Analysing Historical Mass Psychogenic Epidemics & Gender Dysphoria

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Mia Hughes, of the WPATH Files report, recently posted a tweet regarding a lecture she gave at Stanford University. I thought I'd post the link here for those who are interested in watching the seminar:

https://x.com/_CryMiaRiver/status/1850196070485176720

'On Thursday, I gave a seminar at Stanford on my favourite subject: the epidemic of gender dysphoria in historical context. Using Ian Hacking's framework of the ecological niche of transient mental illnesses, I examine epidemics of fugue, hysteria, multiple personality and trans.'

I am interested in the subject. But is there an edited takeaway transcript/summary? I found this too irritating to persist with: vocal creaks; 'okay, errr...' rambling syntax... grrr!

Am I on my own in disliking listening to podcasts? I don't enjoy eavesdropping on chummy ramblings. Or, in this case, a recorded live unscripted seminar.

I have done Mia Hughes an injustice. This is an aplogy. Her talk IS scripted.

Mia has a light, pleasant speaking voice, but scarcely sounds as though she believes in her right to use it. If I were her mentor, I would advise her to avoid ending statements with a rising inflection - or beginning them with the phatic 'so'. Both undermine the authority of her important message.

(I wrote my first post after dipping into comments towards the end from those attending the seminar, and it was the delivery of these that set my teeth on edge.)

Edited for clarity.

If there is a transcript available I'm not aware of it.

From my point of view, I very much enjoy podcasts and I have no problems with regards unscripted talks & seminars. For me, if someone stands at the top of a lecture room and reads from a script (or even worse just reads the text off their slides) I find that boring because I could just read the script/slides myself and skip the lecture.

Mia's public email address is on her final slide for the talk: [email protected] it might be worth a try emailing her to ask for any transcript that might exist.

You can see a transcript on YouTube which is just conversion of the video to text.

I found it fascinating! Thanks for posting, Utopia.

What she describes is exactly what I have come to believe about the wave of transitioned youngsters.

It’s so obvious when you start to look at the phenomenon that the whole idea of “gender identity” has no scientific basis whatsoever. So when it’s a crucial concept as a basis for a diagnosis, then you have built everything on a fault line which will eventually collapse.

I can’t see any other way for the whole experiment to end, other than with a spectacular collapse under the weight of negligence cases, which is going to be awful. We will be left with a generation of children who have either been subject to this experiment themselves, or have watched their friends go through it. All the social complications we see now with who belongs in which space will continue to be a problem for their lifetime.

So… good talk, horrors on the way, if correct, which I fear she is.

I'm glad you enjoyed it @PriOn1

She mentioned that previous outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness lasted around 20 years and I'm hoping that this particular psychogenic epidemic will disperse in a similar amount of time (even sooner would be better).

And yes I agree that, like the lobotomy scandal, we will be dealing with the negative outcomes of 'gender affirmation' for a very long time. I also think that one particular subset of gender ideology will put up a fight to the bitter end and that is the men with AGP who are very much enjoying their time in the sun (but not necessarily enjoying sunlight as much, and sunlight is what it will take for the rest of society to see that these men are not friends of women and girls and gay people).

Tell you what, she is one brave young woman.

@Gagagardener - if I ever have to do a presentation I am going to beg you to listen to me before it. What feedback!

Am I on my own in disliking listening to podcasts? I don't enjoy eavesdropping on chummy ramblings
No @Gagagardener you are not alone! I'll listen to this, but I'd much rather read it!

I think this whole subject is extremely pertinent, thanks for the heads up. Will
Listen when I can.

It's clear society has often gone through these phases; what's new is the impact of social media. And we simply don't know what that will be like for future generations.

This needs to be more widely understood and addressed in psychiatry . It will happen again

Interesting - I will take a look.

I’m old enough to remember a dysphoria around multiple personalities being in the news and apparently being taken very seriously by the mainstream media at the time.

I also remember being very bored as an intelligent, probably under-stimulated, middle class teenager between the ages of about thirteen and sixteen - reading endless classic novels about life, love and death while waiting for something, anything, to happen in order to start the serious business of my own life! Of course I now know that is a hugely privileged position and no one actually wants big life events to happen to them as a teenager. I probably could have done with taking a GCSE early or something! But I remember that feeling and wonder what would have happened if a big social contagion had come along while I was in that mindset?

She mentions that happening in the 1980s/ 90s and a book about it

Someone called Hacking who wrote "Mad travellers," which this is taken from.

He wrote the book about an obscure mental illness that affected males a couple of hundred years ago somewhere in Europe whereby they'd start walking in a daze and be found miles away from home.

Because he couldn't write about the social contagion of multiple personality issues that was going on at the time.

I found this really interesting - the sound quality isn't perfect (a few weird banging noises at times) but it's a recording of a live seminar/webinar. I'm just grateful that modern technology allows us to access such things from the other side of the world.

Mia is an absolutely amazing researcher and speaker - I highly recommend the webinars she did with Genspect on a range of other past medical scandals (lobotomy, ovariotomy, apotemnophilia, growth hormones) drawing parallels with our current situation. WPATH Files Webinar Series: Medical Scandals of the Past — Genspect

(I would also say that her delivery is quite 'soft' but what she has to say is extremely clear and doesn't pull punches. I really admire her.)

oh god, I thought I was the only one!

no- I want properly edited speech with well constructed arguments addressed to me as an intelligent listener, not someone chatting to their mate

that's interesting I remember being the same, and it would account for the (seems to me) over representation of bright middle class teens
for me it resulted in me giving up on religion and becoming vegetarian which have both worked out well for me

Yes, I remember that late eighties teen phase as being a bit like ‘Pick your cause’ at my school. One girl brought a load of leaflets about animal testing into school, so we were all desperate to go to the Body Shop. One lucky girl had already been to a Body Shop (there wasn’t one in our nearest town) so brought some products into school to show the rest of us! 😂
Another brought in material about animal welfare and the meat industry, so several girls went vegetarian. Eating disorders and self harm were around but not hugely prevalent, although possibly influenced by Judy Blume’s ‘Deenie’.
The leaflet was the social media of choice (could be passed around at breaks and read in lessons) and, if it was on a printed leaflet, it surely was the truth? I think the TRAs might have actually missed a trick there tbh!
Anyway, just my own recollections!

Apologies, it wasn’t ‘Deenie’ - can’t remember the title now.

There was an even older mass psychogenic craze where people thought they were made out of glass. Even though we are a more recent society, with better science and understanding of the world and the human body, we are not immune to crazes and hysterias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_delusion

’In the 16th and 17th centuries of Europe, glass became a valuable commodity. It was regarded as a magical, alchemical object.[2] Associated with fragility and luxury, glass influenced the way noblemen of early Europe perceived their esteemed positions in society. This fixation on a novel material contributed to the manifestation of the delusion. Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry from the University of Toronto, attributes the rise of the delusion in 17th century Europe to the novelty of glass material, stating that "throughout history, the inventive unconscious mind has pegged its delusions on to new materials and the technological advances of the age."[3]

Concentration of the glass delusion among the wealthy and educated classes allowed modern scholars to associate it with a wider and better described disorder of melancholy.[2]’

There was also the very recent tourettes/tic epidemic
https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2022.06.4.19

Thank you @UtopiaPlanitia for posting this. Well worth a listen [better through a smart speaker for sound]. I thought the presentation and questions at the end provided a comprehensive overview of the issues around the rise of trans genderism especially in relation to children and young people.

Absolutely, and happening concurrently with the gender identity epidemic but somehow society deemed one to be psychogenic illness spread by social media and one to be a genuine expression of identity 🤷‍♀️

Sorry for the weird italics. I only wants to emphasize "kind"