Yes, my child at 29 transitioned during the isolation of Covid as the online community love-bombed him. but that same community did nothing to help when he needed it. Hmmmm. Without spending hours isolated and online, he may never have become the life-long patient of the pharmaceutical industrial complex......
My son too. And how is yours doing? I keep hearing more & more about how they seem to get sick more easily. It sounds like high doses of estrogen are truly affecting their immune systems & doctors are ignoring that correlation
My son had a serious blood clot in his leg and is now on Eliquis. Leiden factor 5 runs in my family and it puts us all at higher risk of clots, except my girls have had no issues.... And he ended up on semaglutide for abdominal obesity. Estrogen will pack on the pounds. neither one of those were "concerns". They just gave him more meds.....
You know and I know the system is corrupt. Just keep educating. Truth is on our side. I'm angry and I get despondent, but I love my child. I just keep on pointing out the obvious. He's a grown ass adult. I can't do anything except educate. Those decisions are wholly his. It sux, but...
The same thing happens with many studies: they claim something that the study itself doesn't validate.
They also have problems with self-reporting, as if it weren't seriously limited by its very nature: self-deception exists, as does the placebo effect and fleeting hopes, habituation, conformity, failure to take responsibility for bad decisions, and so on.
And then there's this trend of diagnosing everyone at the slightest sign of something. Soon we'll all suffer from dysphoria, or have ADHD, or be on the autism spectrum. And we'll all need medication. Even if we have something "normal," like "gender dysphoria": "Gender dysphoria in itself is not a mental health problem," they say, but... it must be medicated! And although we know it's impossible to change sex—since we're not clownfish—"gender dysphoria"... is medicated! With cross-sex hormones, amputations, and fake penises and fake vaginas.
Those who claim that contagion doesn't exist argue that the enormous growth in the number of people who declare themselves "trans" is due to the fact that "there is greater acceptance now" and that "they now have access to a methodology that didn't exist before": so-called "gender medicine" (hormonal alteration and mutilation of healthy, functioning body parts).
They are right about one thing: the availability of this "gender medicine" fuels the false belief that problems can be solved through cross-sex hormones and mutilation.
"One of the fundamental beliefs of transgenderism is that... Trans people are not confused or going through a phase; their gender identity is an essential and immutable part of who they are." How then can we explain that before this horrific "gender medicine" became widespread, virtually everyone in the early childhood cohort overcame dysphoria after puberty, and that after the invention of this "medicine," virtually everyone now desires and is even encouraged to use this "gender medicine"?
Not only has social contagion affected the cohort of self-identified trans adolescents, but another form of contagion has also spread: this one among therapists, doctors, and researchers. Only in this way is it possible to understand why they fail to perceive the "white elephant" championed by transgender activists.
But that's only for genuinely mentally ill, deluded people.
Others, like Eddie Izzard and Fae Johnstone and Martin "Martine" Rothblatt and James "Jennifer" Pritzker and "Roxanne" Tickle and Richard "Rachel" Levine and so many others, are autogynephiles and/or predators. They aren't smitten by social contagion. They're impostors. Criminals.
Social media, social media influencers, social engineering, social change agents, etc. These psychologically manipulating tools can all lead to social contagion not to mention social unrest. The NGOS admit that social change is what they are after and use 'stories' to sell their lies. FTM and MTF YouTubers often describe that they learned of their new identity from none other than YouTube itself. Catching other peoples stories. Some can be heard saying that once they had the words to describe it, they just knew. It has worked like magic until it does not work anymore. Patrick Wood of Technocracy News calls technocracy the science of social engineering. I do believe this is what we are seeing and it is devastatingly horrific.
Recently, Eyes open pointed to Mia Hughes on overvalued beliefs:
"Like violence, the trans contagion is also twofold: not only does the belief that trans is natural and healthy spread, but so too does its medical embodiment. Every celebrity showered with adoration for coming out as trans, every student applauded by teachers and peers, becomes a template that draws more vulnerable young people in— who then absorb the belief, become all-consumed by it, and pursue radical, permanent disfigurement in its name.
Because this is the key difference. Society recognizes the beliefs that lead to murder as dangerous and pathological. But when the overvalued belief is “I am trans” society does the opposite. Governments enshrine it in law. Doctors pick up their syringes and scalpels. The media romanticizes it. And schools don’t just celebrate it; they teach it as scientific fact.
And anyone who suggests the belief is harmful is swiftly punished.
Again: The madness lies in society."
“The Battle Upstream: Challenging the false belief causing medical harm
Mia Hughes' speech from The Bigger Picture Conference 2025”
Our institutions including our medical societies, the media, our scientific research (like NIH & Johanna Olsen-Kennedy), our schools - are mired in Ideology which does not permit dissent:
"Delving into this topic, it would appear that we are mired in trans ideology. The information that we come across in daily life, and the information that we find when we search is predominantly of one persuasion. Expressing the view that sex is based on biology and is immutable, that nobody is born in the wrong body, and that women have a right to single sex spaces and sports, has become controversial. As a result, many people keep quiet, and so the ideology beds in further.
Does this sound like a cult to you?
Again, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck."
"The Cult Connection Part 2 – Information Control By Catherine Monaghan Posted: 26th August 2025"
So, why would there be a push to unscientifically promote "gender identity" as "a core and immutable part" of anyone, not a social contagion or a sexual fetish? Even attacking any dissenting study or person? I saw this intelligent answer from someone who has studied the old AGP cohort for a long time:
“One puzzle has always troubled Blanchard: why did autogynephilic activists concern themselves with children—the group most likely to mobilize opposition? His hypothesis:
hiding autogynephilia required promoting innate gender identity. And if it’s innate, there must be trans children to prove it’s not sexual deviance. This messaging—pushed through schools across North America, media, and books like I Am Jazz—may have triggered what researcher Lisa Littman termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria
I think these activists wanted to hide autogynephilia both to avoid social stigma (somehow the worst thing ever) and to get all their medical "needs"/desires paid for by insurance.
The AAP says the studies don't show social contagion. The observations of everyone on the ground who's seen it happen says it's clearly happening. It reminds me of what Jeff Bezos once said:
"When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. It’s usually not that the data is being miscollected. It’s usually that you’re not measuring the right thing."
Excellent information. Thank you. I would like to add that confusion on orientation and identity are introduced in public education through "comprehensive" sex ed programs influenced (if not developed) by Planned Parenthood, SEICUS (Sex Ed for Social Change), GLSEN, Answer, Amplify - many of which have been created to target children, adolescents and teens, too many to list here, many of which are LGBTQ-advocate organizations. Gender-neutral language has replaced references to things that in the past have been reflective of male and female.
Add to that bait-and-switch inclusion programs like "No Place for Hate," and "Welcoming Schools," (developed by the Human Rights Campaign) delivered through Social and Emotional Learning programs that permeate all curriculum K-12. Teachers unions/associations, library unions, counselor unions, etc. have all been committed to advance inclusion for well over a decade. Presented to parents as "age-appropriate, science-based," (much like the promotion of transgender) the science of cognitive development and behavior actually flies in the face of introducing sexual material to children at young ages, especially in group settings of both boys and girls. Pride materials are soft porn, representing sexual behaviors.
Please understand that I am not "homophobic" or "transphobic." Adults can do what adults want to do (although I wish better things for them), but targeting children to confuse them and change them is not OK. Especially when it's done by authority figures.
Littman's excellent 2018 study was criticized by some for being based on parent reports (although it is a standard technique).
She followed with some detransitioner studies, in particular one co authored with several others, which listed factors detransitioners thought influenced their interpretation of their distress as being trans.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02716-1 table 4.
Supports your argument.
Also there were rebuttals to that 2022 turban paper, indeed he got a lot wrong. I believe there is one response by littman in the journal and others responded too.
I can’t understand why every piece I read on this platform is unattributed. I’m aware of the vitriol that’s often directed at questioners of transgenderism but these authors should have the courage of their convictions. That said, I distrust a firm connection between the introduction of social media and the kickoff to the transgender contagion. Social contagions do not require the internet, as acknowledged by this writer. In any case, to my mind, the major factor that should be considered as a cause in the rise of transgenderism is the now vapid nature of childhood, especially in the United States and the UK (and less so, for example, in France, where I would guess the contagion has less traction). Natural childhood, as seen throughout human history, involved children engaged in large amounts of free play away from adults. In short, adventure was an integral part of growing up, that is, until the 1990s, when adults in the Anglosphere decided that children are far too fragile and dimwitted to be left unattended. This banning of childhood adventure was a tragedy and a disaster for children’s development. Combined with the complete hijacking of education systems by industrial testing and soul crushing regimentation, young people were left with a desperate search for challenge and stimulation. They landed on transgenderism, which today has enough challenge and transgression in it to qualify, if poorly and tragically, as a substitute for the drive toward independence that used to be the whole mission of growing up. Social media probably gave it a boost, but I believe the main place we should be looking for the source of transgenderism is the abolition of childhood adventure some 30 years ago. You can’t radically change the nature of childhood without radical effects on young people. This is where we should be looking, but transgenderism’s critics, like many disingenuous worriers over the state of the youth, prefer to blame Silicon Valley and its toys instead of what we adults have done to natural childhood, whether we participated in its abolition then or practice helicopter parenting today. Social media is not the problem; the death of childhood adventure and all the trappings of natural childhood are the problem. We adults are the problem. Until we restore adventure to childhood, expect one dysfunctional substitute after another.
It's because they are parents talking about their experiences with their kids. It's for the protection of their kids' privacy. And it isn't even an option to be unanonymous on this substack.
Any way, my kids had free play away from adults. We lived in a tree covered housing complex, by a stream, next to woods, across from the school. The kids ran around and played together like it was the 90s. They didn't know about the internet other than to look academic stuff up. Then started highschool in 8th grade, the school demanded they get smart phones, the school taught trans ideology, and there are reasons why some kids can be confused about gender stereotypes, I had brief gender confusion in the 90s because of not relating to stereotypes, but no one was pushing it, so I grew up and realized stereotypes are just stereotypes. Both my kids thought they were trans because the school was telling them that discomfort at puberty means they were born with wrong brains in wrong bodies and that the people online know better than their parents.
Jonathan Haidt discusses this in his book, “the Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness.” Also, there are so many dark places on the internet fueled by young people (and adults) who are mentally disturbed and who enjoy pulling youth into their deep holes of madness, such as DeviantArt and Tumblr. Many of the young people drawn to those sites have autism or are otherwise “odd” and find some sort of acceptance there—they are vulnerable and fall into the trap of lies easily. No, the internet was not necessary for social contagion in the past, but it sure doesn’t help, and I believe is a driver in how this all happened so quickly. What I can’t understand is how the medical community glommed onto it so quickly, knowing full well it is not “normal.” It is an unforgivable crime that surgeons participated in the mutilation. Psychiatrists I can sort of understand [because they’ve been so wrong on everything related to mental illness for so long], although not forgive. And we should never forget, just as we do not forget the tragedy of lobotomies, early electric shock “therapy” that fried brains, insulin “treatment” for schizophrenia, etc. This transgender nonsense is just as bad if not worse because so many professional organizations have been complicit.
One thing to keep in mind: growing up in the industrialized world has NEVER been easy. Consider the last century alone: two world wars, a crushing economic depression, and decades of the threat of nuclear annihilation. Children were spared none of it, and this on top of an attitude toward children that could be described as barbaric at best. (I was just reading in “The Body Keeps the Score” about a paper written by a psychiatrist that said that incest helped children become well-adjusted. That’s the tip of the iceberg. Well into my childhood in the 60s and 70s it perfectly OK to hit your kids in public.)Yet young people survived those calamities without succumbing to depression or anxiety on the scale we see today. The reason is because they had the opportunity to develop the way nature intended: by playing and spending large amounts of time away from adults, the only conditions under which they can have the adventures which promote resilience, confidence and agency, natural hedges against depression and anxiety. Yes, the internet can be a terrible influence, but this time kids were going into it as sitting ducks. That’s what is new here.
Covid was isolating but it also gave many kids an opportunity to get out from under a lot of the tyranny of schooling. Many parents found their kids being more independent and behaving better with each other, and family life more harmonious in general. Don’t believe everything you hear about the harms to children caused by Covid, though there certainly were some. And nothing promotes navel gazing like taking independent exploration away from young people while trapping them at home and in school.
Not talking about what I ‘hear’ talking from lived experiences with real people. Only talking about harms I’ve seen with my own eyes, it’s my only truth. COVID isolation was a most definite contributing factor to a vulnerable population who went down this rabbit hole
Fair enough. It’s a big, pluralistic society. There were many experiences during Covid. I’d encourage anyone to question official stories about the effects of that era and listen instead to their own experience and that of those close to them.
As the essay said there are many examples of social contagion throughout history, some going back centuries. The difference is that the current social contagions are on steroids. They are jump started and move very fast due to the internet and social media. I agree that the nature of childhood has changed drastically. And not for the better. That is another factor to make the kids vulnerable. But there are many.
Here is just 3 examples that show they were building the industry earlier than many think and before social media.
1. Johns Hopkins opened an intersex clinic in '52. At first it was for adults but that soon changed and children began to be 'transitioned' ( mostly boys into girls at first).
2. Although Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic (for adults) closed in '79, the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association had formed in '77 and evolved into WPATH by 2006. The first doc to perform the modern 'top surgery' hailed from this group, Michael Brownstein. That surgery took place in '77 in SF. Surgeon Daniel Laub also hailed from this group. He is known for his 'Rolls Royce vagina' and the first FTM phalloplasty.
3. 80s testosterone was injected into the street scenes of cities like SF and Seattle. This is how FTMs Aidan Key and Buck Angel got sucked in. From there some of the earliest and prolific influencers were built.
Once social media came into play, things were catapulted to new heights. Today activists like Aidan Key and surgeons alike use social media to market their gender wares.
It actually started sooner than we realized. I went to a school with 300 students and 3 butch lesbians transitioned in the mid 90s to early 2000. It's gone up because of social contagion.
Social contagion in the gay community had become a problem before the 1990s.
Leslie Feinberg, the author of "Stone Butch Blues," was a lesbian from Buffalo, New York who transitioned in the late 1960s-early 70s. Leslie's transition was received with dismay and confusion in the lesbian community. I moved to Buffalo in 1969 and learned about Leslie's transition from her former girlfriend, who was devastated.
The "Dutch Study," the results of which were touted as scientific proof of the development and proper treatment of transgender individuals, covered the years 1972-2015. WPATH has relied upon it to justify its transgender policies with respect to medicalization of children and adolescents. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463477/
Take a look at the "Studies" section of SEGM (The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine), which covers studies dating back to the 1970s, at least.
There is also a plethora of evidence that demonstrates that absent peer pressure, the majority of young adults who experience gender dysphoria will grow up to be gay once they go into puberty and mature sexually. This was true long before the internet. The activist organization, the LGB Courage Coalition, has as its slogan, "stop transing gay kids." I'm a lesbian myself, who happens to be a feminine person by nature, but I've been "out of the closet" for over 50 years and know many gay women and men who struggled with their sexual identification until they went into puberty, fell in love, and came out as gay.
I don't deny the power and existence of peer pressure and social contagion in the current historical moment, because when kids, either future gays or straights, hear the same lies about the nature of human biology over and over again, they will be far more likely to pick up trans ideology as the solution to the normal growing pains of adolescence and even childhood. Lying to children is the quickest way to create a cohort of "trans people" where they would otherwise never exist. Promoting the abolition of sex, as Kara Dansky describes it, is pure evil.
Yes, my child at 29 transitioned during the isolation of Covid as the online community love-bombed him. but that same community did nothing to help when he needed it. Hmmmm. Without spending hours isolated and online, he may never have become the life-long patient of the pharmaceutical industrial complex......
My son too. And how is yours doing? I keep hearing more & more about how they seem to get sick more easily. It sounds like high doses of estrogen are truly affecting their immune systems & doctors are ignoring that correlation
My son had a serious blood clot in his leg and is now on Eliquis. Leiden factor 5 runs in my family and it puts us all at higher risk of clots, except my girls have had no issues.... And he ended up on semaglutide for abdominal obesity. Estrogen will pack on the pounds. neither one of those were "concerns". They just gave him more meds.....
😡 how on earth are we supposed to contain our anger
You know and I know the system is corrupt. Just keep educating. Truth is on our side. I'm angry and I get despondent, but I love my child. I just keep on pointing out the obvious. He's a grown ass adult. I can't do anything except educate. Those decisions are wholly his. It sux, but...
"Those decisions are wholly his."
I am older than your son.
If I asked a doc to amputate my hand because I identify as a one-handed person...would he do it? Yet..? Maybe that would happen in ten years time?
Complicit in their own destruction, sigh 😞
The same thing happens with many studies: they claim something that the study itself doesn't validate.
They also have problems with self-reporting, as if it weren't seriously limited by its very nature: self-deception exists, as does the placebo effect and fleeting hopes, habituation, conformity, failure to take responsibility for bad decisions, and so on.
And then there's this trend of diagnosing everyone at the slightest sign of something. Soon we'll all suffer from dysphoria, or have ADHD, or be on the autism spectrum. And we'll all need medication. Even if we have something "normal," like "gender dysphoria": "Gender dysphoria in itself is not a mental health problem," they say, but... it must be medicated! And although we know it's impossible to change sex—since we're not clownfish—"gender dysphoria"... is medicated! With cross-sex hormones, amputations, and fake penises and fake vaginas.
Those who claim that contagion doesn't exist argue that the enormous growth in the number of people who declare themselves "trans" is due to the fact that "there is greater acceptance now" and that "they now have access to a methodology that didn't exist before": so-called "gender medicine" (hormonal alteration and mutilation of healthy, functioning body parts).
They are right about one thing: the availability of this "gender medicine" fuels the false belief that problems can be solved through cross-sex hormones and mutilation.
"One of the fundamental beliefs of transgenderism is that... Trans people are not confused or going through a phase; their gender identity is an essential and immutable part of who they are." How then can we explain that before this horrific "gender medicine" became widespread, virtually everyone in the early childhood cohort overcame dysphoria after puberty, and that after the invention of this "medicine," virtually everyone now desires and is even encouraged to use this "gender medicine"?
Not only has social contagion affected the cohort of self-identified trans adolescents, but another form of contagion has also spread: this one among therapists, doctors, and researchers. Only in this way is it possible to understand why they fail to perceive the "white elephant" championed by transgender activists.
This is well stated. You would probably appreciate:
“The Battle Upstream: Challenging the false belief causing medical harm
Mia Hughes' speech from The Bigger Picture Conference 2025”
https://genspect.substack.com/p/the-battle-upstream-challenging-the
"Is Trans-Identification a Social Contagion?"
In a word, yes.
But that's only for genuinely mentally ill, deluded people.
Others, like Eddie Izzard and Fae Johnstone and Martin "Martine" Rothblatt and James "Jennifer" Pritzker and "Roxanne" Tickle and Richard "Rachel" Levine and so many others, are autogynephiles and/or predators. They aren't smitten by social contagion. They're impostors. Criminals.
Social media, social media influencers, social engineering, social change agents, etc. These psychologically manipulating tools can all lead to social contagion not to mention social unrest. The NGOS admit that social change is what they are after and use 'stories' to sell their lies. FTM and MTF YouTubers often describe that they learned of their new identity from none other than YouTube itself. Catching other peoples stories. Some can be heard saying that once they had the words to describe it, they just knew. It has worked like magic until it does not work anymore. Patrick Wood of Technocracy News calls technocracy the science of social engineering. I do believe this is what we are seeing and it is devastatingly horrific.
Recently, Eyes open pointed to Mia Hughes on overvalued beliefs:
"Like violence, the trans contagion is also twofold: not only does the belief that trans is natural and healthy spread, but so too does its medical embodiment. Every celebrity showered with adoration for coming out as trans, every student applauded by teachers and peers, becomes a template that draws more vulnerable young people in— who then absorb the belief, become all-consumed by it, and pursue radical, permanent disfigurement in its name.
Because this is the key difference. Society recognizes the beliefs that lead to murder as dangerous and pathological. But when the overvalued belief is “I am trans” society does the opposite. Governments enshrine it in law. Doctors pick up their syringes and scalpels. The media romanticizes it. And schools don’t just celebrate it; they teach it as scientific fact.
And anyone who suggests the belief is harmful is swiftly punished.
Again: The madness lies in society."
“The Battle Upstream: Challenging the false belief causing medical harm
Mia Hughes' speech from The Bigger Picture Conference 2025”
https://genspect.substack.com/p/the-battle-upstream-challenging-the
Our institutions including our medical societies, the media, our scientific research (like NIH & Johanna Olsen-Kennedy), our schools - are mired in Ideology which does not permit dissent:
"Delving into this topic, it would appear that we are mired in trans ideology. The information that we come across in daily life, and the information that we find when we search is predominantly of one persuasion. Expressing the view that sex is based on biology and is immutable, that nobody is born in the wrong body, and that women have a right to single sex spaces and sports, has become controversial. As a result, many people keep quiet, and so the ideology beds in further.
Does this sound like a cult to you?
Again, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck."
"The Cult Connection Part 2 – Information Control By Catherine Monaghan Posted: 26th August 2025"
https://genspect.org/the-cult-connection-part-2-information-control/
'No contagion to see here - you are canceled, ostracized...!'
When “famous” actresses are coming out to declare that “all my children are trans!” then Social Contagion is difficult to deny.
Or did the earth pass through a stellar anomaly that suddenly made everyone trans, and then, a year later, everyone just suddenly changed their minds…
So, why would there be a push to unscientifically promote "gender identity" as "a core and immutable part" of anyone, not a social contagion or a sexual fetish? Even attacking any dissenting study or person? I saw this intelligent answer from someone who has studied the old AGP cohort for a long time:
“One puzzle has always troubled Blanchard: why did autogynephilic activists concern themselves with children—the group most likely to mobilize opposition? His hypothesis:
hiding autogynephilia required promoting innate gender identity. And if it’s innate, there must be trans children to prove it’s not sexual deviance. This messaging—pushed through schools across North America, media, and books like I Am Jazz—may have triggered what researcher Lisa Littman termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria
Stella O'Malley
https://substack.com/@sexrealitybites/note/c-162568395?utm_source=feed-email-digest
I think these activists wanted to hide autogynephilia both to avoid social stigma (somehow the worst thing ever) and to get all their medical "needs"/desires paid for by insurance.
The AAP says the studies don't show social contagion. The observations of everyone on the ground who's seen it happen says it's clearly happening. It reminds me of what Jeff Bezos once said:
"When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. It’s usually not that the data is being miscollected. It’s usually that you’re not measuring the right thing."
Excellent information. Thank you. I would like to add that confusion on orientation and identity are introduced in public education through "comprehensive" sex ed programs influenced (if not developed) by Planned Parenthood, SEICUS (Sex Ed for Social Change), GLSEN, Answer, Amplify - many of which have been created to target children, adolescents and teens, too many to list here, many of which are LGBTQ-advocate organizations. Gender-neutral language has replaced references to things that in the past have been reflective of male and female.
Add to that bait-and-switch inclusion programs like "No Place for Hate," and "Welcoming Schools," (developed by the Human Rights Campaign) delivered through Social and Emotional Learning programs that permeate all curriculum K-12. Teachers unions/associations, library unions, counselor unions, etc. have all been committed to advance inclusion for well over a decade. Presented to parents as "age-appropriate, science-based," (much like the promotion of transgender) the science of cognitive development and behavior actually flies in the face of introducing sexual material to children at young ages, especially in group settings of both boys and girls. Pride materials are soft porn, representing sexual behaviors.
Please understand that I am not "homophobic" or "transphobic." Adults can do what adults want to do (although I wish better things for them), but targeting children to confuse them and change them is not OK. Especially when it's done by authority figures.
Thank you!
Littman's excellent 2018 study was criticized by some for being based on parent reports (although it is a standard technique).
She followed with some detransitioner studies, in particular one co authored with several others, which listed factors detransitioners thought influenced their interpretation of their distress as being trans.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02716-1 table 4.
Supports your argument.
Also there were rebuttals to that 2022 turban paper, indeed he got a lot wrong. I believe there is one response by littman in the journal and others responded too.
I can’t understand why every piece I read on this platform is unattributed. I’m aware of the vitriol that’s often directed at questioners of transgenderism but these authors should have the courage of their convictions. That said, I distrust a firm connection between the introduction of social media and the kickoff to the transgender contagion. Social contagions do not require the internet, as acknowledged by this writer. In any case, to my mind, the major factor that should be considered as a cause in the rise of transgenderism is the now vapid nature of childhood, especially in the United States and the UK (and less so, for example, in France, where I would guess the contagion has less traction). Natural childhood, as seen throughout human history, involved children engaged in large amounts of free play away from adults. In short, adventure was an integral part of growing up, that is, until the 1990s, when adults in the Anglosphere decided that children are far too fragile and dimwitted to be left unattended. This banning of childhood adventure was a tragedy and a disaster for children’s development. Combined with the complete hijacking of education systems by industrial testing and soul crushing regimentation, young people were left with a desperate search for challenge and stimulation. They landed on transgenderism, which today has enough challenge and transgression in it to qualify, if poorly and tragically, as a substitute for the drive toward independence that used to be the whole mission of growing up. Social media probably gave it a boost, but I believe the main place we should be looking for the source of transgenderism is the abolition of childhood adventure some 30 years ago. You can’t radically change the nature of childhood without radical effects on young people. This is where we should be looking, but transgenderism’s critics, like many disingenuous worriers over the state of the youth, prefer to blame Silicon Valley and its toys instead of what we adults have done to natural childhood, whether we participated in its abolition then or practice helicopter parenting today. Social media is not the problem; the death of childhood adventure and all the trappings of natural childhood are the problem. We adults are the problem. Until we restore adventure to childhood, expect one dysfunctional substitute after another.
It's because they are parents talking about their experiences with their kids. It's for the protection of their kids' privacy. And it isn't even an option to be unanonymous on this substack.
Any way, my kids had free play away from adults. We lived in a tree covered housing complex, by a stream, next to woods, across from the school. The kids ran around and played together like it was the 90s. They didn't know about the internet other than to look academic stuff up. Then started highschool in 8th grade, the school demanded they get smart phones, the school taught trans ideology, and there are reasons why some kids can be confused about gender stereotypes, I had brief gender confusion in the 90s because of not relating to stereotypes, but no one was pushing it, so I grew up and realized stereotypes are just stereotypes. Both my kids thought they were trans because the school was telling them that discomfort at puberty means they were born with wrong brains in wrong bodies and that the people online know better than their parents.
Jonathan Haidt discusses this in his book, “the Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness.” Also, there are so many dark places on the internet fueled by young people (and adults) who are mentally disturbed and who enjoy pulling youth into their deep holes of madness, such as DeviantArt and Tumblr. Many of the young people drawn to those sites have autism or are otherwise “odd” and find some sort of acceptance there—they are vulnerable and fall into the trap of lies easily. No, the internet was not necessary for social contagion in the past, but it sure doesn’t help, and I believe is a driver in how this all happened so quickly. What I can’t understand is how the medical community glommed onto it so quickly, knowing full well it is not “normal.” It is an unforgivable crime that surgeons participated in the mutilation. Psychiatrists I can sort of understand [because they’ve been so wrong on everything related to mental illness for so long], although not forgive. And we should never forget, just as we do not forget the tragedy of lobotomies, early electric shock “therapy” that fried brains, insulin “treatment” for schizophrenia, etc. This transgender nonsense is just as bad if not worse because so many professional organizations have been complicit.
One thing to keep in mind: growing up in the industrialized world has NEVER been easy. Consider the last century alone: two world wars, a crushing economic depression, and decades of the threat of nuclear annihilation. Children were spared none of it, and this on top of an attitude toward children that could be described as barbaric at best. (I was just reading in “The Body Keeps the Score” about a paper written by a psychiatrist that said that incest helped children become well-adjusted. That’s the tip of the iceberg. Well into my childhood in the 60s and 70s it perfectly OK to hit your kids in public.)Yet young people survived those calamities without succumbing to depression or anxiety on the scale we see today. The reason is because they had the opportunity to develop the way nature intended: by playing and spending large amounts of time away from adults, the only conditions under which they can have the adventures which promote resilience, confidence and agency, natural hedges against depression and anxiety. Yes, the internet can be a terrible influence, but this time kids were going into it as sitting ducks. That’s what is new here.
Covid isolation & online schooling fueled rumination & navel gazing.
Covid was isolating but it also gave many kids an opportunity to get out from under a lot of the tyranny of schooling. Many parents found their kids being more independent and behaving better with each other, and family life more harmonious in general. Don’t believe everything you hear about the harms to children caused by Covid, though there certainly were some. And nothing promotes navel gazing like taking independent exploration away from young people while trapping them at home and in school.
Not talking about what I ‘hear’ talking from lived experiences with real people. Only talking about harms I’ve seen with my own eyes, it’s my only truth. COVID isolation was a most definite contributing factor to a vulnerable population who went down this rabbit hole
Fair enough. It’s a big, pluralistic society. There were many experiences during Covid. I’d encourage anyone to question official stories about the effects of that era and listen instead to their own experience and that of those close to them.
As the essay said there are many examples of social contagion throughout history, some going back centuries. The difference is that the current social contagions are on steroids. They are jump started and move very fast due to the internet and social media. I agree that the nature of childhood has changed drastically. And not for the better. That is another factor to make the kids vulnerable. But there are many.
Of course it is. Find a case of “trans” before 2010.
When social media got their start.
Here is just 3 examples that show they were building the industry earlier than many think and before social media.
1. Johns Hopkins opened an intersex clinic in '52. At first it was for adults but that soon changed and children began to be 'transitioned' ( mostly boys into girls at first).
2. Although Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic (for adults) closed in '79, the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association had formed in '77 and evolved into WPATH by 2006. The first doc to perform the modern 'top surgery' hailed from this group, Michael Brownstein. That surgery took place in '77 in SF. Surgeon Daniel Laub also hailed from this group. He is known for his 'Rolls Royce vagina' and the first FTM phalloplasty.
3. 80s testosterone was injected into the street scenes of cities like SF and Seattle. This is how FTMs Aidan Key and Buck Angel got sucked in. From there some of the earliest and prolific influencers were built.
Once social media came into play, things were catapulted to new heights. Today activists like Aidan Key and surgeons alike use social media to market their gender wares.
It actually started sooner than we realized. I went to a school with 300 students and 3 butch lesbians transitioned in the mid 90s to early 2000. It's gone up because of social contagion.
Social contagion in the gay community had become a problem before the 1990s.
Leslie Feinberg, the author of "Stone Butch Blues," was a lesbian from Buffalo, New York who transitioned in the late 1960s-early 70s. Leslie's transition was received with dismay and confusion in the lesbian community. I moved to Buffalo in 1969 and learned about Leslie's transition from her former girlfriend, who was devastated.
The "Dutch Study," the results of which were touted as scientific proof of the development and proper treatment of transgender individuals, covered the years 1972-2015. WPATH has relied upon it to justify its transgender policies with respect to medicalization of children and adolescents. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463477/
Take a look at the "Studies" section of SEGM (The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine), which covers studies dating back to the 1970s, at least.
There is also a plethora of evidence that demonstrates that absent peer pressure, the majority of young adults who experience gender dysphoria will grow up to be gay once they go into puberty and mature sexually. This was true long before the internet. The activist organization, the LGB Courage Coalition, has as its slogan, "stop transing gay kids." I'm a lesbian myself, who happens to be a feminine person by nature, but I've been "out of the closet" for over 50 years and know many gay women and men who struggled with their sexual identification until they went into puberty, fell in love, and came out as gay.
I don't deny the power and existence of peer pressure and social contagion in the current historical moment, because when kids, either future gays or straights, hear the same lies about the nature of human biology over and over again, they will be far more likely to pick up trans ideology as the solution to the normal growing pains of adolescence and even childhood. Lying to children is the quickest way to create a cohort of "trans people" where they would otherwise never exist. Promoting the abolition of sex, as Kara Dansky describes it, is pure evil.