Trans Tweens & Social Contagion

[TitanTiger 20,511]

Regardless of what you feel about a grown man or woman like Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner deciding to transition, when it comes to young children and teens, the politics on this entire issue has stifled any honest scientific inquiry.  The research that has been done is showing that children and even teens are often not capable of understanding what their feelings really are.  Most of the time in fact, the kid is simply gender-nonconforming or perhaps gay.  But in the rush to ride the gay-marriage victory's coattails, transgenderism isn't being honestly studied or really understood.  Feelings are being taken as dogma and to even question the presuppositions at all is shouted down as bigotry and hatred.   These parents are living in a nightmare.

 

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Trans Tweens & Social Contagion

By Rod Dreher • February 28, 2018, 7:32 PM

A reader writes:

This is how crazy it is: my 12 yo niece attends a public middle school in a medium-sized Texas city. I learned yesterday that she says that most of her friends at school have come out as “bisexual”. I am talking about kids as young as 10 and 11.

The way they say it is telling: while one boy apparently has a boyfriend (and the liberal family is quite proud), he is the exception (and has an unusual home situation). Most of these super-woke tweens phrase it in terms of “I mostly like (opposite sex) but would date (same-sex)”. So this is not plausibly a genuine discovery, this is obviously kids adding a qualification so as to be acceptable.

Think about that, kids are afraid to say that they only like the opposite sex. I do not think the school pushed this, I think this is just in the youth culture atmosphere. I don’t think it is even false consciousness, more just complimenting the emperor’s clothes.

A different reader writes:

Here in Austin I see the occasional ‘trans’ person, especially living here in the even more progressive, Bernie-loving east side of town (almost always male to female), but for the first time yesterday I saw while out at dinner what was obviously a young boy, I would guess 12 or 13, in a skirt with painted toenails and dyed hair.

I obviously do not know this boy or this family’s history or context, but this seems more and more clearly to be an issue where social contagion is at play. It seems pretty clear that in these so-called progressive enclaves that this is more common, partly, I’m sure, because people come here so that they can live in a ‘non-judgmental’ place, but with young people it just seems to be catching on as kids are encouraged to be ‘open-minded’ (read accepting) of this choice and to consider it as a possibility.

How disorienting for a young person at that age to be asked to question if they really are the sex they were born and how insulting to parents if it is asked by someone at a school or other institution they are a part of. Maybe it’s already happening more than I realize – I know you’ve mentioned so much – but there is going to be a lot of damage that results from this a decade or two on if this is indulged to the point of taking hormones or (God help us) surgery, when these kids reach adulthood and are past childbearing physically and perhaps beyond healthy relationships emotionally. Ours are still toddlers and not quite aware of these things, but I really don’t want have this conversation at such an early age, though I fear it’s coming – and I know I’m not just going to act like it’s normal and acceptable. ‘Heading for the hills’ doesn’t sound that bad right about now.

You watch: in five years, I’ll write a book saying: “I was wrong. Let’s head for the hills.”

Readers, you need to understand the dynamics at play here. Here’s a piece on 4thWaveNow, a website for parents (of all political backgrounds; some are atheist, some are gay) who are skeptical of the trans child/teen phenomenon. Author Brie Jontry claims that activists in the medical community, and The Advocate magazine, are suppressing research findings that question the trans narrative. Excerpts:

The dismissal of [researcher Dr. Lisa] Littman’s work, and the move to suppress it, is unconscionable. For one thing, some young people (like my daughter)  who experienced ROGD [Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria] have already desisted. Others, who were supported in procuring medical intervention, have already experienced regret. Many more desisters and detransitioners are sure to follow.

This trend has not gone unnoticed by at least some in WPATH. For example, veteran WPATH clinician Rachael St. Claire, in a Facebook post on January 5 of this year, made this comment (notice that commenting was turned off immediately after St.Claire posted):

This concern is echoed by UCSF clinical psychologist Erica Anderson, herself a transgender woman, in a recent Washington Post article:

“I think a fair number of kids are getting into it because it’s trendy,” said Anderson, who was married for 30 years and fathered two children before transitioning seven years ago.

I’m often the naysayer at our meetings. I’m not sure it’s always really trans. I think in our haste to be supportive, we’re missing that element. Kids are all about being accepted by their peers. It’s trendy for professionals, too.”

More:

In fact, Littman’s work is the first to study this new presentation of gender dysphoria, and she collected information from the people who know these children and teens better than any transgender advocate, endocrinologist, psychologist, or therapist ever could — their parents.

But you’re not listening to us.

Littman’s study, according to its critics, is contentious for a few reasons, but most notably for using the term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” as a descriptor for a new kind of trans-identifying youth, primarily natal females, who during or after puberty, begin to feel intense unhappiness about their sexed bodies and what it means to feel/be/present as a woman.

Let me emphasize: What is “rapid onset” in this population is the dysphoria, not the gender atypicality. What distinguishes these young people from the early-onset populations studied previously is that they may have been happily gender nonconforming throughout childhood (though some were more gender typical), but they were not unhappy (which is all “dysphoric” really means), nor did they claim or wish to be the opposite sex. The unhappiness set in suddenly, in nearly every case only after heavy peer influence, either on- or offline.

Read the whole thing.   Seriously, spend some time on the 4thWaveNow site. What these parents and their children are living through is something out of Kafka — and the mainstream media will not cover it. Brie Jontry writes:

Finally, the fact that ROGD is being discussed by the conservative media is not, no matter how many “incriminating” links Tannehill dropped in the Advocate piece, a legitimate reason to discredit the data. The irony is not lost on many 4thWaveNow parents that our stories are covered by media outlets we typically avoid. In this politically charged climate, it is important for researchers, clinicians, and parents to work together to “first do no harm” even when those we otherwise disagree with call for the same cautions.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trans-tweens-gender-social-contagion/

 

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

I'm with you here.  I have a transgender friend who's known for a while that's what he wanted to do, but he waited until adulthood to make the final call.  I really think that's the right approach as kids don't have the capacity to understand the decisions they are making.  Hell, spend some time on AU's campus.  When I taught for a while there, those "adults" said some of the stupidest, most uninformed things I've ever heard.  Now imagine that but a few years younger.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Delaware is now considering a proposal to allow 14 year kids to make the decision without their parents knowing about it.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

I think the source article Dreher references is probably a better way to read on this.  It's long so I'll just link:

https://4thwavenow.com/2018/02/25/wpath-the-advocate-aim-to-suppress-new-research-on-adolescent-gender-dysphoria/

[TitanTiger 20,511]

24 minutes ago, Proud Tiger said:

Delaware is now considering a proposal to allow 14 year kids to make the decision without their parents knowing about it.

If I lived in any state that pushed through such a law, I would be seeking employment in a state that hasn't lost its mind, post-haste and moving my family there.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

53 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

I'm with you here.  I have a transgender friend who's known for a while that's what he wanted to do, but he waited until adulthood to make the final call.  I really think that's the right approach as kids don't have the capacity to understand the decisions they are making.  Hell, spend some time on AU's campus.  When I taught for a while there, those "adults" said some of the stupidest, most uninformed things I've ever heard.  Now imagine that but a few years younger.

It's truly stunning to me how this issue is often treated.  It's approached with "here is our end goal" and then everything is altered, bent, manipulated, ignored, censored, or shouted down to get there.  Even the possibility that the science might be unsettled, or that it might point to some solution other than "have radical cosmetic surgeries and take tons of hormones (and/or hormone blockers) to feel better" is not merely dismissed but castigated as hatred and oppression. 

[AUDub 11,184]

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

It's truly stunning to me how this issue is often treated.  It's approached with "here is our end goal" and then everything is altered, bent, manipulated, ignored, censored, or shouted down to get there.  Even the possibility that the science might be unsettled, or that it might point to some solution other than "have radical cosmetic surgeries and take tons of hormones (and/or hormone blockers) to feel better" is not merely dismissed but castigated as hatred and oppression. 

I see very little harm in utilizing blockers. The side effects are well understood, relatively minor and easily reversible. Withholding treatment is not a neutral option. Rates of suicide attempts among trans youth that go through puberty of the gender they don't identify with are around 40%. That rate drops to the national average with treatment. This is, in true cases of dysphoria, a quite literally life saving medical treatment. 

[TitanTiger 20,511]

27 minutes ago, AUDub said:

I see very little harm in utilizing blockers. The side effects are well understood, relatively minor and easily reversible. Withholding treatment is not a neutral option. Rates of suicide attempts among trans youth that go through puberty of the gender they don't identify with are around 40%. That rate drops to the national average with treatment. This is, in true cases of dysphoria, a quite literally life saving medical treatment. 

Here's the problem with that.  Most children who express these feelings do not end up being transgender as adults.  The feelings dissipate.  What often is the case there is that the adolescent is simply gender non-conforming in some way but end up being cisgender and gay or bisexual.  Neither of things require hormone treatments or hormone blockers.

That said, this is a bit of a side point I made that the original article wasn't really about.  Didn't mean to get us off on a tangent.  I thought a couple of key segments of the article were here:

 

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The dismissal of Littman’s work, and the move to suppress it, is unconscionable. For one thing, some young people (like my daughter)  who experienced ROGD have already desisted. Others, who were supported in procuring medical intervention, have already experienced regret. Many more desisters and detransitioners are sure to follow.

This trend has not gone unnoticed by at least some in WPATH. For example, veteran WPATH clinician Rachael St. Claire, in a Facebook post on January 5 of this year, made this comment (notice that commenting was turned off immediately after St.Claire posted):

This concern is echoed by UCSF clinical psychologist Erica Anderson, herself a transgender woman, in a recent Washington Post article:

“I think a fair number of kids are getting into it because it’s trendy,” said Anderson, who was married for 30 years and fathered two children before transitioning seven years ago.

I’m often the naysayer at our meetings. I’m not sure it’s always really trans. I think in our haste to be supportive, we’re missing that element. Kids are all about being accepted by their peers. It’s trendy for professionals, too.”

In addition, clinics around the world have noted a sharp increase in the number of girls presenting for treatment in the last few years.

A once-rare condition is now increasingly common. It is surely in the interest of all people who care about gender dysphoric youth to investigate the reasons for the increase, and Littman’s work is an early contribution to this effort.

 

 

And here:

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Littman’s study, according to its critics, is contentious for a few reasons, but most notably for using the term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” as a descriptor for a new kind of trans-identifying youth, primarily natal females, who during or after puberty, begin to feel intense unhappiness about their sexed bodies and what it means to feel/be/present as a woman.

Let me emphasize: What is “rapid onset” in this population is the dysphoria, not the gender atypicality. What distinguishes these young people from the early-onset populations studied previously is that they may have been happily gender nonconforming throughout childhood (though some were more gender typical), but they were not unhappy (which is all “dysphoric” really means), nor did they claim or wish to be the opposite sex. The unhappiness set in suddenly, in nearly every case only after heavy peer influence, either on- or offline.

This phenomenon has only recently been noted by clinicians directly involved in treating gender dysphoric youth, as well as other mental health professionals. While there is no lack of evidence for adolescent emotional and behavioral social “contagions,” Littman’s research is the first to collect data on this phenomenon as it relates to identifying as transgender.

Even though rapid onset gender dysphoria has been noted by other researchers and clinicians who work with these populations, The Advocate and WPATH’s Dan Karasic consider the descriptor “junk science.” In a swift attempt at censorship, Karasic deleted all but one of my comments on the public WPATH Facebook page and then banned me from the group when I asked him to please consider the experiences of young people, like my daughter, for whom gender dysphoria set in hard and fast after being exposed to the idea that her gender nonconformity was in fact a sign of being transgender.

 

It goes on after that to cite some of the research highlighting concerns about our confidence in understanding the causes of gender dysphoria as well as the long-term treatment consequences, and make this point:

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It is unconscionable that transgender advocates, and the leading international body concerned with transgender medicine, would seek to quash data that address unsettled and mostly unexplored areas of concern. It is incredibly important that ROGD be included as a research point because the main studies used to justify the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery in adolescents required “persistent gender dysphoria since childhood” and “no serious comorbid psychiatric disorders that may interfere with the diagnostic assessment” before the patients were eligible for medical intervention. In other words, none of the participants in these treatment studies had adolescent-onset of their gender dysphoria and none of the participants had serious psychiatric issues.

It is a huge leap to assume that an entirely different population of adolescents with a different presentation of symptoms will have the same results as the adolescents in the Amsterdam cohort.  An additional gap in the research is that because all the desistence and persistence studies are about adolescents who had childhood onset of gender dysphoria, the persistence and desistence rates for adolescent-onset gender dysphoria are unknown...

...It is entirely possible to be supportive parents invested in our child’s well-being and not agree to unproven medical procedures for which there is no consensus from the medical community of long-term safety or benefit to the majority of dysphoric youth. However, the loudest voices in pediatric transgender medicine often cite Kristina Olson’s descriptive research about early social transition for children which relies on the methods that they decry as “junk” when used in Littman’s research (targeted recruitment and the collection of data from parents). Kristina Olson recruited her sample from support groups and conferences to find parents who have socially transitioned their children, which might consist only of parents who are supportive of early social and medical transition. So is it an acceptable method for both studies, junk for both studies, or are the WPATH activists simply going by whether they like or dislike the findings?

 

And to me this is the critical issue - the unwillingness to pursue the truth on this matter simply because it either doesn't jive with one's own perceived experiences or because you deem it a threat to the paradigm you're invested in pushing right now.  What should matter is getting at the causes and understanding that sometimes, indeed, children and even teens don't understand enough about how to process this kind of stuff to be able to warrant treatments. But a certain segment doesn't want to even discuss it.  They just want to deride it as "junk science" and bigotry.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

I thought the reader letter highlighted here was very interesting.  It's an insight into the Alice in Wonderland nature of some of the stuff surrounding transgenderism, but especially the political aspects of it.

 

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‘Peak Trans’ Turned Her Rightward

By Rod Dreher • March 7, 2018, 2:45 PM

A reader sent an extraordinary e-mail, and gave me permission to post it as long as I didn’t identify her. She signed her real name, and I can confirm that she is who she says she is in this letter:

Your recent post about leftists being pushed right by transgender activism and gender identity politics was laughed at by a lot of commenters who think a hyper-liberal woman is unlikely to turn conservative. Well, the joke is on them, because I am one and I am far, far from alone.

I was as far left as you can get without being a full-on Marxist. I thought prostitution was empowering, polyamory was fine, witchcraft was a positive spirituality, and that men who identify as transgender were my sisters. I voted Greens and Democrats all the way.

Transgender activism is usually what tips us over to the right. I faced persistent, public, sexually graphic harassment for not being a good enough trans ally, and that didn’t tip me over the edge. Which is really crazy, but that after long public discussions about the imagined deformities of my genitalia, and ridiculous libel aimed at ruining my career by the transgender community, I still supported them.

The tipping point is referred to as hitting “peak trans.” Usually this involves an illogical or dangerous statement you simply can’t force yourself to accept. For me, it was that we could no longer say “women’s health.” Because “men have uteruses.”

Now changing the terminology, which is very useful, does not mean you wouldn’t have to disclose to your doctor that you are on hormones, puberty blockers, or had reassignment surgery. Just like you have to disclose asthma, allergies, or heart conditions. It provides no useful function beyond enabling the delusion of less than 1% of the population that believe, despite all scientic evidence, that they can change their biological sex.

I started to see the tail wagging the dog, often violently. I began to research the issue quietly. I learned about the dangers of children transitioning and the very real difficulties they face as adults. The numbers of inmates, especially those convicted of violent sexual crimes, transitioning and being allowed to move to women’s prisons is alarming. Friends who had also hit peak trans were speaking up and receiving death threats against their families. Not just threats against themselves, but threats aimed specifically at their children.

Remember the flourishing of feminist bookstores in the 90’s? Those are gone. Remember Women’s Studies? It is now Gender Studies and lipstick-wearing men are leading feminist organizations. Lesbian and feminist events are being shut down by transgender activists. Last year a workshop on “The Disappearing Lesbian” was shut down because pointing out that transgender activists are silencing lesbians is transphobic.

The children are the worst part. I was one of the people applauding Jazz for being an openly transgender kid when the tv show launched. Now I am horrified that this young man will never experience puberty, is flooded with artificial hormones, and is going to have immature genitalia for the rest of his life. Studies show that gender dysphoria in children and teens goes away as they mature. No studies show that transitioning improves mental health. Parents are losing their parental rights because medical professionals are grooming their children to become transgender if they show any traits that do not for the gender stereotype of their sex (boys playing with dolls, or girls preferring trucks).

Women like Shannon Thrace discuss the heartbreak of a husband’s transition, how they lose their spouses for narcissists aping some degrading stereotype of womanhood. Women, both liberal and conservative, have fought to be heard and treated with respect. To see men talk about how they are better than women simply because they wear heels and lipstick, and have a perverse need to be desired as a sex object, is so degrading. These men believe that a proper women is as aesthetically flawless, smiling, and submissive as a Playboy bunny, and in aiming for that ideal men and women will find them irresistibly desirable. The fact that most people do not find them attractive, especially straight males and lesbians, makes them angry. They feel they are owed your lust, and if you are not interested you are a bigot. So much for consent culture!

Women who care about the safety and well-being of women and children are discovering the left no longer cares about them. When they try to find a place where their values are respected, they are often surprised to find it among conservatives. More than surpised. Shocked.

My friends and I went from sharing articles by Olbermann and Maddow to following Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson. Our female role models became academics like Dr. Deborah Savage who actually acknowledge biological reality in their examination of gender.

Some of us are loud and proud in our views, risking threats. Others are quiet, fearful of losing our jobs if we make a comment online, which we never feared as liberals. I’m one of the quiet ones. As much harassment as I received from the transgender community as an ally, I simply don’t have the strength to deal with it as a critic and risk being doxxed.

But it isn’t just politics. We used to hang out with Reiki masters, witches, shamans, and a miscellany of hippies who advocate nudity, polyamory, moral relavitism, and postmodern deconstruction of everything. Now we go to Mass. We pray the rosary. Our lives are changing for the better as we re-examine our beliefs and find community that shares our values.

Just like you, Rod, we get messages from friends who are realizing the left does not have their best interests in mind, but don’t want to be ostracized and harassed by making any public comments. There is a sort of social media Underground Railroad supporting women moving from left to right, giving them both the information and privacy they need to process such a significant change.

I’m not merely an “anecdote.” I’m real. And you can publish this as long as you leave my name off of it. I need my job and I don’t deserve to be eaten alive by liberals who only value women who are conforming to their ideology.

[Name]

P.S. The Benedict Option is a fabulous book!

 

...I’m in transit now to Budapest, but I look forward to watching Shannon Thrace’s speech at TEDx in the Netherlands. See it below. From what I could gather about it in the short time I had before boarding the plane, she is a left-wing feminist who believes (correctly, I think) that transgenderism is a manifestation of capitalism unbound. I could be wrong about this; I’ll check out her talk when I can. One thing I saw on her blog: she was so grateful that she could give this talk in the Netherlands, where she doesn’t have to fear assault by transgender activists. To the very great shame of the United States!

 

 

[homersapien 11,453]

I have just a few comments:

1. You state in the OP that "honest scientific research" on this issue is being "stifled".  I question if that is really the case or reflected what you meant to say.  (Either way, I don't have an opinion on that as I am not in the field.)

2. I think it's important that we try to segregate the social (political) of this issue from the science.  Let's not fall into the trap of assuming they're the same.  Most of what I read - such as from Dreher - criticizing this comes from a political perspective.  That's not to say that's an illegitimate perspective, it's perfectly legitimate to comment on social "events" if not "trends".  There probably isn't enough science on the subject of child sexual expression to reference, even if you wanted to.   

Sexuality is a complex subject that undergoes a radical change through puberty.  It's hard for me to imagine there is a general scientific consensus that one's sexuality is tyically established at birth or even during the prepubescent years.  Things may even remain psychological flexible for some people until they reach full maturity.  

3. Accordingly,  I seriously doubt there is general scientific support for either aggressively supporting or trying to repress a childs expressed sexuality.  

4. Most of this recent emphasis and publicity on various sexual identities is new - at least as far as the general layman - such as me -  is concern.  Aside from homosexuality, I cannot remember the first time I became aware of these various alternatives to "mainline" sexuality, but it certainly hasn't been long since I first started thinking seriously about it.  I saw "The Christine Keeler Story" while at Auburn. (It was on a date and I had no idea what the movie was about.  Awkard.)

In other words, all of the recent attention has the bestowed on the subject some aspects of a social "fad".  That alone interjects enormous bias - and therefore dictates enormous skepticsm about the genuiness of this.

It will pass.

 

 

[metafour 4,969]

This is all learned behavior, period.  Go to any other country that isn't overrun with these new extremist "progressive" values being piped into the education system and you will find that boys and girls naturally behave as such.  There are gay people in these countries as you would expect, but you will not find this booming economy of "genderless" or "gender variable" individuals because as it should be obvious, TRUE "transgenderism" is extremely rare and a complete biological outlier.  Kids are stupid and impressionable, when you actively teach them that they can be "gender fluid", you are going to see a lot of kids who otherwise would have grown to become normal adults (or simply gay adults) buy into the idea and make long-term physiological decisions that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.  The most sickening thing is when you see this new wave of ultra-progressive parents who USE their children to boost their own social status by actively pushing transgenderism, why? Because there is nothing more politically fashionable than being able to post some story on Facebook (that always goes viral) about how you are so brave and understanding that you let your son go to school in dresses, meanwhile the kid only believes what he believes because the parents have been festering a "gender neutral" childhood and the child is imprisoned to behave in such a way.  Go watch those Scandinavian documentaries about these "woke" parents who raise their kids in such a way; whenever you hear the kids themselves speak it is so obvious that they are reciting what they are being told, often times the kids themselves look shell-shocked as you would expect when you are a boy or girl who simply wants to act as such but are constantly told to act in the opposite manner.  This is literal child abuse.  Its not hard to push impressionable kids in this direction when you also simultaneously push an education system that actively engages to suppress natural forms or masculinity (or femininity) at all costs.

Children and fads go hand in hand.  How many 40 or 50 year old goths do you see running around in everyday life? Virtually none, because even though this was at one time a popular teenage subculture, the vast majority (like 98%) of kids will grow out of it and later look back and say "WTF was I thinking?".  Here in Canada you can now actually lose custody of your child if you don't agree with and support their self-identified gender, so whereas you could probably coax your child into normality (or they'd do it themselves once they realize that they in fact are NOT transgender) you are now left powerless to all these government institutions which will take your child and give them every resource available to make permanent life-altering changes.  Oh you are confused about your gender? Don't let your parents tell you otherwise, here is a school councilor or social worker who will CONFIRM your confusion for you and then push you towards the necessary avenues which will get you on hormone blockers or whatever else you need.  It is an absolutely sickening perversion of society.