Social factors behind the AFAB predominance in LGBT youths: evidence from a large European survey

Trans youth reports reveal a predominance of assigned female at birth (AFAB) people (i.e. transmasculine people) over assigned male at birth (AMAB) people (i.e. transfeminine people). It has been suggested that "social contagion" through social media could be more frequent in AFAB people, causing a hypothesized "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD) in adolescence, with detrimental correlates to health. We aim to test (1) whether the suggested effect of ROGD on an AFAB predominance in adolescence could have an alternative explanation such as the effect of national LGBT policies; (2) the suggested effects of ROGD by which transmasculine people who had a more rapid development of their trans identity in adolescence would use more often social media to connect to peers and would have a lower health status. Regarding our methods, we used the cross-sectional LGTI Survey II (2019) of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (137,553 LGBT people) and the ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index (2019) of national LGBT policy scores. We calculated the chances to recognize and share an LGBT identity for AFAB/AMAB cis/trans people, expected sex ratios for cis/trans people at every age given equal total AFAB and AMAB populations, and national AFAB vs. AMAB differences in ages of LGBT identity-sharing adjusted by their ages of self-perception. We tested among adolescent respondents whether belonging to the hypothesized ROGD population was associated with social media use or poorer self-assessed health. As regards our findings, we predicted a predominance of AFAB trans adolescents as well as AFAB LGB cis adolescents in accordance with our observation that AMAB youth shared their identity later than AFAB youth in all 30 countries, their age of self-perception being held equal. We found that national differences in ages of identity-sharing significantly correlated with ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index. We did not find that transmasculine people who had a rapid development of a trans identity in adolescence used more social media or had worse health. However, when we restricted the sample to those who were adolescents in the survey (N = 6209), we found that transmasculine youth who had a more rapid affirmation (< 1 year) used more frequently social media, though they did not have poorer health. To conclude, the AFAB predominance in adolescence may not be trans-specific. The effect of social influence on the emergence of LGBT identities in adolescence may exist at the micro level (social media use by transmasculine adolescents) but also at the macro level (state laws). These findings give support to some of the ROGD hypothesis features but contradict others, and plead for more research on how gender minority stress affects the likelihood of LGBT people to disclose their identity.