A Longitudinal Study of Gender Nonconformity in Prepubescent Children

项目摘要/摘要 这项拟议研究的目的是建立一个青春期前变性人/性别- 不符合标准(TGNC)的孩子(和他们的父母)，并纵向观察这个队列以扩大身体 TGNC儿童性别发展和认知的经验知识及其心理健康 症状和功能随时间的变化，以及家庭启动的社会性别转变如何预测或 减轻心理健康症状和/或诊断。参与者将在以下两个地点之一进行招募和登记 致力于照顾她们的四个性别中心(洛杉矶儿童医院/南加州大学； 芝加哥/西北大学卢瑞儿童医院；波士顿儿童医院/哈佛医学院 贝尼奥夫儿童医院/加州大学旧金山分校)，并在两年多的时间里 观察期，收集青春期前TGNC儿童和他们的临床和行为数据 父母每隔6个月出生一次。拟议的研究将使用最先进的测量方法和统计方法 以人为中心的分析方法(即潜在类别分析和潜在转变分析)的进展 解决以前研究中的不一致之处，这些研究主要集中在以变量为中心的方法上。这个 拟议的研究利用了美国国立卫生研究院资助的唯一儿科性别中心网络的资源 (赠款#R01HD082554)，扩大目前的合作(研究TGNC青少年)，包括 青春期前TGNC儿童的年龄更小和研究不足的队列。这些网站共同拥有一个长期目标 并预计将扩大对一项研究计划的调查，该计划旨在审查 从儿童早期到成年早期的TGNC青年。这项提议建立了一个理想的框架 继续从为这项初步工作招募的队列中收集纵向数据，并了解 根据青春期周围研究中招募的队列，这一群体的额外复杂性 和青春期TGNC青少年(补助金#R01-HD082554)。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The purpose of this proposed study is to establish a national cohort of prepubertal transgender/gender- nonconforming (TGNC) children (and their parents), and longitudinally observe this cohort to expand the body of empirical knowledge pertaining to gender development and cognition in TGNC children, their mental health symptomology and functioning over time, and how family-initiated social gender transition may predict or alleviate mental health symptoms and/or diagnoses. Participants will be recruited and enrolled either at one of four Gender Centers dedicated to their care (Children's Hospital Los Angeles/University of Southern California; Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago/Northwestern University; Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School; Benioff Children's Hospital/University of California San Francisco), and followed over a 2-year observational period, with clinical and behavioral data collected from prepubertal TGNC children and their parents at 6-month intervals. The proposed study will use state-of-the-art measures and utilize statistical advances in person-centered analytical approaches (i.e., latent class analysis and latent transition analysis) to address inconsistencies in prior studies, which have focused primarily on variable-centered approaches. The proposed study leverages the resources of the only NIH-funded network of US-based pediatric gender centers (Grant #R01HD082554), expanding on this current collaboration (studying TGNC adolescents) to include a younger and understudied cohort of prepubertal TGNC children. Together, these sites share a long-term goal and anticipate expanding investigation into a program of research that examines the experiences and needs of TGNC youth from early childhood through early adulthood. This proposal sets up an ideal framework to continue collecting longitudinal data from the cohort recruited for this initial work, as well as understand the additional complexities of this population based on the cohorts recruited in the companion study of peripubertal and pubertal TGNC adolescents (Grant #R01-HD082554).