for a pathway that will destroy their sexual functioning. They won’t pause to think that maybe, just maybe, this is a hint that something is very, very wrong.

Remember: the more trans kids, the better. That is the ethos that true believers like Dr. Greta Bauer are led by. They will handwave these numbers away as they do with the incredibly disproportionate rates of incarcerated trans-identified male sex offenders. But they must be confronted with these numbers and made to deal with them, especially as, in a fantastic example of a narcissistic reversal, they paint anyone raising the alarm and urging caution as a danger to children.

What’s dangerous to children is ideological blindness and a refusal to ask questions. But escaping these questions is getting harder, and one day we will make it impossible for them to turn that blind eye anymore.

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