“Gender identity” ideology has caused a large increase in referrals amongst children, especially girls to gender identity clinics across the Western world. Traditionally, there were always more referrals amongst males, but in the 2010s, boys were overtaken by girls. In less than a decade, in England alone, there has been a 1,460 pc. increase in referrals amongst boys and 5,337 pc. increase amongst girls.1
One argument in believers of “gender identity” is this increase was caused by an increased acceptance of the “transgender” identity. However at least one poll in the US showed that there has been a decline, not a rise, in “LGBT acceptance”,2 amongst young people.
The increase in referrals has happened at the same time that “gender identity” ideology is being taught in schools, by charities who purport to help children with “transgender” issues, such as Mermaids. “Gender identity” is presented to children in terms of crude stereotypes, one graphic says that “Gender identity is also on a spectrum. We all have our unique identity”, illustrated with a scale between 1-12, with Barbie at one end, and G. I. Joe at the other.
The implication is that if you aren’t a masculine male, or a feminine female, then this somehow means that you were the other sex. Rather than helping children, this induces confusion, amongst girls who are tomboys, or boys who are feminine, to think that they are in fact “transgender”.
This problem was called out by adults that had had such childhoods, such as the YouTuber Arielle Scarcella, who made a series of videos about how the loose definitions of “gender identity” and “trans” seemed to include anyone who is gender non-conforming, like herself.3
Schools, led by charities such as Mermaids are arguably inducing confusion in children and driving referrals, rather than helping children, in a form of “iatrogenesis” (“harm brought forth by the healer”), a word that describes the phenomenon where healthcare professionals cause, rather than cure illness.4
It would arguably be better to teach nothing about issues around “gender identity” disorder. The children who do have issues will naturally make themselves known to parents, who can handle the issue privately. As Abigail Shrier writes in her book Irreversible Damage: the transgender craze seducing our daughters:
A small number of students in every school are perhaps naturally gender confused or gender dysphoric. If you make them the subject of an assembly, you will spread confusion. There are ways to oppose bullying without putting gender ideology front and center. It isn’t hard: you simply punish bullying—for any reason. There is no reason to forment gender confusion merely to impress kids with the critical importance of treating all others with decency.5
The case studies that Shrier covers in the book show, however, that many girls, if not most, who identify as “transgender” are not tomboys, but are otherwise feminine. Shrier sees that “gender dysphoria” is a proxy to the distress girls experience during adolescence, similar to many conditions in the past:
The Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century are closer to the mark. So are the nervous disorders of the eighteenth and neurasthenia epidemic of the nineteenth century. Anorexia nervosa, repressed memory, bulimia, and the cutting contagion in the twentieth. One protagonist has led them all, notorious for magnifying her own psychic pain: the adolescent girl. Her distress is real. But her self-diagnosis, in each case, is flawed—more the result of encouragement and suggestion than psychological necessity… Today’s diagnostic craze isn’t demonic possession, it’s “gender dysphoria.” And its “cure” is not exorcism, laxatives, or purging. It’s testosterone and “top surgery”.6
Shrier follows that such psychological disorders are contagious amongst girls. In Hong Kong, there had never been an epidemic of “anorexia” until their local media publicised the “Western ailment” of anorexia nervosa, which had been responsible for a girl’s death. There was an outbreak of girls presenting with symptoms afterwards.7
Looking at Zoomer social media platforms, such as TikTok, it appears that social media can drive epidemics of these assumed psychological illnesses amongst girls: the same phenomenon can be seen with girls self-diagnosing with conditions such as Tourette’s syndrome, multi-personality disorder, and autism.8
One girl posts that she is a “white transmasculine white femme non-binary temporarily mostly able bodied neuro-divergent obsessive compulsive chronically ill culturally Jewish Unitarian Universalist nonmonogamous demilowromatic greydemibisexual survivor of acute and complex trauma…”.9
The social contagion of mental illnesses amongst girls is magnified by today’s society, where victimhood confers social status. Today, the “cis”, hetero, white, male is seen as the apex oppressor, but just adjacent is the “cis”, hetero, white, female. Identifying as “trans”, “queer“ or “non-binary” is a way for these girls to escape being part of the oppressor group, and assume a “high-status identity”, even compared to being gay.10
If you are unfortunate to be cast as in the “oppressor” group, girls can become social pariahs.11 As was the case with boys, Tumblr appears as the platform that is teaching these girls that to be a “cis”, white, hetero, female is to be part of an oppressor group:
On Tumblr, the situation was such that any claim to being “oppressed” would accumulate social credibility, while any unfortunate “privileged” status was justification for verbal abuse. As a “privileged” person, you were expected to constantly grovel and apologize, you had no right to speak on any issue involving the group you were “oppressing”, and you could not object in any way to any mistreatment hurled against you because of your race, gender, or sexuality.
[…]
I was a “cishet white girl” in an environment where that was one of the worst things to be. Since Tumblr users are mostly biological females, the “cishet white girl” holds the position of most privileged and therefore most inherently bad group. In this climate, you are made to feel guilty and responsible for all the horrors and atrocities in the world. No hardship you could possibly go through could ever be as bad as the prejudice and genocide POC [people of colour] and LGBT people face every. Single. Day. Insert clap emoji. LGBT people and POC can’t even walk out of their houses without being murdered by cishet white people just like you!12
Autohomoeroticism
The equivalent phenomenon of autogynephilia in females, autoandrophilia, appears rare, but not unknown of. Blanchard did see something that appears to be similar to autogynephilia in females, but termed this “autohomoeroticism”, which is when “ sexually mature natal females (i.e., not biologically still children) become sexually preoccupied with the idea of becoming a gay man and interacting with other gay men”:13
This rare type of gender dysphoria is limited to females. Published cases have consisted of women whose gender dysphoria began in late adolescence or adulthood. (It is conceivable that it might begin earlier in some cases.) It occurs in (heterosexual) females who are sexually attracted to men, but who wish to undergo sex reassignment so that they can have “homosexual” relations with other men. These females appear to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of themselves as gay men. We have created the label autohomoerotic gender dysphoria to denote this sexual orientation. There are little systematic data on this type of gender dysphoria, although clinical mentions of heterosexual women with strong masculine traits, who say that they feel as if they were homosexual men, and who feel strongly attracted to effeminate men go back over 100 years.14
This fantasy is sometimes mentioned in the accounts of female detransitioners. The internet has created a space where mostly heterosexual female “fanfiction” writers, who base their writing off of popular series such as Harry Potter, can insert themselves as male characters in complex fantasy homosexual relationships.15
Arguably Ayad and O’Malley’s comments regarding how internet pornography can be harmful to teenage boys, is also pertinent to teenage girls. As teenage girls are pushed away from wanting to be seen as the “cis”, white, hetero, oppressor, they are attracted to the fantasy of being a “trans man”, entering into “homosexual” relationships with other teenage boys. What may have been an unobserved fantasy in previous generations, is now being magnified by the internet, which provides outlet for involvement in ever more elaborate and niche fantasy.
The concluding part of this series examines the future of the anti-“gender identity” movement.
“The Surge in Referral Rates of Girls to the Tavistock Continues to Rise” Transgender Trend 1 July 2019.
“Annual GLAAD Study Shows Further Decline in LGBTQ Acceptance among Younger Americans” Glaad 24 June 2019.
“Thousands of ‘Trans’ Teens Want To detransition... (Women, Lesbians, Homophobia)” Scarcella, A. 5 January 2020
Medical Nemesis: the expropriation of health Illich, I. (Calder & Boyars, London, 1975).
Abigail Shrier Irreversible Damage p. 254
Irreversible Damage p. 13.
Irreversible Damage p. 168
“Woke TikTok is Faking Mental Disorders for Attention”,
“I’m a Non-binary, Chronically Ill, Non-monogamous, Cat Parent”
Irreversible Damage p. 185.
“Gender dysphoria is not one thing” Bailey, J. M., Ph.D and Blanchard, R., Ph.D., 4th Wave Now: A community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth
“Gender dysphoria is not one thing”.
Prude Posting.