How psychiatry and activism created the dangerous concept of ‘transgender children’

In April 2007, millions of Americans tuned in to ABC’s 20/20 as Barbara Walters introduced the world to psychiatry’s most devastating creation: the “transgender child.” In a segment titled “My Secret Self,” Walters profiled three children—including a young Jazz Jennings—being raised as the opposite sex, explaining that they had been diagnosed with “gender identity disorder.”

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The episode marks the moment the Western world lost its grip on reality. A brand-new type of human being had been conjured into existence through the collision of psychiatry, endocrinology, and political activism. Yet while the concept defied everything known about childhood development and identity formation, large swathes of society—almost overnight—began believing the unbelievable: that a child could be born in the wrong body.

To understand how such a belief materialized, we must go back to an obscure corner of psychiatry in the 1960s, where a fringe group of doctors were studying what motivated men who believed they were women to seek hormones and surgeries. These researchers turned their attention to feminine boys, hoping to identify future transsexuals, and in the process they pathologized childhood gender nonconformity.

In the decades that followed, it became clear that what those pioneers mostly found were not “transsexual children,” but future homosexuals. However, by the time this was understood, it was too late. The seed had been planted—and the concept of the “trans child” was poised to take on a life of its own.

A pivotal moment arrived in 1980, when “gender identity disorder of childhood” was included in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). After the diagnosis was made official, along came the medical “solution”: puberty suppression, developed in the Netherlands during the 1990s.

While psychiatry conceived the idea, puberty blockers brought the transgender child to life. Before this intervention, it was impossible to raise a boy as a girl, or vice versa, with puberty looming on the horizon. But when the Dutch made puberty optional, they handed deeply misguided adults the means to sever gender-nonconforming children from the reality of their sexed bodies.

At the same time, a critical shift was also unfolding in the realm of trans activism. In the 1990s, trans activists decided to redefine transgender identities as innate and healthy, rather than rooted in mental disorder or paraphilic desire. This wasn’t grounded in new science; it was strategic rebranding. The old labels, while accurate, didn’t suit the nascent movement’s political goals.

The concept of the transgender child, freshly minted by medicine, fit perfectly into this new narrative. If being trans is innate, then transgender children must exist. And if transgender children exist, then trans identities must be natural—not pathological or deviant. It was a self-justifying loop—circular and compelling, but based on ideology, not evidence. 

In the decades that followed, “trans kids” were thrust onto the forefront of what was framed as a civil rights struggle. This devastating convergence of medical, political, and cultural forces ensured that countless children—rather than being given the freedom to grow, mature, and explore different identities—were locked into a lifetime of medicalization, embodying an identity imposed upon them before they were old enough to understand what was at stake.

Every story of a “trans kid” begins with tired stereotypes—little boys who like Barbies and princess gowns, or tomboys with short hair and a dislike of dresses. What separates a gender-nonconforming child from one diagnosed with gender dysphoria—now considered a “trans child”—is not biology, but belief. Specifically, the child’s belief that they are the opposite sex. In our upside-down world, the child leads and the adults follow.

Yet, only a society in the grip of mass psychosis could treat children as wise oracles capable of divining an authentic gender soul while still young enough to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

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The tragic reality is: trans kids don’t exist. What does exist are gender-nonconforming children trying to make sense of themselves in a world that has abandoned reason in favor of ideology. These children—the majority of whom would grow up to be gay or lesbian—are being lied to during a crucial stage of identity development, and the consequences will haunt them for a lifetime.

Once the forces that collided to create the transgender child—psychiatric labeling, medical experimentation, and activist messaging—are understood, the dark irony of trans activism’s favorite slogan, Protect Trans Kids, becomes unmistakable.

In truth, children need protection from the very people who believe there is such a thing as a trans kid. The crowds marching in the streets waving pink, blue, and white flags in zealous solidarity may see themselves as righteous heroes, but they are not fighting to protect children. Instead, they are modern-day Pied Pipers, luring confused, vulnerable children away from safety and down the dangerous path first paved by psychiatry—one of false promises and irreversible harm.