To think trans is the new anorexia?

[SouperMario]

Controversial but I just read this piece and cannot help agreeing with a lot of it. Both forms of body dysmorphia, both social contagions.

https://unherd.com/2023/04/is-trans-the-new-anorexia/

Bang on, the most sensible thing I've read in a long time

This was an excellent article on the subject from a few years ago:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/7362652/changing-gender-new-anorexia/

@Sparklybanana 100%. Absolutely this.

It may be similar in some sense, but way more extreme.

Absolutely. Eating disorders are not aspirational and absolutely destroy lives. They are serious mental health conditions and to think that they are simply about appearance is naive and short sighted.

Social contagion. I watched a close teenage relative and all her friends become extremely thin last year, completely out the blue. They all self-referred to a local charity for counselling and are now back to healthy weights.
Very openly, they talk about how it is quicker to get therapy if you have an eating disorder than for other mental health issues.
They feel lucky to have had each other for support and understanding and see it as coincidence that they all suffered the same thing at the same time.
In a different part of the country, a friend is having the same experience with her daughter and friends becoming Trans.
I can remember being extremely miserable for a few of my teen years and wonder if I had something to latch on to in order to get help, I might have done the same thing.

I haven't read the article and I'm not going to, but as someone who has suffered from eating disorders in my early 20s I find the idea very insulting. No one else I knew had an eating disorder, I wasn't trying to be special and there was no social contagion. I was very, very unwell and wanted to die. It's not the same.

I don’t for a second think anorexia is a choice, but there was a lot of competitive non eating at school. Bonus points if you actually ‘fainted’.

Ive taught teenage girls for over 20 years and when you see successive waves of different ways for girls to manage their distress at becoming a woman, you can see that this article is undoubtedly correct.

It’s not dismissing the seriousness of eating disorders to suggest that there is a social contagion aspect to them, as people on here seem to be assuming. The distress is real but how it manifests is often dependent on social environments. At the moment, all my girls who would have been cutters ten years ago and anorexics ten years before that are trans. Sadly, sometimes they cut and starve themselves as well, but it’s not the focus as it would have been previously. Being a woman is really hard work. We should be recognising this and not suggesting to vulnerable girls that saying you’re a man is the way out. It really isn’t.

My thoughts too.

I suspect what they are clumsily trying to say is that teens struggling with mental health issues may latch on to a diagnosis that they think helps.

But I cannot believe that anyone healthy and happy would choose to develop any sort of mental health condition. That's total nonsense. Why would anyone do something that causes themselves more harm/ greater injury etc. I really don't know why anyone condones such dangerous and stigmatising commentary.

I think you've summarised really well here @NowtSalamander.

If there was no social contagion aspect to eating disorders, we wouldn't have the legislation in place that we do to (try) and protect people from malignant sites, blog and chat rooms that promote, encourage and perpetuate eating disorders.

It doesn't take away from the fact these are real conditions that causes untold damage.

This was the case when I was at school, I dread to think how much worse it would have been with social media- tumblr and livejournal were bad enough.

I don't think it's comparable in every way, but certainly there are similarities of people who seek physical changes to their bodies to try and cope with other issues.

I think there are similarities. What is very interesting is that anorexia varies very heavily depending on the society; there are places in which it barely exists. It is a medical condition that is based in psychology and is influenced by social contagion.

Trans is pretty similar, IMO. There has been an explosion in teenage girls identifying as trans and which can only be explained by social contagion. If it were just about acceptance, then it would take place across far more age groups.

I would say being "gender fluid" is.
Or choosing to be called "they them"
It's a joke. And people do it cuz it is woke and cool right now. Its all gen xers really. They are a weird bunch 😆

Started reading the article - found it incredibly offensive.

Trans is the new Goth.

'Being a woman is really hard work. We should be recognising this and not suggesting to vulnerable girls that saying you’re a man is the way out. It really isn’t.'

Well said. Not to mention that becoming a man, if you are actually female, is simply not possible!

It's down to adults to empathise with how teenagers are feeling, to reassure them that feeling at odds with your body is normal and understandable, but to hold on to reality at all costs. It's doing kids no favours at all to validate every new identity they adopt as they try to find a way through the pain

This whole thing is insulting for so many people. I'm an in recovery self-harming bulimic and in no way was it for attention. At all.
Compulsive/addictive behaviour? Yes. Social contagion. Nope. None of my friends did it.
Is anorexia more common in certain schools (like my own old school)? Yes, but that's a lot more to do with the type of girl who ended up there (super selective).
Lionel Shriver is a dreadful writer who regularly complains about the number of immigrants to this country despite being one herself.

Maybe you should expand your reading list then.

I take it you've never had an ED or known anyone affected by it, same as the poster spewing moronic nonsense you replied to.

Eating disorders are not aspirational and absolutely destroy lives

They absolutely destroy lives but they are (sadly) also aspirational in some groups. Lots of pro-ana material around a while back and loads of girls exchanging tips on how to be anorexic.

This doesn't make anorexia less real or less awful.

I had an ED and self harming behaviours in the 00s. I don't doubt that there was a social contagion element to this. Pockets cropped up in our circle of friends, it was also in the media a fair bit. That didn't mean my diagnoses weren't real, that I wasn't clearly very mentally distressed (during a period of great family upheaval) or that it wasn't awful, but it's well documented that teenage girls in particular are vulnerable to social contagion.

At my school, teenager in the 90s, there was an eating disorder ‘trend’. Two girls had ‘proper’ anorexia, stopped eating, ate an apple a day, got very thin, one was hospitalised and had to repeat the year. About 20 other girls started mimicking, some were my friends, they started to half-arse food control, skip lunch very vocally, and there was a weird trend for laxatives. They did not get very thin but we’re very vocal/publicly cried about it, took laxatives or vomited openly at school etc. It came to a head on a school trip when an outside adult noticed this trend and called it out. The girls were all hauled in, told to stop attention seeking and funnily enough it stopped. There was an assembly on copying eating disorders and attention seeking behaviour - they basically said those who copy are minimising real illness. Wouldn’t be done like that now but it was called out for what it was, which stopped it spreading and made it less attractive as the teachers were basically calling the copycats attention seekers which nobody wanted to emulate after that.

I see trends in my teen’s life too. In year 7 there were literally tens of kids saying they were trans, a new one each day or week for much of the year. I don’t know any who still identified as trans in year 8. Many said they were gay, some still are but many are now openly straight. Lots are currently self harming - cutting arms and openly showing the wounds - and that too appears to be a trend. Poor bloody kids. Being a teen is hard and finding your real self even harder in the age of social media. As my 1990s anorexia trend shows, this isn’t a new thing - the desire to be different and for attention - but it is fuelled and spread wider by social media and the attention seeking nature of that pernicious form of communication that most teens subscribe to.

I feel sorry for those who genuinely have eating disorders, have gender dysmorphia, are self harming because they are desperate, because the trends that copy them serve to minimise the genuine conditions.

@GrammarTeacher

I had an ED and I don't find it remotely insulting. Being thin is worshipped (in societies where being fat is worshipped, they have different psychological illnesses). It has a very high social component. Whether or not you know lots of people suffering, you absolutely will have been exposed to discussions of which person has lost weight, which celebrity is "too thin"/"too fat", whatever. Many anorexics are on the autistic spectrum and find having rules to control an aspect of their life during puberty (which is very frightening to people who like certainty) very comforting. Same applies for trans - having a "reason" why you are different and a cause to align too and an outlet for your misery gives kids some comfort.

I'm afraid I decided to stop eating aged 14 to get attention from friends who had started to leave me out of stuff.

Then it turned into a full blown eating disorder but very much fuelled by a lack of control / body dismophia / not fitting in / hormonal turmoil etc

So I very much recognise these arguments and have been saying so for a long time. Pretty sure teenage me would have latched onto Trans as an alternative / extra way of trying to cope with my feelings

Why does everyone take so much offence at everything? No one can have a discussion anymore without people shouting that no one understands, it's some sort of phobic, or offensive etc etc.

I used to self harm as a teenager. Why? Because I was unhappy and I wanted people to notice me. I didn't think that was the reason at the time, but it was. Older me can recognise that. I tried not eating at one point, but I found that too hard as I liked food too much. So self harm fitted me better. I also remember getting laughed at Because I said i fancied boys only. All the "popular" girls said they were bisexual, so when I said I was straight they all just laughed at me.
I'm pretty sure the majority are just straight now. Overall I was just a sad young girl who didn't fit in and didn't know why.

I think people forget just how awful being a teenager can be. Especially if you don't fit it, are quiet or different, or autistic (like it turns out I was) or other ND.

Do I think all people who say/said they're anorexic are lying and doing it through choice? No. Are some? Yes. Are all self harmers doing it for attention? No. Are some? Yes. Are all trans people faking and doing it to be edgy and cool? No. Are some? Yes.

Some people on this thread take everything too personally and assume people mean them. The fact some people lie about conditions doesn't mean they think you are as well. But SOME people do lie and fake conditions for attention. And denying it happens doesn't help anyone.