# Are teenagers who claim to be trans just acting out? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960 "2024-09-08T16:28:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/81 "2024-09-25T19:57:15Z")
That is an interesting thing to think about. I don’t think it’s so much innate as sort of inevitable; societal notions of ‘gender roles’ probably are significantly a whole big mess of social conditioning and learned behaviours, but to some extent or other, arising from mating and child-rearing. It’s a heck of a complex mess of behaviours to have arisen from that, but biology is like that; look at some of the absurd and ultimately not very necessary things that birds do, all in the pursuit of mating - it starts off as a way of proving you’re a suitable mate and escalates to greater and greater extremes of weird, apparently arbitrary behaviours that an individual just has to try to be the best at, because that’s how the system works. That’s not to say things have to stay the way they are, or that they even make sense given that we are now an intelligent species capable of deciding how we shape our world, rather than just doing stuff instinctively or out of weight of social precedent or whatever. We didn’t evolve clothes or cars or flatscreen TVs - we are already way past the point of doing things out of biological necessity. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/82 "2024-09-25T20:04:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I also don’t think attention-seeking is nearly as big a motivator for teens as a lot of adults think it is Kid, you were climbing that electric pylon. I don’t know if you wanted my adult attention, but you’ve sure got it now. The point may not be to seek attention, but gaining attention (and a broken arm) are consequences of the behavior. > [@Babale](#): > > might not even have gender as a particularly important part of their identity, and grouping people as ‘men’ and ‘women’ might be totally alien to them Maybe, and I think this gets straight into the argument about how far the differences between men and women go. To me, I see differences between men and women, but which differences are innate and which are just due to cultural expectations? My opinion is, that unless such a magical society with no gender roles can be created, it will be impossible to really distinguish them. My NB identifying kid never liked “girl” dolls (babies, and such), but did like “boy” dolls (aka action figures). What did they do with the stormtroopers and transforming robots? Made them clothes and sent them to school. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/83 "2024-09-25T20:34:57Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Kid, you were climbing that electric pylon. I don’t know if you wanted my adult attention, but you’ve sure got it now. > > The point may not be to seek attention, but gaining attention (and a broken arm) are consequences of the behavior. Obviously. But the question isn’t whether adults give kids attention for things like being trans. The question is whether it’s attention-seeking behavior. I’m saying that far less teen behavior is actively attention-seeking than adults often assume: assuming it’s attention-seeking is a way to avoid addressing the real underlying motives. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/84 "2024-09-25T22:16:37Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I just find this idea remarkably bizarre. I can imagine someone “faking” transgenderism for attention but I think the attention seeking nature of it would make it pretty obvious what was going on. If Steve suddenly shows up at school wearing a wig with a couple of balloons strapped to his chest, tells everyone to call him Maude, and laughs with all his friends about how he should now be allowed in the girls locker room. That’s obviously not a real change and is just a stunt to get attention. The thing is for most people who are exploring alternate gender identities the last thing they want is attention. Their ideal would be that they would blend in and be accepted under their new identity without being singled out because of it. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2024, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/85 "2024-09-27T10:47:58Z")
I am in an ROGD parents’ group, because of my middle child (female-born, was using “he”, now moved on to “they”). Our experience is that there are definitely clusters, kids do get into the state where they are unable to separate “being trans” from just liking to hang out with that particular friend group and, as you say, it doesn’t necessarily last. My child seems to be mostly in it at this point because it’s just their friend group - that and “chest dysphoria”, ie, not liking having breasts. I’m curious - what was the usual time length of considering themselves trans for your daughter’s friends? In my group it seems to be between about two and five years, out of the five that have detransitioned/desisted so far. I wouldn’t even say ‘experimentation’ though, but just … these kids are all being taught to look inside them for their internal gender - how would anyone even know what an internal gender felt like? So no wonder they come up with stuff that doesn’t really last. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2024, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/86 "2024-09-27T19:15:39Z")
2-5 years as you said iirc. It’s been several years. I remember my daughter and friends trying to get support for a lgbtqi club. Which was met with quite a bit of hostility. Then about sophomore/ Jr year there was a leadership change in HS principal and superintendent. Both who were visibly supportive and encouraging to the marginalized kids. Leadership also pursued with serious warnings against any of those students who were actively engaging in bullying and fomenting conflict against the new club members. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/87 "2024-09-28T01:29:06Z")
Advocating against bullying is always a worthy cause, of course! Has the experience of having a lot of friends influenced your daughter’s thinking on this at all? Or do you not really talk about it? ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/88 "2024-09-28T05:14:04Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I wouldn’t even say ‘experimentation’ though, but just … these kids are all being taught to look inside them for their internal gender - how would anyone even know what an internal gender felt like? So no wonder they come up with stuff that doesn’t really last. I think this is true. Sexual orientation is based on our own feelings, but looking outward at “stimulus.” And a narrow range of behaviors and stimulus. I’m not sure there would be any way to “look inward” to determine that “internal gender” matches body parts. Realistically what matters is that the barrier to entry, presuming acceptance, is lower than that of sexual preference since “internal gender” is so much more allencompassing than sexual preference. But the barrier to lasting change, surgery, hormones, is so much higher. So are the “false positives” a fad? We’ll have to see. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/89 "2024-09-28T11:08:41Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > I’m not sure there would be any way to “look inward” to determine that “internal gender” matches body parts. I think that for some people – both those strongly cis and I expect those strongly trans – it’s just obvious. To the person whose mind it is, not to everybody else. And I think that for some people it’s not obvious at all. And that for these people, the obviousness of it to others can be hard to understand. And I think that maybe for some people this can change through their lives? ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/90 "2024-09-28T16:19:56Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I think that for some people – both those strongly cis and I expect those strongly trans – it’s just obvious. To the person whose mind it is, not to everybody else. > > And I think that for some people it’s not obvious at all. And that for these people, the obviousness of it to others can be hard to understand. I think that for the people who actually go through the surgery, their feelings are stronger, more obvious, then those who wind up having it be just a phase. But those are “objective feelings.” What is happening in school environments is more “declared feelings.” I can declare that I feel X, but I don’t really know if my feeling of X is really the same as someone else’s feeling of X. We are humans and we do have some universals as to how we process things in our brains, so I do think that the people that go through with transitioning are probably “thinking differently” than the ones who don’t. But that’s not what matters in the world of declared feelings. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/91 "2024-09-28T17:40:18Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I am in an ROGD parents’ group Isn’t ROGD largely discredited in the general medical community? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2024, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/92 "2024-09-28T18:10:17Z")
Yes, very much. There is no sign it happens. The only evidence was always parents who thought their child had suddenly changed. But nearly every person I’ve seen talks about tons of objective signs that their parents completely missed. It’s mostly just that they don’t tend to talk to their parents about their feelings if they aren’t sure they will be accepting. Their friends at school will know they’ve been thinking about it for quite a while. The Wikipedia article imhas a lot more info on the paper. > **[Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy)** > > Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial, scientifically unsupported hypothesis which claims that some adolescents identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria due to peer influence and social contagion. ROGD is not recognized as a valid mental health diagnosis by any major professional association, which discourage its use due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept, major methodological issues in existing research, and its stigmatization of gender- ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/93 "2024-09-29T02:48:18Z")
This subject is so politicised that it’s best to just read the original source material. The term ROGD just means kids who start identifying as trans as teenagers without any particular history of displaying unhappiness with their sex. Clearly, children like that do exist. The ROGD paper matches our observations very well, so the term is a useful one. The process of asking family members about the presentation of particular psychological differences is not usually controversial - my son’s diagnosis of ASD had a substantial parent observation component, so did my middle child’s diagnosis of ADHD at 15. _My_ ADHD diagnosis involved (among other things) asking my husband about his observations of me. So I don’t find it particularly nefarious or concerning that the original ROGD paper is based on parent observations. Family observations are useful. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/94 "2024-09-29T07:05:59Z")
I suppose homosexually is nearly always “rapid onset” because puberty is “rapid onset”. I wonder if the same is true for some trans kids. Their gender didn’t really matter until puberty, when suddenly it became a big deal, and so their gender disphoria ramped up very rapidly. That kinda happened to me. (I am afab. And i still identify as female, because I’m old, and I’m used to it. But if i were a teen today, i would certainly identify as NB or possibly male. Not as female. And I’m really uncomfortable in “female” groups. I’m a lot more comfortable as the only woman in a group of men than i am in an all-female group, where i always feel like an outsider and/or a faker. I joined a woman-only gym for logistical reasons, and because i could. But i felt weird every time i visited.) ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/95 "2024-09-29T07:38:01Z")
I don’t think that being a female person who’s uncomfortable with being female, or uncomfortable in all-female groups, is necessarily all that uncommon. This is an under-studied area, but there’s research [here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2018.1523998#d1e392) about gender feelings across a wide variety of identities, and it seems to be saying (if I’m interpreting their rather complex graphs correctly) that some degree of not feeling like your birth sex is pretty common among everyone (though obviously more so among people who self-identify as trans or gender-diverse) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/96 "2024-09-29T08:15:36Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I wonder if the same is true for some trans kids. Their gender didn’t really matter until puberty, when suddenly it became a big deal, and so their gender disphoria ramped up very rapidly. That kinda happened to me. This is definitely a thing they talk about. Usually it was there a bit before, but they could ignore it until their body started changing. In fact, one of the signs I was talking about earlier is how upset puberty makes them feel, and how they’re constantly dressing to hide those changes. But, no, a year or so later when they come out to their parents, they think it’s rapid onset. Though do note they can sometimes know before puberty, which is the whole idea behind puberty blockers, in their ideal form. But it requires parents who will accept the possibility. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/97 "2024-09-29T11:28:04Z")
So what you are saying is that it’s quite common to be on the trans spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/98 "2024-09-29T14:30:31Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I don’t think that being a female person who’s uncomfortable with being female, or uncomfortable in all-female groups, is necessarily all that uncommon. > > This is an under-studied area, but there’s research [here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2018.1523998#d1e392) about gender feelings across a wide variety of identities, and it seems to be saying (if I’m interpreting their rather complex graphs correctly) that some degree of not feeling like your birth sex is pretty common among everyone (though obviously more so among people who self-identify as trans or gender-diverse) > [@puzzlegal](#): > > what you are saying is that it’s quite common to be on the trans spectrum. I’m not sure this quite follows. I think we can imagine two scenarios that might cause someone who was AFAB to feel uncomfortable with being a “woman”. In the first scenario, the person may feel uncomfortable with the physical experience of being biologically female. They may experience anxiety or discomfort with the idea of growing breasts as they undergo puberty, for example. In the second scenario, the person may feel uncomfortable with the societal role that women play and the expectations about appearance, behavior, role in parenthood, etc that come along with being a woman. I don’t think it makes sense to lump both of these scenarios into the category of ‘trans’. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/99 "2024-09-29T15:26:23Z")
And of course there may be some who experience each to some contributory degree, in some spectrum. @puzzlegal, it is unclear to me where in that contributory spectrum your experience was. It sounds like there was definitely some discomfort with female gender behavior and role expectations as imposed by other females upon you? You had more of a sense of belonging hanging with male groups than with female groups? Did you or do you also have discomfort with having female form to any degree, or more just neutral on that? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960/100 "2024-09-29T16:12:15Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > it seems to be saying (if I’m interpreting their rather complex graphs correctly) that some degree of not feeling like your birth sex is pretty common among everyone Interesting. I have never felt not-female, although I’ve often felt uninterested in what a particular female group was doing and more interested in what a male group was doing. But I’m certainly odd; and maybe this, a fashion in which I thought I was in the more common group, is actually another way in which I’m odd. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-teenagers-who-claim-to-be-trans-just-acting-out/1006960.md?page=6)