It is the job of children and youth to figure out who they are. For queer and trans young people, these questions will likely revolve around if their parents will still love them if they come out, whom they'll marry when they grow up, and what their life would look like if they lived in their authentic gender. For children and tweens, especially, sexual activity is likely only a very small part of this -- if it's even there at all. (If you're not ace, how old were you when you stopped thinking kissing was gross?) (Thanks to Page at the Common Goodness Project for some of these important points.)
If you're wondering if your TGNC young person's overall identity is a phase, it's probably not, even if they do switch labels. (Ditto for queer young people.)
- The End of the Desistance Myth
- How common is transgender treatment regret, detransitioning?
- Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition (This article is on Medium, which now requires an account to access.)
- This Isn't the Same Thing as Pretending Your Child Is a Dog
- Top reason trans ‘detransition’ is transphobia, largest ever trans survey finds
- Trans People Are Real and Detransitioning Isn't That Common (YouTube)
One of the most common themes in my survey responses was the plea for adults to take queer and trans young people's identities seriously, to go with the flow if those identities change, and to honor young people for wherever they are.
The many labels available to describe sexual orientations and gender identities offer LGBTQA+/SGL people a degree of nuance for their "label home" that those of us who grew up in previous generations could not have imagined. And that is to the great advantage of young people and to the detriment of those of us who are Gen X or older. Yes, we missed out on this degree of introspection. But we also didn't have as many labels to help us discover ourselves.
