Is the trans kids trend over? Aibu to wonder what happened to the kids caught up in it in the 2010s?

Not just sticks. Also wheelchairs, and I've even seen a zimmer frame. These are young people victim-signalling as more vulnerable than thou. In pretty colours.

That's quite a cash outlay if it's a wheelchair; might those signal genuine difficulty walking?

"This week a video went viral of a young woman in a wheelchair at a train station, filming the laborious attempts of staff to get her chair up some stairs after the lift failed. Towards the end of the video, somewhat unexpectedly, she gets out of her chair and walks upstairs herself, saying she “had a bit of energy that day” so could do it. In another video, she films herself putting on roller skates before pushing off from her wheelchair and skating happily away, Lazarus-like.
Even severely debilitating physical conditions produce good days as well as bad. On some bad days, a person may need extra help. But when a disproportionate number of young women are insisting this applies, we need to find out what is going on.
Why do Gen Z females, apparently unlike every generation before them, have strangely unstable bodies that intermittently require support?" | Kathleen Stock

If they couldn't get it up the stairs, I wonder if it was an electric wheelchair – in which case the outlay would be even greater.

Mind you, back in the late eighties I knew a woman who sometimes couldn't walk at all and really needed her wheelchair, and at other times could walk upstairs fine; this led to quite a lot of people having to go and fetch her wheelchair for her if she suddenly faded in the middle of some activity.

The really annoying thing about this in my opinion is that there will be many genuinely disabled people who do need help, who have days when they can walk and days they can’t, who people will be reluctant to help due to this chancer.

Well exactly. Saying you are disabled when you are not (for the aw bless reaction? for the victim points? who knows what goes on in their heads) impacts genuine disabled people. Just like saying you are a woman when you are a man impacts all women.

Ffs it's perfectly possible to need a wheelchair and have some walking ability.

I don't suppose anyone is disputing this, any more than they are disputing that some people need to use a walking stick to get around with. I certainly haven't and neither have the posts since mine. What is being said is that fakes make life harder for people who are not fakes, because the fakes use up the goodwill that is taken advantage of.

Filming someone in a wheelchair and shaming them on social media for being able to walk up some steps is shitty behaviour.

And how do you know it’s fake?
Ever heard of dynamic illness or dynamic disability? Ie when your level of ability varies hugely from one day to the next

Like someone has arthritis in their hands, very sensitive to cold and damp so theyre able to use their hands much better in summer but can’t do a thing in winter. People who might be able to walk one day but can’t do it the next etc….

An entire generation of young women though?

Entire generation is an overstatement. Even if the data shows more young women are using mobility aids, which might well be the case, who knows, then immediately attributing it to a trend is problematic when there are other potential explanations, e.g. lessening of stigma.

How do you know it’s that many people? Do you have some research, numbers or are you just relying on one newspaper article?

And if we do have a generation of young people who need wheelchairs, do you know if there is some research around it? Why does it happen for example.

It’s very easy to slag an entire group (disabled here, like we do with immigrants, peoole getting benefits etc….). But at least, have a bit of curiosity as to why it might happen.

You’re in denial. Many of us have witnessed it with our own eyes.

Just as we witnessed the anorexia social contagion and the transgender social contagion.

Try not to keep such an open mind that your brains fall out.

If it were a “lessening of stigma” it would promote walking stick usage more outside of the TikTok generation.

Well said. I think there are a subset of people who could always have benefitted from mobility aids, but in older generations it was/is more often seen as a "last resort".

Both of my parents are old and infirm but absolutely refuse to use walking sticks because they're "not at that stage yet", according to them. Perhaps if some nice people had reassured them there's nothing shameful about having a bit of extra support, my mother would not have spent the last 30 years unable to stand for more than 5 minutes and in unnecessary amounts of pain.

Using walking aids earlier than necessary or for longer than necessary can do one’s mobility more harm than good.

My close friend of 25+ years transitioned FTM around 2012/13. Never seen them happier, like a weight was lifted. Now they live a wonderful life with a beautiful partner. They are achieving so many things I would have never thought of them now they have a new confidence.

So we should therefore puts rapists into women's prisons?

If not why not?

What are they achieving now that they couldn’t do before?

Great! My relative "transitioned" MTF around 2010. Still has panic attacks at least once a week and don't make me think about the dilation schedule. Hasn't worked for years and truly isn't mentally stable enough to work. His partner-- well, hard to describe without sounding extremely rude so I won't. But he is a chaser, there is that. Achievements there are none. Hey ho.

I have a FtM friend who transitioned 10 years ago. They have gone from an incredibly shy and introverted autistic women to a lovely confident, happy man. It’s odd to see, but beautiful. They take hormones and haven’t had top surgery. They’re not going out shouting about their rights. They’d use the men’s loos as they pass well. They’re happy going about their quiet life. But that’s trans men - not a threat to women in any way.

Trans women are totally different. They are and will remain to be men, and therefore a threat to women and it’s right that women don’t want them in their single sex spaces. There is no way I’d support my son transitioning to a woman. They wont be able to live full and happy lives. It would be a lie to pretend otherwise. Therapy is by far the more appropriate option.

It seems as if this was filmed at her own behest, so the shitty behaviour might be a little hard to attribute.

Or as I wrote at 13:11 yesterday, in the post before the one for which you attacked me

"back in the late eighties I knew a woman who sometimes couldn't walk at all and really needed her wheelchair, and at other times could walk upstairs fine; this led to quite a lot of people having to go and fetch her wheelchair for her if she suddenly faded in the middle of some activity."

Thanks for archive posting, I always forget to do that.

I’m a bad person; I let out an involuntary hoot of laughter at the wheelchair at station bit. Even more unsoundly I thought of Andy and Lou in Little Britain. Or A Clockwork Orange with those canes. Now I have The Thieving Magpie in my head.

At 16 my first job was as a Nursing Auxiliary on a unit with people severely affected by huntingdon’s disease in its latter stages. The following year I worked with YPs of my own age with profound cerebral palsy, thalidomide and very debilitating epilepsy.

I am not trying to make myself sound amazing here btw - I needed work because I failed all my exams and the shifts fitted in with my sporting interests and exam retakes.

However, I might suggest it would help some of these cane twiddling folks.

People are often reluctant to take care work but perhaps more people/ uni students should. It might help them realise that disability isn’t a lifestyle choice.

It’s The Times though, so it might be hyperbole?

However, if I was disabled and saw someone pretending to be, I might feel like finding an alternative use of that stick. I wonder if that’s how people with MH issues feel when others say things like “I’m do OCD…” and so on.