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Gender Variance in Children and Adolescents with Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Conditions from Australia

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Abstract

Gender variance is a broad term used to describe gender non-conforming behaviors. Past studies have used the parental response to Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) Item 110, which asks whether a child “Wishes to be of opposite sex” as an indicator of gender variance. The population prevalence of gender variance in children and adolescents using this metric was found to be 1.2% in birth-assigned females and 0.4% in birth-assigned males (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). However, in those referred for psychiatric evaluation, it was higher (5.4% of birth-assigned females and 2.8% of birth-assigned males) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). The aim of this study was to use the CBCL to estimate the prevalence of gender variance among children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions and assess whether this was higher compared to controls. The response to the CBCL and the child’s neurodevelopmental and/or psychiatric diagnosis were extracted from the clinical notes of 1553 children and adolescents referred to an outpatient psychiatry clinic in Australia. This was compared to data from 181 control participants as well as to the CBCL standardization sample of 1605 controls. Of the 1553 young people, whose mean age was 10.9 years, gender variance was reported in 3.1% compared to 1.7% in local control participants (p > .05) and 0.7% in the CBCL controls (p < .0001). Rates varied depending upon the underlying diagnosis (ASD 5.2%; ADHD 2.5%, intellectual disability 4.7%; depression 2.6%; and anxiety 4.7%). In this way, our findings support past observations that young people with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions have high rates of gender variance.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Karen Dally for database assistance, and Nick Fulkoski, Karen Giang, and Melissa Barnett for data entry. We acknowledge Dr. Tiba Maloof for the critical appraisal of the literature review that informed this study.

Funding

KCP was supported by the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Lucy McPhate, Katrina Williams & Kenneth Pang

  2. Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC, 3052, Australia

    Katrina Williams & Kenneth Pang

  3. Academic Child Psychiatry Unit and Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Alasdair Vance & Jo Winther

  4. Inflammation Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Kenneth Pang

  5. Department of Paediatrics, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Katrina Williams & Tamara May

Authors
  1. Lucy McPhate
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  2. Katrina Williams
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  3. Alasdair Vance
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  4. Jo Winther
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  5. Kenneth Pang
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  6. Tamara May
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kenneth Pang.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The research involved human subjects and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at the Royal Children’s Hospital (Protocol 24005). Participants reviewed an HREC-approved Information and Consent Form and provided their consent to participate.

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McPhate, L., Williams, K., Vance, A. et al. Gender Variance in Children and Adolescents with Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Conditions from Australia. Arch Sex Behav 50, 863–871 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01918-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01918-9

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