It’s about time that governments began to take a close look at why teenage hordes are boarding the transgender train—and why that train appears to lack brakes. The Economist recently asked why so many girls were heading into gender clinics, and statisticians have expressed shock at the skyrocketing numbers of young people who identify as transgender, with Dr. Lisa Littman of Brown University noting that the phenomenon has all the characteristics of a social contagion (before the university pulled her study under pressure from trans activists.) Trans activists are struggling mightily to stave off any scrutiny, but the numbers are how simply to high to ignore.
Earlier this month I spent a half hour clicking through the YouTube videos of transgender YouTube stars—young teenagers who rack up millions of views tracking their transitions, giving makeup tips, and glamorizing everything transgender. While I’d heard about the phenomenon of trans YouTube stars, it wasn’t until I watched a few videos that I realized how popular and pervasive they were—and the extent to which they are impacting youth culture. In many cases, transgender teens like Jazz Jennings are acting as the Pied Pipers of gender ideology. In fact, in the UK there has been a more than 4,000% increase in kids who want to physically transition to the opposite sex. From the Christian Post:
A U.K. government inquiry is underway to investigate why there’s an over 4,000 percent increase in children seeking to “transition” to the opposite sex.The available data says that young people referred for “gender treatment” has increased from 97 in 2009–2010 to 2,510 in 2017–2018, a 4,415 percent increase in less than a decade, the UK Express reported Sunday.
Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt has asked officials to investigate the reasons for the skyrocketing rise, particularly the role of social media and its influence over how girls think about the subject. Girls are more likely to seek to “transition” than boys.
Whereas only 40 girls were referred for such treatment nine years ago, that figure is now 1,806, a 4,515 percent increase. The number of boys rose from 56 to 713 in that same time span. In 2017–2018, 45 of those children referred were ages 6 or younger, with the youngest at only 4.
“Some educationalists have previously warned that the promotion of transgender issues in schools has ‘sown confusion’ in children’s minds and that encouraging children to question gender has ‘become an industry,’ the Telegraph reported.
“Dr. Joanna Williams, author of the book Women vs Feminism, has said that schools are ‘encouraging even the youngest children to question whether they are really a boy or a girl,’ the Telegraph added. Eight hundred dysphoric children in England were injected with puberty blocking drugs last year, including some as young as 10 years old.
Many doctors and researchers are increasingly concerned about the long-term effects of these chemicals, which include not only puberty blockers but cross-sex hormones, on young people.
Lucy Griffin, a consultant psychiatrist at Bristol Royal Infirmary, admitted she was “extremely worried” about this and has warned that these treatments cause osteoporosis, yield sexual dysfunction, and can render their bodies sterile.
Other experts say the rapid growth of minors seeking hormones and surgery is in part because of a social contagion known as rapid onset gender dysphoria, a phenomenon exacerbated by an internet culture of websites like Reddit and YouTube where other young trans-identified people celebrate and being transgender and all of the social and medical transition processes involved.
Voices warning that the transgender experiment will not end well are beginning to grow louder and louder, and academics and doctors are increasingly sounding the alarm. This has resulted in a standoff between radical trans ideologues and those who wish to subject this phenomenon to scrutiny to determine what is actually taking place—and there is not yet any indication that those who wish to see transgender ideology measured against scientific evidence will emerge victorious. You can bet that trans activists are working overtime to ensure that any government study is fully vetted by trans activists before being released to the public—and that any evidence of the massive harm their movement is inflicting on children is suppressed.
For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.
