Gender atypicality in childhood

Gender atypicality can be described as a child who engages in behaviors or demonstrates interests in things that are typically associated with the opposite gender. Gender atypical play is more specifically children playing with toys or partaking in play-scenarios usually associated with the opposite gender. For example: a boy playing with dolls, and a girl playing with trucks. This is considered “atypical” due to many studies which have concluded that children tend to display an interest in toys with a sex-type that corresponds to the same sex as the child. There have been studies on whether or not gender nonconformity and atypical play can later be an indicator of homosexuality. There are two main ways such studies have been conducted: observational studies that select children with certain characteristics, and retrospective studies which allow gay people to look back on the type of play they engaged in during their childhood.

Child Observation Studies

In selecting children for these gender nonconformity and atypical play studies, researches have a control group— children considered to be gender-typical— and an experimental group where children are chosen based on being categorized as very high on the atypical scale. In other words, girls who are classified as masculine compared to other girls, and boys who are feminine compared to other boys. These studies also typically compared these atypical children to their siblings in attempts to create a type of genetic and environmental control. In a study conducted by Kenneth Zucker, it was determined that gender nonconforming children play with atypic gender toys significantly longer than their gender typical counterparts. In addition, Zucker and his team feel as though they can conclude that gender identity is significantly determined in childhood. Another study concurred that atypicality in childhood seems to be a great predictor as to whether or not such gender atypicality will continue into adulthood. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a disorder that occurs when children are exposed to different androgens, or sex hormones, in the womb than someone of their sex typically would be. These children, considered to be gender atypical, expressed a significant atypical interest in activities they wish to engage in. However, they did not have a significant difference in the preferred sex of their play partners. Like other studies, the gender atypical children were compared to their gender typical relatives. However, this study does include children with a genetic component that physically makes them atypical as well.

Retrospective Studies

The other style of study used to examine this question is the retrospective study. Many studies interview individuals who now identify as gay and ask them to look back on their childhood play preferences. Something very interesting about these retrospective studies is that there seems to be a much higher level of significance when it comes to men. Information on women tends to be insignificant, inconclusive, or the studies simply are not conducted. Retrospective studies largely agree with the studies mentioned previously: they conclude that childhood nonconformity is a large predictor of homosexual sexual orientation. One researcher conducted a retrospective study and concluded that though this type of study was very insightful, the methodology was more difficult using a retrospective study. Though it was very helpful in determining how many gay men were gender atypical in their childhood, he believes that there needs to be a better understanding of why there is a link, rather than just determining that there appears to be a link. Another retrospective study not only examined individuals, but their mothers’ recollection of their child’s childhood characteristics as well. This experiment was also conducted by Michael J Bailey; he had the homosexual and heterosexual individuals give a report on their own childhood nonconformity. He then had the mother of the individual determine if their child possessed different qualities as a child; qualities that implied gender nonconformity. What Bailey found in this study, however, was that there was no correlation in the mothers’ views and the individuals’ views. There was still the correlation between the individuals self-report of gender nonconformity and homosexuality, but the mothers’ answers did no provide any statistical significance.

Bibliography

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