I’ll probably get banned for it but I believe transgenderism is a social contagion. It spreads among friend groups of young people quickly due to social pressures (it seems to me) and the number of people who subscribe to it are rapidly increasing. All this is possibly fine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s self destructive and encourages self mutilation.
> I believe that transgenderism is a social contagion.
From the 20s though the 40s, people who reported as being left handed went from 5 to 12% and it has lingered above 10% since.
Is being left handed a social contagion? Or did it become more socially acceptable, and fewer had to hide it?
> It spreads among friend groups
People often choose their friends among those who see the world in a similar way. Friendship circles are not formed though random selection. When one in a given friend circle comes out as gender queer, is it truly a surprise that others in that same group also come out?
> fine if it weren't for the fact that it's self destructive and encourages self-mutilation
I think this is a backwards take. The social stigma against those not conforming to the assigned gender norms has been entrenched in our culture. We've been getting better in recent years - the number of fathers who beat their boys for picking out a pink shirt is dwindling, and as a society more of us are willing to entertain the idea that gender is a social construct that has no innate definition.
It's very natural that in an environment more accepting of transgenderism, that more people will feel empowered to explore the idea and question what it could potentially mean for themselves. The appearance that a group that has accepted a single transgender person will somehow "begat" more transgender people seems pretty natural through this view, and seems much more scientific than the idea that transgenderism has some mysterious power to corrupt an otherwise cis-oriented person.
Thailand is one example of a society that has had years of history and experience welcoming trans people. I'd be interested to see how your "social contagion" theory would fare there.
The same thing happened with young people coming out as gay or bi years ago. It wasn't a memetic epidemic, it was people feeling safe to admit and come out about aspects of themselves that weren't socially acceptable in the past.
> All this is possibly fine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s self destructive and encourages self mutilation.
If you genuinely care about the well-being of children, you should know that the acceptance and support of their identities results in drastically reducing the risk of suicide and mental illness[1]. The science shows that children who are supported in their identities have the same rates of suicide and mental illness as non-trans children:
> Socially transitioned transgender children who are supported in their gender identity have developmentally normative levels of depression and only minimal elevations in anxiety, suggesting that psychopathology is not inevitable within this group. Especially striking is the comparison with reports of children with GID; socially transitioned transgender children have notably lower rates of internalizing psychopathology than previously reported among children with GID living as their natal sex.
In a world with perfect data available, I’d like to see the difference in suicide rates between suicidal kids who receive therapy and whose transitions are supported vs. kids who only receive therapy towards non-transitioning.
The theory being that a non-zero number of kids seeking to transition are doing it for reasons they don’t fully understand, and helping them get to the root of their trauma may uncover something which steers them away from identifying as transgender.
Only because I have heard of people regretting their transition.
People said the same thing about gay youths years ago, down to the "trauma made them gay" and trying to send kids to sexuality non-affirming reparative therapy to fix their brains. I'd imagine that this plan would work as well as conversion therapy does.
It's worth noting that every major medical association in the United States has come out in favor of affirming a youth's sexual orientation and gender identity and against the practice of conversion therapy. This list includes:
> American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; American Academy of Nursing; American Academy of Pediatrics; American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy; American College of Physicians; American Counseling Association; American Medical Association; American Osteopathic Association; American Psychiatric Association; American Psychoanalytic Association; American Psychological Association; National Association of Social Workers.
Uhh, okay. You said conversion therapy, not me. I'm just talking about therapists taking a neutral non-affirmative position on a child's gender identity and trying to assess core trauma before anything else.
No, you're trying to box it as conversion therapy. I'm just talking about therapy. Not conversion therapy, not gender affirmation therapy.
I think it's wrong to assume a person has a misguided view about their own gender (the position of conversion therapists), but I also think it's wrong to assume they don't (the position of GAT). In order to understand a person's ability to judge their own gender (especially an impressionable teenager who does not have all of their mental faculties fully developed), we have to understand any other factors which may have an effect on their feelings.
This is not advocating for them to remain their gender at birth, nor is it advocating for them to "be what they feel." It's about understanding why they feel the way they do, and helping them recognize any trauma which may impact their feelings one way or the other.
I recognize this is a high bar for therapists because even well meaning people like yourself can't seem to grasp the nuance.
Doctors give assessments based on a patient's experiences, symptoms, histories that include trauma, these things are discussed and examined. Gender dysphoria is a diagnosable condition with defined criteria of symptoms.
> but I also think it's wrong to assume they don't (the position of GAT). In order to understand a person's ability to judge their own gender (especially an impressionable teenager who does not have all of their mental faculties fully developed), we have to understand any other factors which may have an effect on their feelings.
I'm not sure why you don't think this happens, and it seems to come from a weird strawman or misunderstanding of what gender therapy is, given that all of those things are explored in gender therapy.
> What gender therapy isn’t
> A gender therapist shouldn’t attempt to diagnose you because of your identity or try to change your mind.
> A gender therapist should provide information and support that can help you better understand and connect with core aspects of yourself.
> Gender therapists don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s a “right way” to experience, embody, or express gender.
> They shouldn’t limit or presume treatment options or goals based on the labels or language used to describe yourself.
> Gender therapy should focus on supporting your personal experience of self and relationship with your body.
> A gender therapist should never presume your gender, force you into a gender, or attempt to convince you that you’re not a particular gender
There are plenty of people who are questioning their sexualities and genders, many of them will not turn out to be LGBT, and there isn't an epidemic of therapists encouraging confused people to think that they're gay or trans.
I wouldn't say that's a neutral position for a therapist either, it's a bit like saying that if a patient were bleeding from a hole in their leg that the neutral position would be forgoing a tourniquet in favor of questioning whether they even need blood in the first place.
Neutral therapists would acknowledge that gender therapy exists, along with plenty of other options, and would help their patients receive the care that's appropriate for them.
You're describing how psychoanalysis is used for conversion therapy[1]:
>Haldeman writes that psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality is exemplified by the work of Irving Bieber et al. in Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals. They advocated long-term therapy aimed at resolving the unconscious childhood conflicts that they considered responsible for homosexuality.
Maybe not want to become, but if there is a small inkling in them, I'm sure the peer groups could encourage that.
Imagine someone who wants to try soccer but hangs out with baseball players, versus someone who wants to try soccer and hangs out with soccer players. Who would you suspect has a higher chance of joining a soccer team?
Transsexualism is an infrequently occurring queerism. I have a hard time imagining that there are a lot of 50-50 cis/trans people who just fall on whichever side based on who their friends are.
I think the theory is that people want to fit in (or alternatively, stand out.) If you surround yourself with people who are transgender, you may inherently want to fit that norm.
Not sure whether I agree this is a real phenomenon, but I understand the argument.
If you reframed the argument as: "there's only so many gay people because they want to fit in and be different and being gay is cool now" then it sounds ridiculous, which tells you everything you need to know about it's validity.
Whereas the prevalence in text from antiquity of "men disguising themselves as women" should perhaps give people pause as to why this concept was out there in fiction despite being centuries removed from surgical transitioning being possible
Because subtext is dead: because gender dysmorphia isn't new, and it was probably quite common for people to do this "as a joke" as a means of spending time in an identity that they found satisfying, to various levels of acceptance of the community around them. Thus writers and audiences of the time knew of the phenomenon and used it as a plot point - people tend to write what they know. The era of "no women on stage" very likely found a reliable source of men willing to play female characters and doing a very good job of it - otherwise it would've been a bit of a scripting and production problem as well.
Well there are people who think they may be gay only to discover that they aren’t over time/through experimentation.
So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to allow for a non-binary reality where a person is better off not transitioning, even if they experience feelings of transgenderism.
<<If you reframed the argument as: "there's only so many gay people because they want to fit in and be different and being gay is cool now" then it sounds ridiculous, which tells you everything you need to know about it's validity.
Without assigning value judgement to the transgender as a norm/not a norm/social construct/we, you cannot dismiss parent's argument this way. Parent is not claiming 'gays exist only as function of emulating other's behavior'. Parent is claiming there is a social factor that is influencing a younger person to claim being transgender.
It is hard to easily dismiss it, because kids do in fact attempt to emulate authority figures ( parents ) and peers ( friends ).
This one is pretty simple. If you have obese family or friends, you’ll develop habits similar to them subconsciously. Eating more or more frequently, or similar foods, etc.
Is it a “contagion”? Well, fast food is yummy and being lazy is easier than being active and fit. So there’s a significant pull if you’re exposed to it a lot.
It's really hard to get reasonably priced single servings of anything in the US. In food service establishments there at least used to be a push towards value in driving up portion sizes; if nothing else, to differentiate a kids meal from an adults. For items sold in stores it makes more sense to carry one size, or very few sizes, and efficiency pushes towards packages that contain more.
As an example; a single frozen pizza that I enjoy the flavor of is only carried in one size. A size reasonable for two adults to split as a large meal, which could be split further to a 'nuclear family' with some sides. Instead I'll gorge on it as my only meal of the day because that's the most effective way for me to maximize the value of that 'best market fit' product (I really detest leftovers).
> It's really hard to get reasonably priced single servings of anything in the US
It's the amount you take in vs the amount you expend. Putting it on your plate doesnt mean you must eat it. I went from morbidly obese to showing abs during covid and while doing almost 0 activity just by watching how the weight of what i ate affected the weight on the scale.
McDonalds and Kroger can serve me flintstone's size portions and I'll still be fit because I know that for my daily expenditure I need a certain amount. If I know I'll be expending more, i'll consume more. Am I hungry? Absolutely! But you are free to make the choice to eat when idle, or do other more productive things. Hunger doesn't mean starving and it's hard to train your brain to understand 'no'.
People even before they come out as transgender or realize what they are tend to cluster together due to personality similarities. So you have friend groups where the transgender quotient is really high, whether they know it yet or not. Once one of the eggs cracks in a friend group, it definitely might cause an avalanche, but it doesn't mean that it's peer pressure, it's just that nobody wants to be the first or realizes yet that this is an option.
As for self destructiveness and self mutilation... is something that people should decide for themselves what medical changes of their bodies they consider mutilation vs which ones they consider improvements. Some people get tattoos and they really like them. That is fine. I would consider one on mine a mutilation of my beautiful body. So the way you put it is quite insulting. Many transgender people wake up every day as if their bodies have been mutilated the day before: that's what they want to correct. It's a phenomenon I have no relationship with other than hearing it from other people, but I've seen it so many times.
Children who self-mutilate (cutting, etc.) often do so as a way to break a dissociative phase: the feeling of complete numbness that washes so completely over them, causing them to wonder if they even exist.
