By Melissa Corkhill
20th December 2016
Last year, 2,796 children sought counselling about gender identity. This was more than double the calls from the year before. This increase is also reflected in referrals to young people’s gender services by GPs.
Fifty-nine per cent of trans youths say they have deliberately hurt themselves compared with 8.9 per cent of the general teen population (RaRE Report 2015). I don’t think young people are calling Childline or hurting themselves because they are questioning their identity. The worry, the frustration, the fear, the anxiety, comes from the realisation that you’re going to face hatred, persecution and ridicule. It comes from the terrifying prospect that the people you love the most in the world might reject you on the grounds of your identity.
Read the full report by Juno Dawson here.
