There's more trans people nowadays because it is more accepted

[itssunnyyay]

Thoughts?

I was with a friend of mine at the weekend who is a primary teacher and she mentioned that there are 2 kids in year 5 at her school who are trans, one is a trans girl and one is a trans boy.

She then said 'do you think that trans is more common now because parents and society in general are more accepting of it?' .. so clearly she is wondering a little bit about it and this is the conclusion she has come to.

Tbh, I kind of tried to change the subject because I knew she would view my thoughts as bigoted, but If her idea was true, then why has no one that we went to school with now come out as trans? If the only reason there now seems to be more trans people than before, was that it is now more accepted, then surely we would be seeing people of all ages suddenly coming out as trans?

We have to be a little careful about looking back on the 80s with rose tinted spectacles. It is absolutely true that fashions of the time challenged gender norms without any suggestion that it meant people were trans. Nobody suggested that Annie Lennox should start testosterone as she must really be male, and Adam Ant was not suspected to be female despite his taste in eye makeup. And i do think that's important, and the way that attitude has changed has definitely had a negative impact on young people's beliefs around gender nowadays. I also think there was more variety in fashion - it was easier to find a "tribe" to belong to as there was more choice. When I look at my teens' friends now, they are all a lot more homogenous in look, music taste etc than I recall we were in the 80s.(Though that may be me looking back too fondly I suppose.)
But we must be careful not to reinvent the 80s as a time of tolerance and acceptance. Gender sterotypes were well and truly ingrained in the "normal" world. I could watch the stars on MTV and think it was cool how they expressed themselves, but I wasn't even allowed to wear trousers to work myself, and women's rights were far less than now. I think homophobia was extremely prevalent and open too. People have got better at disguising prejudices as something else now I think, but I'm not sure things have actually changed that much really. There are a few things I'd like to bring back from my youth, but a lot that, despite everything, I think is actually better now.

@neverthenot

There was an island somewhere (I need to look it up as I've mentioned this a lot) that didn't get TV till relatively late. Prior to tv they had no recorded mental health issues such as anorexia

Anorexia has always existed and is culturally interpreted, such as seen as a religious expression through the lens of extreme fasting in some African countries where female bodies are considered more attractive with fat, or in European countries in centuries past.

It was the 'Affluenza Virus' and it was as much about mental health generally. I remember the anorexia study being mentioned but the whole book looks at how visual advertising and media impacts mental health.

I agree re anorexia always existing - I remember reading of it being documented in even the medieval times and before. But seen as extreme fasting.

Helena describes the impact of sm and tumblr. This is an amazing and heart wrenching account.

https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name

My perception of myself as trans formed in the intersection between overwhelming emotional struggles, heavy fantasy, emotional and intellectual infatuation with males (real people, fictional characters, and the idea of males generally), fanfiction, social and ideological incentives to be trans, and insulation from experiences and perspectives that might have challenged the views I was developing about myself and the world. Each individual girl’s story will vary, give or take a few factors, but in the broadest sense these are the basic factors that comprise the trans “social contagion” described by people like researcher Lisa Littman and Abigail Shrier in her book, Irreversible Damage, particularly when we are talking about male-attracted girls. What I’ve said here barely scratches the surface.

It was all shared and evolved through online friends on tumblr

I had a thought the other day. I don't know if anyone here ever watched the channel 4 programme "Skins"? It (fiction) followed a group of teenagers with all the various usual coming of age issues. I remember that series 1 was all teens the same age as me, ie millennials born in the late 80s.

Then series 2 and onward followed their younger siblings instead. Millennials born in the early 90s. It's subtle, but it made a big difference to the programme and the themes and what's more I remember it feeling incredibly accurate, and immediately being turned off series 2 because their problems were things I couldn't relate to.

The difference in those couple of years - we had instant messaging and texting, but didn't get social media until we were 15/16/17. And it was MySpace. There was no Twitter, no Tumblr, no tiktok, no vine, no Snapchat. YouTube existed but not as a platform like it is now. Hardly anyone went on the internet except for geeks and most people that did went on places like deviant art or live Journal. There were forums of course but not so many sites with algorithms dedicated to showing you content they know you'll like in order to keep you viewing longer. Those things were only just starting to be invented.

They had MySpace and Facebook from about 13 and very quickly got Tumblr and Twitter after that. Algorithms are go.

That's not the cohort that are becoming trans in such large numbers I don't think, they'd be about 30 now, but it was interesting to me when I realised that little shift and what it potentially meant.

@ZaraSizeMedium

Yes, where is the deluge of middle aged women coming out as transmen, purchasing breast binders and underwear fillers, at long last ready to live the rest of their lives as their true authentic self? …. Tumbleweed.

Yes, I think about this often! Hopefully the penning will drop with the masses one day.

It's "more common " these days because of social contagion and AGP men realising they can threaten and oppress women into accepting their private sexual fantasies in plain sight. Of everyone. Including children.