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New Aella survey post on child sexual assault just dropped: https://aella.substack.com/p/a-whole-lot-of-csa-data
I think her analysis is generally unobjectionable, but do find it notable that she buries the lead on the "non-cis" sexual assault findings. I didn't dig into the crosstabs, but non-cis people are plausibly getting sexually assaulted even before they become openly non-cis. And while there's plausibly causation in the direction of abnormal pre-egg-breaking/transition behavior being more likely to attract sexually assault, the data re: non-cis people reporting more CSA still very much supports the hypothesis that either:
It might be that these hypothesis are both correct, but for different population subsets. For example, nonbinary people might be disproportionately motivated by a desire to escape a concept they associate with their assault, while transgender people are the ones afflicted by a root factor. (Or vica-versa, either explanation would be possible.)
I would personally bet on the second hypothesis predominating, though. And in particular, the associations re: social class/parental age/trauma are suggestive of some specifically anxiety-related problem. Working hypothesis: If you grow up poor or insecure or to young parents or female you become anxious and depressed, which leads you to be more likely to suffer sexual assault, more likely to interpret past events as sexual assault, more likely to start identifying yourself as non-cis (because of body image issues? Data is obviously underspecified and outside the scope of aella's post), and more likely to be negatively affected long-term by sexual assault when it does happen.
...So if you have kids, and want to maximize their chances of identifying as cisgender into adulthood, your top priority should be reducing their opportunities for anxiety. Openly worrying about drag queen story hour and queer books would be ironically counterproductive.
Ideological disclaimer: as a catholic I believe there are only two genders, fixed at birth, but as a transhumanist also I'm in favor of letting anyone, including children, do whatever they want to their own bodies. (I accept some nuance re: having to get psychologists/a judge to sign off that someone is truly acting in their own uncoerced self-interest, with increasing scrutiny in proportion to the danger posed by the modification and the mental irresponsibility of the requestor.)
I would imagine that there is a correlation with r=1 between the two. SCNR.
I know you meant "victim of CSA and non-cis", which would be weird. But then again, quite a few things could are both weird and true. Generally, everything is correlated with everything else, mostly through boring confounders (perhaps the size of the town one grew up, or absent parents could be a risk factor for either).
I mean, it is also possible that child abusers in aggregate have some preference for victims which are less gendered than their peers, and that being less gendered as a kid also makes one less likely to be cis. But I don't think that is a big effect either.
But of all the medical conditions a kid could have (and which might be avoided through embryo selection to some degree), being trans does not feel like a very big deal. (Of course, I say that as one who is happily cis-by-default. OTOH, I have been on antidepressants for more than a decade and would probably trade them for hormones if some fairy offered me the deal.)
Yes, but it is also not meant to be productive, it is performative, signaling. You might as well try to raise non-alcoholic kids by pretending that booze does not exist. Or try to raise abstinent kids by not teaching them about sex, which commonly results in teen pregnancies.
Unless you ban kids who are openly non-cis from schools (which would be problematic), kids are going to get exposed to other kids who decide that they are trans. Of course, talking about how brave they are will lead to more kids deciding that they are trans. A better approach might be to offer them your condolences for them not having the chromosome set they would like to have, use their preferred name and continue with the lesson plan.
Not to derail things. But how true is this? I know people say that. But i find it hard to believe someone would commission, publish and report on a study that says Catholic abstinance sexed in fact reduces pregnant, harm, whatever.
I know you said “not teaching about sex” which is a straw man version of the argument.
I have no idea. But I could easily imagine how a religious abstinence approach is superior to the modern public school insanity that is sex and gender.
Wildly not true. If you'd like to know more, you can consult the considerable literature on the subject:
Underhill, Operario, Montgomery Cochrane systematic review (2007). This is one of the strongest reviews: 13 randomized or quasi-randomized trials, 15,940 U.S. youth. It found no consistent effect of abstinence-only programs on unprotected vaginal sex, frequency of sex, number of partners, sexual initiation, or condom use, and concluded the trials suggested these programs were ineffective in high-income settings.
Denford et al. review of systematic reviews (2017). This “review of reviews” covered 37 systematic reviews summarizing 224 randomized controlled trials. Its conclusion was explicit: abstinence-only interventions were ineffective at producing positive changes in sexual behavior, while comprehensive interventions were effective.
Chin et al. / Community Preventive Services Task Force (2012). Their systematic review/meta-analytic work found insufficient/inconsistent evidence to conclude that group-based abstinence education works, whereas comprehensive risk-reduction interventions were found effective.
Trenholm et al. / Mathematica federal evaluation (2007). This congressionally mandated evaluation of four Title V abstinence programs found the programs had no effect on youths’ sexual abstinence and that participants were no more likely to have unprotected sex.
Kirby, review of 56 studies (2008). Kirby found that most abstinence programs did not delay initiation of sex and only 3 of 9 abstinence programs showed any significant positive effect on any sexual behavior. By contrast, about two thirds of comprehensive programs showed strong evidence of benefit.
Kohler, Manhart, Lafferty (2008). In a population-level analysis, abstinence-only education showed no significant effect on teen pregnancy or vaginal intercourse, while comprehensive sex education was associated with lower teen pregnancy risk. It also found that teaching contraception was not associated with more adolescent sexual activity or STDs
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Actually I’ve heard the relevant group to study on this is the Mormons and statistics on citizens in Utah. They also have one of the highest adoption rates in the country. It’s less about preventing it from happening and controlling for the context in how it happens such that it’s intentional.
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