“Does taking birth control pills as a teen influence - - - - gender identity?”
With regards only to the thread title question I have a strong opinion.
The questioning of or influencing gender identity is a psychological thing. From childhood kids know they have special parts different from the other sex and accept it and take on rolls in life particular to that sex. This gender identity thing is new to our culture and driven by perverts.
Children are widely open to suggestion, even simple ones that govern their behavior. If a child is told that he should be for a different sex by respected adults such as teachers that child could likely believe it.
In no way could some drug or chemical cause a kid to think he should be something other than what he is.
What’s going on in our country is mass mental illness with a perverted political agenda driving it.
The treatment of children used to be a sacred thing where they are protected, in particular with regards to sexual perversion. Parents, teachers and all levels of government believed in this protection and enforced it with vigor. What amazes me is just how did all of this collapse seemingly overnight?
Teachers used to be respected educators. Today they are but propaganda ministers and perverts. Teachers combined with medical people and local government policy are to blame for sexual questioning and transitioning - not some drug.
Sorry for the rant.
Well, there is this:
An increasing number of children are born with intersex variation (IV; ambiguous genitalia/hermaphrodite, pseudohermaphroditism, etc.). Evidence shows that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the environment can cause reproductive variation through dysregulation of normal reproductive tissue differentiation, growth, and maturation if the fetus is exposed to EDCs during critical developmental times in utero. Animal studies support fish and reptile embryos exhibited IV and sex reversal when exposed to EDCs. Occupational studies verified higher prevalence of offspring with IV in chemically exposed workers (male and female). Chemicals associated with endocrine-disrupting ability in humans include organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, bisphenol A, phthalates, dioxins, and furans. Intersex individuals may have concurrent physical disorders requiring lifelong medical intervention and experience gender dysphoria. - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.4137/EHI.S39825
And:
The Age of Chemistry solved all kinds of problems, from flexible new materials to more productive agriculture. The benefits were obtained at the cost of many insidious problems. These include damage to critical ecosystems and a variety of toxicity-related diseases and developmental disorders.
Such issues were highlighted by research showing that polluted ponds could turn male frogs into females. Interestingly, some of the affected frogs were capable of reproducing but produced all male offspring that had the effect of crashing the population,
Such problems are not restricted to wildlife occupying heavily polluted areas. They are also found in humans leading their lives in apparently clean homes and non toxic environments.
One casualty of under-the-radar hormone disruptors is gender development.
Hormone Disruptors and Gender Development
Humans may be be vulnerable to hormone disruptors in ways that resemble the effects on frogs inhabiting polluted wetlands.
The culprits are products, such as cosmetics, that are not ordinarily considered dangerous, or polluting. One example concerns pthalates present in packaging plastics.
Another candidate is pharmaceuticals. This phenomenon emerged in connection with the contraceptive drug diethylstilbesterol. Mothers who were unaware of their pregnancy continued to take the drug. It was found to have masculinizing effects on the brains of female fetuses. The limited evidence available indicated that when they matured, such females were less interested in caring for children and more interested in female romantic partners...
Recent evidence indicates that thalates from plastic and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are one of many factors predicting gender dysphoria, particularly in the case of male-to-female transgenders...
Gender dysphoria is certainly not reducible to any single cause, chemical or otherwise. Indeed, there are several psychological correlates. These include any kind of trauma experienced during childhood. Another possible factor is abusive parenting. - Nigel Barber Ph.D.: The Human Beast, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201911/gender-fluidity-and-hormone-disruptors
And besides nature, there are affects of nurture (raising children Biblically versus as with the Left can influence proclivities to some degree):
Epigenetics refers to how things like diet, physical activity, and stress levels can change not only our own health, but that of our children, grandchildren, and other descendants. - https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/about-epigenetics.html
The word “epigenetic” literally means “in addition to changes in genetic sequence.” The term has evolved to include any process that alters gene activity without changing the DNA sequence, and leads to modifications that can be transmitted to daughter cells (although experiments show that some epigenetic changes can be reversed). There likely will continue to be debate over exactly what the term means and what it covers.
Today, a wide variety of illnesses, behaviors, and other health indicators already have some level of evidence linking them with epigenetic mechanisms, including cancers of almost all types, cognitive dysfunction, and respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive, autoimmune, and neurobehavioral illnesses. Known or suspected drivers behind epigenetic processes include many agents, including heavy metals, pesticides, diesel exhaust, tobacco smoke, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, hormones, radioactivity, viruses, bacteria, and basic nutrients. - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1392256/
SANBONMATSU:...in epigenetics, it's interesting in that, you know, a lot of things people wonder, is it nature or is it nurture? Were you born this way or is it a choice? And epigenetics is this new field that sort of sits in between where basically the environment reprograms genes, and those switches stay permanently. So it sort of sits right in between nature and nurture.ZOMORODI: So we're all born with our DNA. But our environment can change the way our DNA is expressed. So just like Karissa said, epigenetics reprograms our genes, deciding the path our DNA takes.
SANBONMATSU: And for transgender studies, there are a lot of reports that sometimes it's passed down through the generations and sometimes it's not. So there are a lot of features of it that really just scream, it must be epigenetics. So that's kind of where we're looking now. - https://www.npr.org/transcripts/852274857
Epigenetics Is Implicated in the Basis of Gender Incongruence: An Epigenome-Wide Association Analysis - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.701017/full
Of course, the Left seeks to excuse acting out our sinful nature, with its proclivities to sin, which can vary in both degree and kind, all of which God knows, and deals accordingly, but yielding to such cannot be excused.
Not cause, but influence. For instance,