https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220902111337.htm > "Previous research has shown that misgendering, or incorrectly labeling someone's gender identity, often harms a person's mental and physical health," said Samantha L. Tornello, assistant professor of human development and family studies at Penn State and principal investigator of the Gender Diverse Parents Study, who noted that gender identity is a person's internal sense of their own gender -- for example, woman, man, nonbinary, or another gender identity. "This new research suggests that transgender parents may offer their children supportive environments to explore their own gender identity and expression." > Tornello and lead co-author Rachel G. Riskind, the Christina B. Gidynski Associate Professor of Psychology at Guilford College, also found a strong link between child age and the likelihood of labeling -- the older the child, the more likely parents were to label their child's gender identity. Transgender parents of elementary-school-aged children may be more likely than transgender parents of toddlers to label their child's gender identity.