A brand new research exhibits that extra youngsters describe themselves as gender-specific than beforehand thought

Almost one in ten teenagers think they are sexually different, according to a new study that found the number is much higher than previously thought.

The new study, published this week in Pediatrics magazine, came to the results after analyzing 3,168 student surveys from 13 high schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with 9.2 percent of those polled as “gender-specific”.

To accurately measure the number of adolescents who identify as differently sexed, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and the UCLA School of Medicine, added a two-part gender identity question to a risk behavior survey.

The first question asked the students, “What gender are you (the sex assigned to you at birth on your birth certificate)?” While the second question followed: “Which of the following best describes you (choose all that apply)? “Where the teenagers can choose between the options” girl “,” boy “,” trans girl “,” trans boy “,” genderqueer “,” non-binary “and” other identity “.

Previously, in a version of the 2017 survey, respondents were only asked if they identified themselves as transgender, with teenagers only answering “yes”, “no” or “I’m not sure”, according to NBC News.

Dr. Kacie Kidd, a pediatrician and adolescent doctor at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and lead researcher on the study, said she and her colleagues decided to change the survey because “of course, not everyone who is gendered identifies as transgender.”

“We were concerned that this language would not encompass the range of gender identities that we see particularly in young people,” she added.

After analyzing the updated survey, researchers found that of the 9.2 percent of young adults who reported “inconsistencies between their gender assigned at birth and their experienced gender identity,” 30 percent reported transmasculine identity, while approximately 39 percent a transfeminine reported identities, and people with non-binary identities made up 30 percent of the total, NBC noted the results.

The results demonstrate the inaccuracies in the frequently cited national average of just two percent, a number that Kidd says is due to the use of the wrong “terminology or methodology”.

“Our goal was to understand the prevalence of gender identities among high school students in our Pittsburgh school district by asking ourselves what we thought was a more inclusive gender identity question and what many scholars consider to be a more inclusive question,” Kidd said. according to CNN. “We suspected that this two-tier question about gender identity would show a higher prevalence of gender diversity than in previous studies.”

The study, which analyzed racially and economically heterogeneous high schools, not only shows a broader spectrum of young adults who identify as gender-specific, but also underlines the importance of a more precise representation of this population group with regard to access to gender-equitable care.

According to Kidd, who found that most of the youth treated at the university’s Gender and Sexual Development Clinic are “identified as male and white,” “the study raises the question of why we are no longer gendered young people see with color or that are non-binary or femme-identified ”.

Gender diversity refers to “the extent to which a person’s gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular gender,” according to the American Psychological Association.