The percentage of young people identifying as transgender (trans) or nonbinary has skyrocketed over the past few years.
The latest trend examples come from New Jersey data and a student poll at Brown University, in Rhode Island.
A 2023 survey of Brown students found 38 percent of the student body does not identify as straight, double the percentage of students in 2010, and more than five times the national rate. In New Jersey, there has been a 4,000 percent increase in students identifying as non-binary in just four years.
Social Contagion
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the transgender population of high schoolers is 1.8 percent, though other studies have found the number to be up to 9.2 percent.
Abigail Shrier, the author of Irreversible Damage, attributes the spike in self-identifying transgender and nonbinary youth to the power of suggestion or “social contagion,” while transgenderism advocates argue it is now safer for people to “come out.”
London University political scientist Eric Kaufmann found an increase in the number of people who identify as bisexual has not been accompanied by an increase in corresponding sexual behavior. His studies have shown most women who identify as bisexual have sex exclusively with men, implying the phenomenon is social.
The spike in teenagers and young adults identifying as transgender means big profits for the pharmaceutical and medical industries. “Sex reassignment” surgery can cost patients thousands of dollars, and they will spend much more if they remain dependent on hormones or other drugs and therapy.
Nothing Good Comes of This
Gender identity is liable to change, sometimes multiple times, during a person’s life, says Michelle Cretella, M.D., executive director of the American College of Pediatricians.
“Contrary to the insistence of gender activists that a sex-discordant gender identity is immutable, change of gender identity has been documented to occur during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood,” said Cretella. “While it may be influenced by one’s biology, gender identity is not solely determined by biology and is heavily influenced by psychological and cultural factors. Like all developmental processes, gender identity formation may be derailed by children’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward.”
Accepting someone’s dysphoric perceptions as fact can worsen the problem, says Cretella.
“Social affirmation of children’s professed sex-discordant gender identity is harmful,” said Cretella. “Prior to 2013, [gender dysphoria] was classified as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), and parental affirmation of their children’s opposite-sex identification was associated with persistence of the disorder; this fact remains recognized today.”
‘This Is Medical Child Abuse’
A large majority of transgender-identified youth experience serious emotional illness, says Cretella.
“When an otherwise healthy boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such,” said Cretella.
Instead, some physicians are ignoring the problems of self-identifying transgender patients and encouraging their delusional thinking, says Cretella.
“Gender ideologues in pediatrics are being financially rewarded to chemically and surgically sterilize a class of deceived and emotionally troubled youth,” said Cretella. “This is not health care. At best, this is medical child abuse; at worst it constitutes eugenics.”
Harry Painter (harry@harrypainter.com) writes from Oklahoma.