Adolescents who experience gender incongruence enter puberty earlier, study shows

Nov 21 2022

A brand new examine from Aarhus College exhibits that kids who’ve expressed a want on the age of 11 to be a distinct gender enter puberty sooner than their friends. Nonetheless, extra analysis is required, says the researchers behind the examine.

The transition to puberty may be troublesome for youngsters who’re by doubt about their very own gender id. New analysis from the Division of Public Well being at Aarhus College means that these kids additionally enter puberty sooner than kids who aren’t doubtful about their gender id. Grasp’s programme pupil Anne Hjorth Thomsen and Professor Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen are behind the examine.

The examine, which is without doubt one of the first on this planet to look at the correlation between kids’s want to be the other gender and their growth in puberty, was undertaken as a part of the analysis mission “Higher Well being for Generations” (BSIG), which has monitored 100,000 Danish ladies’s pregnancies and births, in addition to the expansion and growth of their kids, since 1996.

Within the examine, the kids had been requested on the age of 11 a couple of attainable want to be the other gender. This data was then mixed with information wherein, each six months, the kids reported their present stage in varied puberty milestones. At age 11, round 5% of the kids within the examine reported both a partial or a full want to be the other gender.

The outcomes point out that kids who at age 11 reported a want to be the other gender tended to enter puberty earlier than kids who had not expressed a want to alter their gender. Within the examine, each birth-assigned girls and boys with a earlier expressed want to alter gender entered puberty round two months sooner than their friends.”

Anne Hjorth Thomsen, Scholar, Aarhus College

Anne Hjorth Thomsen stresses that extra analysis is required earlier than any ultimate conclusions may be drawn, however that it is necessary that well being employees are conscious of kids’s earlier puberty growth.

“Well being professionals could encounter a want to decelerate puberty, as a result of the kid could not really feel comfy in their very own physique, or capable of establish with it. It’s due to this fact necessary that the healthcare professionals possess primary data in regards to the puberty growth of the kids, in order that remedy may be utilized on the proper time.”

Anne Hjorth Thomsen and Professor Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen suggest that the analysis outcomes be adopted up by new research.

“On this examine, we see earlier puberty growth amongst kids who want to be the other gender, in comparison with kids who don’t want to be the other gender. However we have no idea whether or not the kids’s personal gender notion impacts their puberty growth, or whether or not there could also be different explanations. We have no idea the underlying causes,” says Anne Hjorth Thomsen.