Trans youth deserve transition.

we need to talk about jk rowling

Photo by charliewarl on Unsplash

Trans youth will always exist, and they will always deserve to transition. That’s apparently controversial, so I’ll say it again.

Trans youth will always exist, and they will always deserve to transition.

Per her latest anti-trans screed, mediocre author J.K. Rowling disagrees. In a rant on the anti-trans social media site X (which ironically went through its own transition recently and I will not dead name it here), she-who-shall-not-be-named falsely claimed that “[t]here are no trans kids.”

Critically, her argument is not that there are literally 0 trans-identifying children in the world. It’s that trans kids are simply confused about their identities and need to be coaxed back into the closet. For Rowling and TERFs¹ like her, trans-ness cannot exist and, therefore, we should not believe children’s own feelings about their bodies.

For a so-called feminist stance, this view is incredibly patronizing. It recreates the overt power dynamics of domination utilized by patriarchal systems but packaged with a poorly tied, pink bow of milquetoast feminism. You would think that this contradiction would be obvious to a woman who wrote 7 books about opposing evil forces with decency, but here we are.

With transphobia ascendent in the halls of power, we must recognize that arguments like that of Rowling are persuasive to many people — even though the whole discourse is ridiculous on its face. Aside from blatant anti-trans hate, Rowling’s asinine argument reflects a culture of hostility towards children who are expected to conform to strict external expectations or face exclusion from society. Dismantling this notion must be part of our response to her rhetoric.

First, the whole framing of “children” is inherently infantilizing. Policies are framed around the legal definition in adulthood, generally 18. Teenagers are certainly not children, and they will be the first to remind you of that.

Yet, even children make daily decisions about their identities, meaning that they must be in touch with their inner self. For example, children are capable of deciding what clothes they want to wear and what toys they want to play with. Since our society genders these decisions, children must have a concept of their gender identity even if that phrase means nothing to them.

Indeed, research backs this up. In 2019, a study compared gendered behaviors of cis- and trans-identifying youth ages 3-12. The research team found no differences between cis- and trans- children in choice of toys, clothing, or peer groups. The authors concluded:

These findings illustrate that children develop a sense of identity at an early age, that this identity is not necessarily determined by sex assigned at birth, and that children may hold on to this identity even when it conflicts with others’ expectations…. [T]hese data suggest the power of one’s own internal sense of identity (however formed initially) and the consequences of self-socialization on how one thinks about and expresses one’s gender.

These findings agree with historical accounts of trans youth. In Histories of the Transgender Child, Dr. Jules Gill-Peterson documents how gender non-conforming youth struggled against oppressive systems in order to receive affirming care. Throughout the 20th century, trans youth approached the medical system to share feelings of dysphoria and were met with insulting skepticism from doctors. This was especially true for youth of color who experienced gender dysphoria during childhood.

From Gill-Peterson’s perspective, the current wave of anti-trans backlash is not about the existence of trans people. We cannot be eradicated despite the claims of Rowling and American president-elect Donald Trump. Instead, anti-trans activists are targeting “the material conditions of possibility for transition, whether access to public facilities, access to education and the labor market, or access to hormones and surgeries.” Without these conditions, trans people will be relegated to either the closet or a socioeconomic underclass where the only opportunities to authentically participate in society will be outside of the sanctioned marketplace.

Understanding What's at Stake (It's Always Been Transition)

The choice to target children is strategic. As a political class, children are particularly vulnerable. Even in democracies, they cannot vote, so political operatives can target children without having to worry about losing electoral support. Ultimately, the anti-trans political project seeks to first cut off routes to transition for youth and then target transition for trans adults. Anti-trans politicians are betting that the trans community is small enough that they don’t need our votes even once we reach voting age. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the oral arguments in US v. Skrmetti, “When you’re 1% or less of the population, very hard to see how the democratic process is going to protect you.”

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This past week, my parents and brother visited my new locale in Santa Monica, California for a post-Christmas vacation. We were munching on burgers when my dad shared that he had watched “Will and Harper” on the cross-country flight and was surprised that the titular Harper had experienced dysphoria as a child. He had never considered that I may have had a similar experience of discomfort at early ages and wanted to know if it was indeed true. At first, I chuckled because I thought the answer was obvious. Yes, I did. So, I illustrated it:

I was raised Roman Catholic, and my family went to mass weekly.² On Christmas and Easter, we would dress up even more out of reverence. For a kid who was raised as a boy (like me), that meant wearing a button up shirt and dress pants. I never wanted to wear that outfit, and each holiday I would throw a tantrum because I couldn’t imagine those clothes on my body.

My parents couldn’t figure out why I was so opposed to this standard boy outfit, and (at the time) I couldn’t articulate the feelings of dysphoria it brought me. The only explanation I could give was that I didn’t like how the starchy collar felt against my neck.³ Eventually, I learned helplessness with respect to my prescribed dress code and begrudgingly wore the collared shirt without incident.

In hindsight, dysphoria was clearly at the root of my meltdowns. I didn’t want to wear a boy’s button down shirt. I wanted to wear a girl’s dress. When re-explained in this way, my parents immediately made the connections to see how childhood dysphoria manifested in me.

I share this anecdote because my parents are hardly social justice warriors. (They would be more likely to use that phrase in the derogatory form.) However, they do fashion themselves as new trans allies since I came out to them over two years ago. They are dedicated to learning more but struggle against the backdrop of rampant transphobia and misinformation in their own political contexts. For them, occurrences of dysphoria in childhood were a major hole in their knowledge, despite having a trans daughter.

And on my end, I had wrongly assumed that my experiences of dysphoria during childhood were obvious to my parents in retrospect. As a result, I never felt the need to share my new insights about my own childhood with them. Together, these two dynamics produced this knowledge gap.

There are likely many more people like my parents — well-meaning trans allies but not fully immersed in queer and trans discourses — who are currently ill-equipped to be advocates for trans youth today. Amidst ongoing discourse about whether trans youth should be able to access affirming medical care (from which trans youth are noticeably excluded), this knowledge gap is critical.

Trans people who transition as adults and experienced dysphoria during childhood (~75% of trans folx, according to a 2021 study) are overlooked as evidence that we should believe trans youth’s professed self-knowledge.These trans adults can use their age-related privilege and hypervisibility to dispel Rowling’s arguments by centering our humanity and sharing stories of childhood dysphoria.

I encourage you to find ways to work these stories into discussions with allies in your life.⁴ If and when you do share these experiences, be sure to tie it back to the truth that gender self-knowledge can be recognizable at early ages, and therefore we should believe trans youth. They deserve access to transition.

False ideologies like Rowling’s are prominent and need to be combatted. As we enter 2025, we must expand not only fluency in debunking anti-trans talking points but also understanding of the real stakes of today’s struggle. This urgent political project requires us to build solidarity both inside and outside of queer communities so that together we can stridently oppose anti-trans activists in positions of power.

1. Personally, I prefer “feminism approaching ridiculous transphobe” or FART.

2. I don’t practice anymore, but my family still does.

3. lol autism x queerness!

4. Of course, please do so to the extent that you are comfortable. Childhood dysphoria is often adjacent to trauma, and you do not owe anyone your trauma.