Why is it ok to be violent and insulting to a woman who makes a mistake.

[whatisgoingonintheworld]

A female calls a person 'lady' in error because she thought the person was female. The person identifies as non binary. The trans manager then verbally insults and finally physically assaults the woman and the man outside.

Is this really what we have come to. A simple word and the non binary is upset and so the trans person can kick a customer from the shop, purposefully insult and then assault.

So is misgendering (even by accident) so serious it merits verbal abuse and physical violence? I mean it isn't even obvious whether the person she called 'lady' behind the counter is non binary, looks female. The trans woman manager looks male and certainly acts it!

Why are so many trans women displaying what was formally seen as masculine traits (violence) now that they identify as female.

Oh @Lockheart "I swear some people thrive off playing the victim and making stuff up just so they can be offended by their own imagination."

I think you just hit the nail on the head

Bulimia was a newly discovered phenomenon in 1972 when one female patient was admitted to London Free Hospital. The attending doctor wrote a paper on the illness. By the 1980s, bulimia nervosa was more readily seen as a legitimate illness and staggering numbers of people were being diagnosed as social contagion spread. Now 40% of people suffering from and eating disorder have bulimia. In the US, 1.5% of females and 0.5% of males suffer from this affliction at one time or another in their life.

Satanic panic (not withstanding the inquisition, witch trials etc in previous centuries) started in the US in the 1980s and spread to many parts of the world a decade later. In some places it exists today, but I believe has largely abated.

The dancing contagions apparently happened in great times of stress and more than once in places, where people believed they could happen.

The human mind is a strange thing and idk if any genie can be put back in the bottle, especially with the advent of social media being such a perfect place to polarise views. I think all we can hope for is that politicians and people in authority will continue and in many cases start to speak with a more moderate voice.

"By the 1980s, bulimia nervosa was more readily seen as a legitimate illness and staggering numbers of people were being diagnosed as social contagion spread."

Can you link to the evidence you've looked at which shows that increase in bulimia cases were due primarily to 'social contagion'?

Do you also think that 'social contagion' is a factor in the absolutely enormous increases in people identifying as homosexual, diagnoses of autism, and of left handedness, we've seen in the past century?

@izimbra

There's a bit to unpack here but I'll have a go so to start with social contagion / social contagion in eating disorders...

"Social contagion is an ubiquitous process by which information, such as attitudes, emotions, or behaviors, are rapidly spread throughout a group from one member to others without rational thought and reason. While much of the social contagion process, such as people following fads, trends, or rituals, are not necessarily dangerous, when social contagion leads to harming individuals, as in clusters of violence or self-harm, it is a concern for public and mental health. Eating disorders, cutting behavior, and suicide are affected by social contagion processes and are prime examples of the possible harmful effects of social contagion in the field of mental health. Mental health professionals need to be aware of such processes, and take steps to prevent, or ameliorate them."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion#:~:text=Eating%20disorders%2C%20cutting%20behavior%2C%20and,the%20field%20of%20mental%20health.

The introduction to this piece in the Australia New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry gives a great insight into what people mean when they are talking about social contagion in the context of eating disorders.

"Within the peer group nothing is more contagious than the behavioural example of a popular and influential friend"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004867413502092

To stretch the medical analogy a little like people are exposed to the idea but have an immune system, many but not all fight it off. Some people are much more vulnerable to this idea than others.

"There are many causes that can contribute to this disease and they can include genetic factors, neurochemical imbalances, and environmental stressors such as exposure to trauma or abuse. Other psychological and emotional issues such as an anxiety disorder, depression and low self-esteem are also known triggers in a person who is predisposed to having an eating disorder."

https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/eating-disorders-contagious/

Are eating disorders contagious?

"The term “social contagion” is more fitting for eating disorders and here’s why. Eating disorders are known to spread rampantly on college campuses, especially among sororities, where young females are trying their hardest to fit it and look a certain way. Peer pressure, low self esteem and poor body image are known triggering factors for the development of an eating disorder but simply being around an individual with an eating disorder does not automate development of an eating disorder in another individual. So are eating disorders contagious? No, although there is a strong social influence associated with developing an eating disorder if other risk factors are also present."

@izimbra "Do you also think that 'social contagion' is a factor in the absolutely enormous increases in people identifying as homosexual, diagnoses of autism, and of left handedness, we've seen in the past century"

The removal of stigma can indeed account for an increase in the prevalence of a condition.

Homosexuality

Kinsey estimated (working in the 1940s 50s) that 4% of men were exclusively homosexual their entire lives (Kinsey point 6) & 83% were exclusively heterosexual (Kinsey point 0).
His work on women's sexuality was notably significantly briefer but he estimated extrapolating from his samples that 20% of women had had some same-sex experience and 13% to orgasm. In unmarried females between the ages of 20 and 35, he claimed there was at least some homosexual experience in 11%-20%, and 1%-3% were exclusively homosexual.

In the 2021 UK census 1.5% of people who chose to answer the question on sexual orientation identified as gay or lesbian (around 748,000) while 1.3% (628,000) identified as bisexual.

So the evidence for any dramatic increase is simply not present. Therefore it would not follow to say that you believed the reason for the dramatic increase is social contagion as there has been no dramatic increase.

@izimbra "Do you also think that 'social contagion' is a factor in the absolutely enormous increases in people identifying as homosexual, diagnoses of autism, "

Autism is an interesting topic two points a 100 year timeframe is inappropriate but to accept the premise insofar as "There was a 787%, exponential increase in recorded incidence of autism diagnoses between 1998 and 2018" https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.13505

It is fair to say that more people are getting a diagnosis now than was the case 20 years ago. Increased awareness has certainly played a part but also crucial is this from the study above: "More diagnoses were made with time, despite no parallel increase in autistic symptoms in the population, because autism symptom thresholds for diagnosis had dropped"

So wrt to autism diagnosis a significant factor is that a person who might not have received a diagnosis in 1998 might receive one in 2018. Social contagion would not appear to play any role in the type and number of autistic traits a person has. But it might play a role in whether someone felt it was valuable to seek a diagnosis.

@izimbra "Do you also think that 'social contagion' is a factor in the absolutely enormous increases in people identifying as homosexual, diagnoses of autism, and of left handedness, we've seen in the past century

again I see the point you're trying to make here and the removal of stigma can cause more people to be diagnosed / be open about a condition. Left handedness did indeed carry dramatic social stigma in the Victorian era. and as it would be reasonable to guess the proportion of people describing themselves as left handed fell.

"Broadly speaking, the vast majority of humans seem to have been right-handed since the emergence of the genus Homo, some three to four million years ago... It is probable that about 8% to 10% of the population has been left-handed for at least the past 200 000 years or so. Detailed data only began to become available for those born in the nineteenth century, and there is growing evidence that the rate of left-handedness fell precipitously during the Victorian period, reaching a nadir of about 3% in about 1895 or so, and then rising quite quickly until an asymptote is reached for those born after about 1945 to 1950, with 11% to 12% of men and 9% to 10% of women typically being left-handed in Western countries."
The history and geography of handedness * *https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.13505

as the rate remains 10% today https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/53739189
and evidence is strong that there is a genetic component which regulates the gene prevalence no change in 200,000 years certainly doesn't meet the standard for being "an absolutely enormous increase in the last 100 years" you claim.

@izimbra I suspect it was possible that your questions were not asked in good faith and that you never thought those things were caused by social contagion but it never hurts to think about things. So...

left handed ness: a consistent percentage of humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Suppressed by stigma, population rebounded broadly to previous levels when the stigma was removed. Consistent since. Taking the nadir of 3% to the pinnacle of 10-11% one could visualise this as a 300 - 400% increase over 40 or 50 years between 1900 - 1950. This is not a good comparator.

Homosexuality: no evidence of an increase in prevalence across the 80 or so years for which we have data. This is not a good comparator.

Autism: a new diagnosis criteria, heightened awareness and shifting / relaxation of the criteria required to be diagnosed seem to be the main drivers which resulted in a 787% increase in those diagnosed across a 20 year period 1998 - 2018. No evidence that the actual prevalence of people experiencing autistic traits has altered in the period, though how likely they are to seek a diagnosis or describe themselves as autistic is certainly open to influence from peer group.
Possibly some relevance to trans issues but not the same pattern.

eating disorders: you ask for evidence that it must be 'primarily due to social contagion' in order for you to accept @Mummyoflittledragon 's point but I don't know that I agree. When a contagion spreads through a community not everyone gets sick, some people are fundamentally more vulnerable to it than others. The things that made you vulnerable can easily be identified and described as causes, and it is not necessarily wrong to do so.

So at the risk of talking for far far longer than is socially acceptable I'll say this again

"Within the peer group nothing is more contagious than the behavioural example of a popular and influential friend"

Or point is influencers influence people, that's why they call them influencers. If the people you know and admire are listening to a particular influencer, thinking a particular thing, doing something that makes them part of the in-group, it makes you more likely to think it too, do it too. If the people you know and admire all behave in a certain way it makes it more likely you will too. This is not new and it is not (normally) bad. Some behaviours are more worrying to mums (and dads) than others.

From 2022 Guardian article "Earlier this year, a team of NHS researchers was asked to investigate why there has been such a huge rise in the number of adolescent biological girls seeking referrals to gender clinics." 10 years ago there were less than 250 referrals in 2020 there were 2500 in 2021 there were 5000.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/24/an-explosion-what-is-behind-the-rise-in-girls-questioning-their-gender-identity

so 250 = 100% if the number now was 500 it would have gone up by 100%
so to go up to 5000 is up by 1900% in 10 years. This is much much more than the increase in autism diagnosis, and over half the period of time. Crucially the evidence also suggest that the increase in distress in real whereas that was not the case for autism.

Transphobes are all about the stereotyping. Whatever they say about 'gender critical'.

It is the trans activists who are all about the stereotypes, in my opinion. In their book it is impossible to be a biologically male person who likes pink, dresses, glitter, dolls - such a person must be female, and born in the wrong body. And a biologically female person who hates make up, plays rugby, wants to be a mechanic and never wears skirts can’t actually be a woman, they must be a man.

Gender critical people believe that a woman is someone who is biologically female, with any personality, not someone with any biology, and a feminine character. We believe that no-one should have to fit in with the stereotypes society has ascribed to their sex.

Basically biology is real and immutable, and gender is characteristics society has traditionally associated with each sex.

I think feminism is about saying that no-one has to be restricted to any gender stereotypes - and I thought we were past the days of saying girls can’t be engineers, boys can’t be nurses, girls can’t wear trousers, boys can’t wear skirts - I thought we had final consigned that nonsense to the annals of history, but it appears that, in trans activism they have reared their ugly head again.

A boy can’t like pink/skirts/dolls - he must be a girl, and must take Lupron to stop his puberty, become sterile, and have major surgery to create a poor facsimile of a vagina, and live a life dependant on medicine and surgery, because evil people have told him he can change sex. A girl who doesn’t like make up, skirts, dolls can’t be a girl, they must be a boy and need to have their perfectly healthy breasts amputated, and undergo surgery that will leave their arm or leg massively scarred to create a flesh tube that is not and never will be a penis.

I cannot understand why people are so eager to hurl us back to the middle of the last century, when biology and gender stereotypes restricted everyone’s lives. Why is it not more progressive to say that no matter what your biology is, you can like, dislike, love, wear, play with, and work at anything, without your choices being used to nail you into a box marked male or female?

You've got that completely the wrong way round.

Transphobes, if you mean 'people who believe in the existence of biological sex', think it's perfectly fine for a boy to wear pink and not need to have their penises removed for it.

@howdoesatoastermaketoast I am in awe. Thank you for the detail and eloquence in your responses.

@izimbra
As howdoes has explained the analogies don’t work. Anyway, here’s some info on the history of bulimia, which support my comment above. https://www.thecut.com/article/how-bulimia-became-a-medical-diagnosis.html

Social contagion.

Self harm as in cutting across the arms. Around 8 years ago my niece did it. There was quite a large group in her school that did it. Some really were anxious and self harmed. My niece said she did it because everyone else seemed to. She is now an adult and fortunately didn't cut deep, most of them didn't. Strange but true.

Contagion with eating disorders has also been shown.

Many one day the 'wrong body' with gender neutral or whatever will be shown too. Some teens that question want to fit in and some are easily persuaded into the argument if they feel different then they must be in the wrong body!

Sums it up. Such a ridiculous situation.