Study: Higher Risk Of Abuse For Kids Who Don’t Conform To Gender

[xchrom]

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/02/abuse-gender-nonconformity/

New research out today from the Harvard School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics has found that children who don’t “conform” to their gender are more likely to have suffered childhood abuse (physical, sexual and psychological) and to have a risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in early adulthood.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 9,500 young adults (mostly in their 20s, part of the Growing Up Today study) and asked them to recall events from early childhood, when they were younger than 11.

Defining “Gender Nonconformity”

Participants were asked behavior-based questions “regarding media characters imitated or admired, roles taken in pretend play, favorite toys and games, and feelings of femininity or masculinity.” For example, if a girl (biological sex = female), pretended to be the prince slaying the dragon (gender role/identity = masculine) rather than the princess sashaying through the forest (gender role/identity = feminine), that’d be an instance of gender nonconformity.

Participants were divided by biological sex and then into three groups based on the median gender nonconformity score within each sex (the score that’s in the middle of all the scores). This means gender nonconformity is on sex-specific, relative scale — gender nonconforming behaviors are understood only in the context of what other males or other females are doing rather than determined by an absolute cutoff score.

The three groups used for analysis were:

* at or below the median (relatively less gender nonconforming)
* above the median but not in the top 10% (relatively more gender nonconforming)
* the top 10% (the most gender nonconforming)



*** lgbtiq and minorities weren't really included in the study -- but it's still interesting.

[WingDinger]

1. DUH. That is what the schoolboy taunt of "faggot" comes from.

BUT, gender conformity, is mostly based on Males conformity. Tomboy is still tolerated.

I cant begin to tell you how many guys I decked for their versions of imposing gender conformity. Hell, being in a spelling bee, is enough circumstantial evidence to lynch.

[murielm99]

2. Interesting. I was just thinking

about some of this.

My husband is going to a meeting on Saturday to help plan his 50th high school reunion. Looking at my yearbook (of course I am married to a MUCH OLDER man, lol), I came across two boys' pictures. They were next to each other in the yearbook, because they were cousins with the same last name. They both loved acting, singing and arts like painting and drawing. They both had to fight their way through high school.

Funny. They were both farm kids, certainly stronger and more fit than some of the greaser boys who called them fags. Their parents supported their choices, and backed them when they got suspended for fighting. I don't know if that would have held true if they really had been gay, rather than nonconformists. It was a sensitive subject. I may have thought it, but I never voiced it.

[WingDinger]

3. My parents made the same deal. I could ruin as many bullies as needed.

There were periods where that was at least once a week. Or maybe twice. Now, zero tolerance, is applied to the taunted. Which explains why those taunted resort to suicide so often.

[murielm99]

4. The taunted still needs their parents to stand up for them.

I would do it. I would fight it publicly, too, if necessary. Zero tolerance sucks.