To wonder if the rise in gender confusion is due to

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The levels of oestrogen in water? For many years now the levels of female hormones in the water supply has been steadily building up, due to the use of hormonal contraception, which cannot be filtered out of the waste water, as well as agricultural practices which contaminate water due to run off from fields into the water supply. This has been affecting marine life for a long time, so it stands to reason that it’s also affecting humans.

I’m sure there’s other factors too, there seems to be a disproportionate number of SEN teens confused about their gender, so maybe it’s a feeling of not belonging for them which leads them to think that they must have been born in the wrong body and that’s why they don’t fit in. But is it possible that there is a rise in genuine confusion in males feeling like females due to the female hormones they’re ingesting every day?

Disclaimer - I’m not a scientist so happy to be corrected!

Thanks for being bold enough to start this thread despite not being a scientist.

Not sure you needed to mention you are not a scientist given the contents of your post make that abundantly clear.

Not a scientist but genuinely curious, and a quick google will verify from a number of published articles that there is indeed an increase of oestrogen in the drinking water.

How would this explain the increase of trans men as well OP? Surely everyone should be going in one direction if this was the case.

I think you're confusing sex and gender identity perhaps? Many people with trans gender identities would not agree that "woman" and "female" mean the same thing, because "woman" now means something different.

Also if you're a male who goes onto female hormones unknowingly, what specifically would be the consequences and why would you associate any of the consequences with either "having a female body" or "being the indefinable thing that is a woman"? Surely you'd just feel like yourself.

No because then it would all be one way - you would get far fewer girls identifying as boys

I suspect that the more rigid we are in gender norms the more it rises / and gender norms are everywhere

and social media / because when 40 years ago you thought something had gone wrong and started callling yourself a boys name it was treated as a nonsense phase not supported in the slightest

No it’s just a fashion no science just bit of attention seeking

LOL at the rude comments OP! It was an interesting question, you’d think scientists would value an enquiring mind, but apparently not! 🫣😂

I suspect that the more rigid we are in gender norms the more it rises / and gender norms are everywhere

Yes, we used to have campaigns liked "let toys be toys" and now it's "if you are a boy who likes dolls then maybe you are "really" on some level a girl".

If you think that people of either sex only display certain behavioural traits, then when you come across someone who doesn't fit that pattern, the conclusions are either that the behavioural traits are "wrong", the sex of the body is wrong, OR that your theory of assigned traits solely to one sex is wrong.

I don't quite understand why people would go with the first two conclusions over third one which is far more of an inclusive position.

Maybe.
I don’t think it’s a chemical difference though.
My take on it is that there are basically two different paths - being a girl having a traumatic childhood (Cass report identified that 97.5% of transitioning teens are autistic, abused, neglected or have severe mental illness). This is a fad much like goths, and has parallels to other mental conditions like anorexia and bulimia, affecting a similar demographic and with a similar contagion effect. This is encouraged by the rise in more inflexible gender stereotypes over the last few years. The only difference in how it’s been treated is that trans has been wholly validated rather than being seen for what it is.

Then we have the men, and the catastrophic rise in porn culture which starts younger than ever before, and violent videos are easier to find now. Porn is addictive and these men need to find ever more ways to get their rocks off.
Transsexuals of the past tended to be gay men with internalised homophobia. Whilst they do still exist the majority of trans identified men are now AGP - turned on by viewing themselves as women and by others viewing them as such, whilst still behaving in very much male ways, and many also getting off on humiliation. Again this is treated by validating.

To me it’s fairly obvious that it’s a societal issue that people have been manipulated into.

There used to be a FB page called Let toys be toys or Let clothes be clothes, or something like that, campaigning against the growing gender stereotypes in children’s clothes.

I think she disbanded it because she was openly GC and her followers bizarrely didn’t like that - almost like they really didn’t understand the premise of the page!

It would be interesting to know the stats of how many boys vs girls believe they’re trans. I don’t know of any girls, but I know of at least 5 sons of friends and acquaintances that believe they’re girls. And both of my DC are female so there’s a lot more girls in our lives than boys. No it doesn’t explain girls who believe they’re trans but there’s definitely other factors - peer pressure, a fad, jumping on the bandwagon etc.

It is environmental, certainly, but more likely the social/cultural environment. This affects sexual behaviour in lots of ways. For example, there has been a tightening of gender stereotyping due to commercial pressures. The need to sell products and services such as make up, cosmetic surgery etc, marketing functions to create customers by generating dissatisfaction and selling a solution.

Oestrogen in the water?
Well could be,
or Covid,
or maybe even Brexit?

Thanks, I think that’s a really interesting and accurate description of what’s going on.

How popular was the gender bandwagon before social media?

I expect there are multiple variables contributing. I think fashion and modern culture plays a big part of it atm. People want to be different and they want to be part of the associated subculture. I think it's very dangerous and I really feel for any parent who has to deal with a child wanting to change sex.

It’s about 70% female at the younger ages and the opposite at the older age group last time I looked

if it was chemical then you would get other behaviour related changes / the female hormones probably do make us more maternal and less selfish ( and that’s probably why the menopause is common time for women leaning not to give a fuck about anyone else ) and that is certainly not happening with the older men who transition

I don’t have the figures to hand but not popular at all.

In children there were a few, but mostly non conforming gay boys or lesbian girls with parents who would never accept that (see Susie Green, ex head of Mermaids, as an example. All of her comments on transitioning her son point to that).

In men we had the gay men with internalised homophobia who would transition to ease their misplaced guilt at wanting to be with men.
Then we had the obvious AGPs like Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard. Cross dressers, transvestites, whatever they used to be called. These are the men emboldened by the last 11 years of Stonewall’s input. Although Grayson Perry did write that he wasn’t a fan of this movement as his cross dressing no longer shocked women and made them uncomfortable (I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist), which tells you exactly what these men are like.

I don’t know of any girls, but I know of at least 5 sons of friends and acquaintances that believe they’re girls.

I wonder what they would say if you asked them what a girl is (if it isn't "female") and whether broadly speaking it's some notion of femininity?

Whether or not one considers "femininity" to be a requirement of being a woman, I guess it would be interesting to see if this has increased alongside oestrogen levels - although this would be extremely difficult to measure and disentangle from the various societal and cultural changes over the years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/49613.stm

Just leaving this here…..

Yes if there’s no other explanation for these men’s behaviour blame women for having a choice over their bodies that must be the reason for men’s problems.

You have explained really well my thoughts on it. Especially the different types of male to female, the first type being gay, quite effeminate, transition early and ‘pass’ well (I can accept that people in the category can genuinely feel trapped in the wrong body) and the middle age cross dressers who don’t usually have their dicks cut off, bad wigs, bad makeup and very clearly male in appearance. These are the type we don’t want sharing our spaces with, I agree with you that these are sexual and fetish related and they enjoy making women feel uncomfortable.

I think it’s a great thing to have an enquiring mind OP and some of the posts on here are just proof of the notion that a closed mind is a dull one.

It’s an interesting idea and there is no doubt in my mind that hormones in the water have effects we can only really see after generations. Like the microplastic problem that we are seeing in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Scary.

I do think this instance is mainly social contagion and young people not having their tribe anymore. It’s isolation and the fact that it’s a massive money spinner for pharmaceutical companies. The AGP men will always be present as perverted men have their dirty fingers in everything.