Came across this article on the Conversation Australia site, which is a place where academics can disseminate their research findings in an accessible way.
As we all know, at the Tavistock GIDS clinic, the numbers of young girls wanting to transition vastly outnumbered the number of young boys. About 3/4 of adolescents seen by the clinics were teenage girls. This led many people to believe that this was an example of social contagion happening among teenage girls.
This article suggests that, in fact, gender clinics see equal numbers of boys and girls. I was intrigued, so read on. But of course when you read it, you quickly realise the opposite is true. They note that yes, most children/adolescents attending gender clinics are girls – but that when it comes to adult clinics, the majority are male! More men than women are referred to adult gender clinics.
Instead of drawing the obvious conclusion that we are looking at two very different cohorts - one being vulnerable teenage girls, susceptible to social contagion, the other being adult men with perhaps different motivations for identifying as the opposite sex, they conclude that the whole social contagion idea is wrong and that trans identity is something innate that happens equally between two sexes.
Obviously this requires them to overlook the body of evidence that shows trans-identifying girls tend to be same-sex attracted, autistic and often have a history of abuse. They ignore the evidence showing that trans-identifying adult males are often autogynephilic.
As ever, we have to ask whether this is an example of deliberate dishonesty or simple stupidity.
theconversation.com/critics-claim-gender-clinics-are-seeing-an-excess-of-trans-boys-but-new-data-suggest-otherwise-257817