When Exactly did Trans/Non Binary Become So Commonplace?

[miniaturepixieonacid]

This isn't to start (yet another!) debate on the rights and wrongs of gender identification, transitioning etc. Just pondering on how quickly and in what year it became so common.

I'm just watching an old episode of Waterloo Road (Drama set in a comprehensive school) where one of the characters (Casey Barry for anyone who watched it) realises that she wants to be a boy rather than a tomboy and everyone reacts as if it's extremely unusual. The other pupils mock and bully her, her brother gets violent and tells her she is disgusting and a freak and the teachers talk about what a difficult road she has ahead and how much support she will need.

The episode is set in 2013. Not the 1990s. Only just over 10 years ago. But in a Year 10/11 class in a comprehensive in 2024 this wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, would it. There will be several trans and non binary pupils (maybe even several per year group) and pupils would consider it normal.

I teach in a prep school (only goes up to Year 8) so we haven't actually yet had a single pupil transition to the opposite gender. There's one 10 year old who I could potentially see it happening to over the next couple of years but it hasn't yet. So I'm relatively unknowledgable about the whole thing.

Interested to know from secondary school teachers who have been teaching for 10+ years what year you think it was that transitioning and being non binary went from rare to a relatively popular trend.

No one has denied it’s a ‘new thing’. This is so often the line sent out like it’s a phenomenon drawn out of the blue recently. But those who use old culture like it’s the same as the current gender ideology are completely misunderstanding history and culture. That it comes from a place of people seeing sexist stereotypes across the eras and thinking that being non-conforming to your sex is breaking the wheel. It’s not, it’s just conformity in another guise. Denying biological reality because you disagree with sociological expectations of your sex doesn’t mean appropriation or misrepresentation of old cultural practices is the future.

I have noticed a small increase in teenage girls becoming interested in Christianity and Islam, ‘converting’ to those faiths. I suspect there is a need in the teenage years to rebel and non-conform to perceived expectations whilst finding a tribe.

Goth, punk, drugs, alcohol, satanism and witchcraft were all things done by parents and grandparents.

Trans was just a way of being part of a tribe with extra points for the supposed ‘oppression’. Now that’s old hat, conformist religion will be the next fashion.

Sorry, but are we even sure "gender dysphoria" is a meaningful medical term?

What evidence is there that people have always had it?

Has anyone plotted trans nos. vs availability of decent mental health support and external triggers to population mental health (eg credit crunch, covid etc)?

I'm not convinced about 74 genders either, I just think there are different words to describe people and how they feel about themselves, in different cultures. Language changes and evolves over time, so it makes sense that the words we use might differ.

I also don't expect people to accept me, but I accept myself and that's what matters.

I think some of the things coming out of the trans and non binary community are ridiculous, and I also loathe the complete lack of accountability in some circles. I have tried to challenge problems within the community over the years, but it's rarely met with any sort of action. I pulled away from being active in the communities last year, because I don't want to participate in something that doesn't acknowledge that we do have issues. It's lonely as fuck to be honest, but that's the truth.

https://www.sexualdiversity.org/edu/1111.php

I’m going to correct myself - there are 107 gender identities now, of which transwoman, transman and non-binary are 3 of the 107.

I don’t believe in them - I believe in the two sexes and in personalities - but I don’t “hate” those who identify as a transmasc - Demi-boi or whatever.

I suppose the question is... why is the latest teen tribe a combination of pornsick straight teen boys, gay teens of both sexes, and autistic and depressed girls and girls who have been harassed and sexually assaulted.

Have any other past teen tribes had a similar demographic, and if not why have this unlikely group of under-privileged teens got in common?

I also don't expect people to accept me, but I accept myself and that's what matters

With respect, and I mean this kindly, surely this is something all humans should strive for? Not just those with particular gender identities?

I also don't expect people to accept me, but I accept myself and that's what matters.

I completely agree. You can call yourself whatever you want. But I am under no obligation to agree. You are either male or female. That is just a fact, like the earth being a sphere. But in the same way people believe in God, I don’t and I don’t believe in gender I shouldn’t be told I have to.

But the main issue is we have reached a point that if a child says they’re non-binary like you are saying, then the child is affirmed by doctors that it is true, and given hormones and surgery to match that identity, with the irrevocable harm that comes with that.

Now that’s old hat, conformist religion will be the next fashion.

Converting to evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity is so 80s.

I think some of the things coming out of the trans and non binary community are ridiculous

To be honest with you I think that most of the foundational ideas of the trans community are ridiculous - the idea that some people are born in the wrong body; the idea that you can dictate another person's third party pronouns that they use to describe you; the idea that gender identity carries any weight in a world where the M/F division is sex not gender; the idea that liking dresses is inherently womanly.

It's lonely as fuck to be honest, but that's the truth.

You are clearly more aware than many in the trans community and that in itself brings added problems. Good luck finding your people. BUT, I have to say that my suspicion is that the trans community is made up of two types of people -

Unhappy ones - unhappy because they have not had their underlying mental health issues addressed and are instead expecting transition to cure them.

Happy ones - probably the minority. Happy because they revel in their ability to be abusive; porn-obsessed; boundary transgressing; abusive; misogynistic; bringing new members into the tribe (are we allowed to use the better c-word).

There’s defiantly a big element of this being the latest teenage sub culture. Like goth or emo. Or some similarity with anorexia or self harm when that used to spread amongst teenagers.
That will be alongside as well as some genuine cases of dysphoria etc.

Pretty sure a lot of trans teens also self-harm. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if 50% of teen self-harmers today are trans (and that's without including cross sex hormones or puberty blockers or binders as self harm or making yourself deeply unpopular by trying to dictate how others see you and refer to you).

Everyone is non binary, not one person only does all male things or all female things.

It isn't a new thing, it's just been given a new name.

I don't actually agree with children being given hormones. Precocious puberty is why puberty blockers exist, and so I would rather a child were given blockers (not hormones) until they figure things out and by that I mean a LOT of monitoring by doctors and family, listening to and observing the child and their behaviours. If it turns out that they want to experiment with their appearance in non permanent ways, and realise they are okay with who they are after a result of that (as in a phase because we know kids go through a lot of phases) then I'd hope that a parent would let them explore whilst closely monitoring the situation.

But that isn’t what happens. For someone who is involved and has argued with trans activists this is incredibly naive. 98% of children who go on puberty blockers as part of a trans identity progress onto wrong sex hormones. There is no figuring it out. It consolidates the trans identity.

Social transition leads to puberty blockers.

Puberty blockers leads to testosterone or oestrogen in almost every case.

The effects of these treatments are irreversible and harmful.

Gender non-confirming people exists

Confused children struggling with puberty exist.

Porn sick and/or fetishists (mostly male) exist.

Gender dysphoria exists (though I suspect in tiny numbers).

Grouping all these people under the label of 'trans' benefits only the fetishists. It's catastrophic for everyone else.

I can see a lot of similarities in the teens who were metal heads, goths, emo, self harmers, bullied, autistic etc.

The relatively new addition of porn sickness and sexual assault being factors?, I would bet money on these additions being linked to the increase in easy availability of extreme pornography, plus the realisation by ‘charities’ and health professionals that there is big money to be made in this area, combined with better understanding /AI of using social media to target the vulnerable.

Teen tribalism isn’t new, the external influencing factors are.

Actually puberty blockers were developed as a cancer treatment. For prostate cancer.

Using puberty blockers has been shown to have many significant negative effects. Including severely lowered bone density when used as a treatment for gender dysphoria. I would look up the Lupron discussion board and the USA class action of all the women who were once prescribed this for precocious puberty. A decision that parents took because those girls had a physical Medical condition, not a mental health issue.

The side effects are life limiting. They also include severe connective tissue issues. Teeth falling out, jaws constantly dislocating as well as osteoporosis.

Blockers are very powerful hormones. They induce hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism. It’s hubris to think that puberty can be just shut off completely without an impact on physical and psychological growth. If puberty has started the blockers induce an immediate menopausal type state.

And who knows if they’re reversible - blockers used for precocious puberty are stopped at an age when puberty is supposed to happen. When used for trans identifying children they are given at ages when puberty would normally be happening.

No one knows if they are reversible because hardly any one stops them. Is it a pause, or does it lock them in?

98% of children who go on puberty blockers as part of a trans identity progress onto wrong sex hormones.

And part of the reason for that is that going through puberty itself is what ultimately gets the vast majority of kids past their dysphoric state. Puberty is the solution. Blocking it is as misguided as it's possible to be.

The original cohort of dysphoric children anyway - the GNC boys, who identified as girls. 70-80% of this group went through a normal male puberty and left it comfortable with their male bodies. Most were gay.

The girls are different, with many not identifying as trans/NB until puberty. And somehow we’re supposed to believe these often autistic girls were “always” male, and not just struggling with the awkwardness and expectations from a female puberty.

The action with the most success in resolving 'gender confusion' in children and young teens is no action at all, i.e. allowing them to progress through a normal puberty.

84% of 'gender confused/distressed' children align with their birth sex if allowed to experience puberty. Importance of being persistent. Should transgender children be allowed to transition socially? | Journal of Medical Ethics (bmj.com)

Yet 98% of all children who are prescribed puberty blockers progress to cross-sex hormones (see Cass report). Those figures simply don't add up.

Exactly. Children see “non-binary” as an identity to aspire to and end up with mastectomies. Girls as young as 12 in the US, 15 in other countries. Because instead of “non-binary” being explained as how all humans exist, it’s explained as a need to remove defining secondary sex characteristics. And doctors enable it.

It is just not possible for people to live their own lives because of the wider context of what doctors do to children as a consequence.

So I was a teenage freak and so we're my friendship group. The misfits, the beautiful freaks etc. At least one had what I'd call actual gender dysphoria (which abated) the rest of us were working out our anxieties, weirdness etc, I know so many people that self harmed in those days.

The thing is, we were a minority and so many people have taken trans trend on face value, chances are they weren't a dog collar, befishnetted teen goth looking for their tribe.

To me this is very much a subculture. Dysphoria is real, but it's rare, now we are to believe at face value that it is commonplace. It is not. What's never new is subculture, tribes and misfits and this is the latest incarnation. I've been aware of it only the last 6 or 7 years.

For me one of the big issues I have with Puberty blockers is that we all know they are used off label to treat gender dysphoria (including those that manufacture them) and yet I have yet to see any evidence that clinical trials are underway. Why no clinical trials to get them approved for use in gender dysphoria by FDA, MHRA and others?