Consistency of gender identity and preferences across time

Hässler, Glazier & Olson (2022) published “Consistency of Gender Identity and Preferences Across Time: An exploration among cisgender and transgender children” in Developmental Psychology. There is considerable discussion about the stability of children who identify as transgender. This study speaks to that question. Here’s the abstract:

While considerable research has examined gender development in middle childhood, little longitudinal work has been conducted at this time to indicate whether, for example, youth who show more or less gender conformity at one point continue to do so later. The present study investigated the consistency of gender identity and preferences for gender-stereotypical toys, clothing, and same-gender peer preferences among groups of transgender youth (n = 158), their siblings (n = 79), and an unrelated group of cisgender youth (n = 128) from a mean age of 7.0 (range 3.0–10.9) to a mean age of 9.6 (range 5.1–12.0). Furthermore, 65.5% of the youth were girls, 69.7% were White, 72.8% grew up in households with an annual household income of $75,000 or more, and 89.9% of parents had a bachelor's degree or higher. Overall, we found a small-to-medium correlation over this 2.6-year span within each group, both across the composite of measures and most measures individually. Despite the moderate stability over time, we found a decrease in the composite and individual scores over this time span for girls and for transgender participants. Together these results suggested some stability in children’s gender identity and preferences in middle childhood and that this was true regardless of whether the child’s gender did or did not align with their sex assignment at birth. 

I like the design of the study although it would certainly be better if there were more males, children of color, and children from less affluent households. Nevertheless, modest stability seems to be the norm for both cisgender and transgender children. I find it interesting that both girls and transgender children tend to exhibit a decrease in composite and individual scores over the 2.6-year time period. Does this mean that girls and transgender children simply question traditional gender stereotypes more than cisgender boys as they move through elementary school? I look forward to more research on this topic.