UnHerd: Why are fewer young people identifying as trans?

[Signalbox]

Is the transgender trend amongst our youth finally fizzling out? Let’s hope so!

https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-are-fewer-young-people-identifying-as-trans/

Archive…

https://archive.ph/6a5fR

Twitter…

https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659

“The fall of trans and queer seems most similar to the fading of a fashion or trend. It happened largely independently of shifts in political beliefs and social media use, though improved mental health played a role”

It's almost like it's a social contagion situation, isn't it.

Just came here to post about this. Very interesting.

And also extremely worrying with regards to those who have gone the surgical route.

The government needs to be preparing now for the very likely increase in detransitioners. The fallout could be huge.

I agree, it's a see I told you moment, but also deeply sad for those children who were sold a lie and will live with those consequences for the rest of their lives.

Like if you cut off your arms, wings will grow and you can fly....

Oh shit the wings didn't in fact grow and now you have to live without arms forever...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2808707

A very rough figure of 12000 'gender affirming' surgeries per annum in the US.

If half of these people desist, that is many thousands of people who may be left with surgeries that have lifelong impacts. For a passing fad. It's a horrible thought.

In a litigious society? Its going to be enormous.

And if it's social contagion and done to be part of a group and then that group disappears or becomes very out of fashion with your peer group and ... you're stuck with it.

It really is horrendous.

When everyone's doing it, you're not unique, you're just following the crowd.

As with every social contagion, it's now tipped into ubiquity and has lost it's lure.

Less of an impact on those who just called themselves a different name and can now just quietly drop the whole thing or reinvent themselves into whatever trend comes next. Awful for those who have made irreversible changes to themselves.

I wonder about the impact of lockdown. If you think of the key development period of adolescence being between the ages of 13 - 21, and it all finished 4 years ago, then we're over the hump of those who were heavily exposed to trans ideology in 2020 - 21 when normal adolescent experiences were off limits.

The best way to put kids off a religion is to ram it down their throats in school. Some will stay believers but many will rebel.

I’ve seen this with the grandsprogs: they’re so over it! The eyerolls when someone ‘non-binary’ is mentioned!

i feel immensely sorry for those permanently harmed by this fad.

"Democratic, trans and queer individuals appear to be more “woke” than straight people."

LGBTQID?

Yep. Teens now are enormously scathing about it all. A few years of forced Stonewall indoctrination led to a big backlash here.

I’m pleased to see that this is happening, but I feel the article wasn’t written particularly well.

The author clearly wants to frame it as a fad (I’m not disagreeing), but fails to robustly back the idea up. By not addressing other potential reasons for lowering rates he’s leaving himself open to criticism. He ought to have steelmanned the opposing position and disproved the other factors that might be at play.

Two off the top of my head:

1. the climate feels less welcoming to gender questioning youth in the USA. Some teens who might otherwise have explored alternate gender identities no longer feel comfortable doing so.
2. Gender clinics have closed or laws have been changed which make transition more difficult. Therefore fewer young people have the opportunity to progress through them.

There’s obviously a social contagion aspect but presenting a speculative argument as to the cause of the fall in numbers isn’t good evidence and it won’t change any minds.

It's horrific how much damage gender ideology has caused. I hope those who promoted it feel ashamed when the harm done to young people becomes widely apparent.

No shit Sherlock

I think of it as a fashion . It seemed very prevalent/ on the rise when my dc were at school. Around 2017 / 2018.

It was a way to rebel against parents and possibly teachers. School uniform was way stricter than when I was at school in the 80s, so how do you rebel?

Back in the day the punks were the rebels, then they were seen as part of British culture. The same with mods and rockers before that.

I keep thinking of the girl I saw at a music festival with her back to me, dancing around in front of her friends, a bit drunk, holding her shirt wide open while they laughed and cheered. Being much older, I smiled indulgently and thought luckily she was safe with her friends.

Was she hell. She danced round and I saw she wasn't exposing her breasts but two horrible scars where she'd had them amputated. I could have wept. I keep thinking of her funny tipsy joy, and her stupid friends egging her on.

I hope to god she had nothing worse done. I hope every surgeon involved in this shit show is struck off for life.

Very noticeable in the school where I work.
We still have girls who wear the boy’s uniform, have short hair etc but they tend to keep their female names. So good to see.

Oh good, so they're not trans at all, just normal tomboys. Wish I could have worn trousers at school!

That is just incredibly heart breaking. Surgeons performing these mutilations should be struck off. Sociopaths every one of them.

https://benryan.substack.com/p/no-the-data-hasnt-shown-that-transgenderism

It's such a thankless job for people to make sure that they know what is acceptable and not for today's society, since people who don't fit within the "norms" can be ostracized from the rest of the masses. BTW the numbers posted aren't correct because medical professionals who support adults going through gender transition, often going through several years of psychological and hormone therapy before actual gender reassignment, don't always publish them to protect their patient privacy. So it's a lot harder to go through the process than someone just going to have leg lengthening or breast enlargement or facial reconstruction to look like their favorite movie star. But again, no one is complaining about all of these other people having body mutilations spending an estimated nearly $57 billion in all of 2024. But when it comes to gender dysmorphia, we have experts that know better than those adults who are finally at peace feeling much better once their transition has been done. Yes a few regret it, like any elective procedure, which is why it's a process over several years that includes a psychological analysis. Shame we can't do the same with people having children - it's embarrassing.

Thanks for sharing this breakdown of the actual data and issues. Very frustrating how easy it is to just lie about data now and how few people question it as long as it matches their world view (myself included, I initially ignored this thread because I believe there are trans people and dislike the vitriol this board often spews against them)

No worries. Same. And its important to note the bloke who wrote the article (Ben Ryan) isn't exactly known for his pro trans position.

The annoying part is like all misinformation it gets seen by millions of people & regurgitated & never corrected.

My DD does this hopefully grow out of it shes only 11 and at a crucial point when she got her periods at 10 and was freaked out a school friend told her about his sister who is now a boy. She is also awaiting assessment think it’s very common for these kids to go through as they start to realise they are different. I was freaked out and very upset but not so much now that the tide is well a truly turning.

I was reading his responses on Nitter and there were a lot of bits that seemed shoddy. NB identities do seem to have gone down on his figs, but he said the rest was based on assumptions that, with a single M/F option for who the responder was, "most" transpeople would give the gender with which they identified. But no basis for that given.
It would be wonderful and not even surprising if trans identities are falling out of fashion amongst those most likely to be harmed by them, but I'd like the research a bit more robust.

All the data around the trans issue is shoddy, including what even is trans (or non-binary). I agree that a degree of caution is warranted. BUT, the data is longitudinal, and it appears that it is measuring something.