Wellington, Feb 23 : Girls who dress or act like boys, and boys who act more feminine, may be more likely to be abused and end up with post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers say.
According to researchers, parents or other adults who are uncomfortable with so-called gender non-conformity may treat children differently, sometimes violently, or be convinced they can change their feelings and behaviour.
"In some cases, they believe they're helping the child, that gender non-conforming won't be accepted by other people," Stuff.co.nz quoted Andrea Roberts from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who worked on the study, as saying.
"But of course, abuse is never protective," Roberts noted.
Roberts and her colleagues analysed data from a long-term study on children and teens that looked at more than 16,000 children, who recalled their favourite toys, roles they took on during play, and feelings of femininity or masculinity at age 11.
The participants were also asked about instances of abuse - from kicking and grabbing, to threatening, to forced sexual contact - that happened either before that time or during their adolescent years.
The researchers found that children who were the most gender non-conforming were between 40 per cent and more than twice as likely to report any kind of childhood abuse as those who did confirm to typical gender roles.
They also reported more symptoms of PTSD, which include jumpiness, trouble sleeping and flashbacks.
Roberts said that while the findings can't prove that parents abused boys because they acted like girls, and vice versa, the study did hint that gender non-conformity in younger children predicted abuse during the teenage years.
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