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<\/a><\/p>\nParents have long worried about the effects of \u201cpeer pressure\u201d on their children.\u00a0 Experts call it \u201csocial contagion\u201d and are seeing it as a factor in the jump in the number of transgender teenagers.\u00a0 But it also can account for other cultural syndromes.<\/p>\n
A study of transgenderism among high school students has identified a major reason why so many young people are identifying as a different gender or as being \u201cnonbinary\u201d:\u00a0 \u201csocial contagion.\u201d\u00a0 That is, when one member of a friendship group goes trans, other members often do too, an effect heightened through peer pressure.<\/p>\n
Brown University researcher Lisa Littman published an article in the online peer-reviewed science journal Plos One*<\/em> entitled Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s well worth reading in its entirety, and, indeed, it\u2019s quite readable for a technical paper in the socials sciences.<\/p>\n She was investigating some puzzling phenomena.\u00a0 Previously, most cases of gender dysphoria\u2013confusions about gender\u2013happened in children before they reached the age of puberty.\u00a0 And mostly it involved little boys who wanted to be girls, a condition that usually resolves itself.\u00a0 But now we are seeing gender dysphoria among adolescents after they have reached puberty.\u00a0 Also, it comes on rapidly, without any of the usual preceding signs.\u00a0 She defines this as \u201crapid onset gender dysphoria.\u201d\u00a0 And this is happening mostly, though not exclusively, with teenaged girls.\u00a0 Dr. Littman, a physician, was trying to explain why gender dysphoria seemed to be changing.<\/p>\n This is from the abstract, with my bolds:<\/p>\n In on-line forums, parents have reported that their children seemed to experience a sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria, appearing for the first time during puberty or even after its completion. Parents describe that the onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe.<\/strong> Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media\/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity. Recently, clinicians have reported that post-puberty presentations of gender dysphoria in natal females that appear to be rapid in onset is a phenomenon that they are seeing more and more in their clinic. Academics have raised questions about the role of social media in the development of gender dysphoria.<\/strong> The purpose of this study was to collect data about parents\u2019 observations, experiences, and perspectives about their adolescent and young adult (AYA) children showing signs of an apparent sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria that began during or after puberty, and develop hypotheses about factors that may contribute to the onset and\/or expression of gender dysphoria among this demographic group.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n She found that \u201cin 36.8% of the friendship groups described, parent participants indicated that the majority of the members became transgender-identified<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 And that \u201cmost (86.7%) of the parents reported that, along with the sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria, their child either had an increase in their social media\/internet use, belonged to a friend group in which one or multiple friends became transgender-identified during a similar timeframe, or both<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n This is to say, peer pressure plays a significant role in a teenaged girl deciding she is a boy, or is \u201cnon-binary,\u201d neither a boy nor a girl.\u00a0 Social media creates circles of \u201cfriends\u201d who exert this pressure.\u00a0 Dr. Littman even uncovered what this pressure consists of, namely, mockery and bullying.<\/p>\n The groups targeted for mocking by the friend groups are often heterosexual (straight) people and non-transgender people (called \u201ccis\u201d or \u201ccisgender\u201d). Sometimes animosity was also directed towards males, white people, gay and lesbian (non-transgender) people, aromantic and asexual people, and \u201cterfs\u201d. One participant explained, \u201cThey are constantly putting down straight, white people for being privileged, dumb and boring.\u201d Another participant elaborated, \u201cIn general, cis-gendered people are considered evil and unsupportive, regardless of their actual views on the topic. To be heterosexual, comfortable with the gender you were assigned at birth, and non-minority places you in the \u2018most evil\u2019 of categories with this group of friends. Statement of opinions by the evil cis-gendered population are consider phobic and discriminatory and are generally discounted as unenlightened.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Also targeted are individuals in the young person\u2019s life:<\/p>\n In addition to targeting specific groups of people for mocking, the AYAs [Adolescent Young Adults] and their friend groups also directed mocking towards individuals in the AYAs\u2019 lives such as parents, grandparents, siblings, peers, allies, and teachers. The following quotes describe individuals targeted. One participant said, \u201cThey call kids who are not LGBT dumb and cis. And the mocking has been aimed at my transgender-identified child\u2019s [sibling].\u201d Another parent said, \u201cThey definitely made fun of parents and teachers who did not agree with them.\u201d And a third participant said, \u201c\u2026they were asked to leave [a school-based LGBT club] because they were not queer enough [as straight and bisexual allies]. [One of them] was [then] bullied, harassed and denounced online.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The discussions also centered on cultivating a sense of victimhood.\u00a0 And, significantly, what words to say to health care people to get sex-change medication and surgeries.\u00a0 One of the ploys is what we hear all of the time in the media about what might happen if we refuse to sterilize these children:\u00a0 the \u201csuicide narrative.\u201d\u00a0 The members of the groups told each other<\/p>\n that if their parents were reluctant to take them for hormones that they should use the \u201csuicide narrative\u201d (telling the parents that there is a high rate of suicide in transgender teens) to convince them (20.7%). . . .;Two respondents, in answers to other questions, described that their children later told them what they learned from online discussion lists and sites. One parent reported, \u201cHe has told us recently that he was on a bunch of discussion lists and learned tips there. Places where teens and other trans people swap info. Like to use [certain, specific] words [with] the therapist when describing your GD, because [they are] code for potentially suicidal and will get you a diagnosis and Rx for hormones.\u201d Another parent disclosed, \u201cThe threat of suicide was huge leverage. What do you say to that? It\u2019s hard to have a steady hand and say no to medical transition when the other option is dead kid. She learned things to say that would push our buttons and get what she wanted and she has told us now that she learned that from trans discussion sites.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Never mind that suicide rates are higher for those who undergo medical \u201ctransition\u201d<\/a> than for the gender dysphoric who do not. (See also this<\/a>.)\u00a0 It\u2019s revealing, though, that suicide talk is sometimes just calculated rhetoric.<\/p>\n The point is, being transgender is contagious.\u00a0 But not like COVID is contagious.\u00a0 Littman also found that teenagers who go trans and who form social groups around the issue have other problems\u2013depression, anorexia, self-harm, autism, and other mental and emotional difficulties.\u00a0 So if you have a teenager with a trans-identifying friend, that doesn\u2019t mean that she is at risk of\u00a0 \u201ccatching\u201d the syndrome.<\/p>\n The bigger point is that social contagion\u2013friends on social media egging each other on\u2013can probably account for other developments.\u00a0 We know that suicide is socially contagious<\/a>.\u00a0 I suspect that this can help account for the jump in LGBTQ statistics that we blogged about yesterday.\u00a0 Also the spread of radical politics, support for abortion, and many other cultural concerns.\u00a0 Remember too that adults too are subject to peer pressure.\u00a0 And that there is a good kind of peer pressure, a social contagion for what is good.<\/p>\n Read this discussion of Littman\u2019s research and how parents might handle this information from Focus on the Family:\u00a0Helping Kids Stand Firm While Navigating the Ever-Changing Landscape of Transgenderism<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n