Transgender identification often occurs in cluster outbreaks among friend groups—at up to SEVENTY times the expected prevalence rate

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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

inadequate explanation for the explosion of cases

Did something similar happen with LGB when it was the fashionable thing? Does it still happen with LGB?

[–]GConly 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Way more people are identifying as bi etc. I suggest it's more an effort to sound cool by people who experimented in college etc.

Not any real change in the number of gay people.

[–]slushpilot 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Or "queer" which means practically anything you want it to mean, except "boring".

[–]anarchy753 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And I think you have to see that there's a divide between these two phenomena. With LGB being 'trendy' it gives people more of a willingness to have more of an open mind and try out different things. Really being bicurious is basically no different than trying a different kink. Deciding you're a different gender and severely damaging yourself mentally and physically, or worse, encouraging young people to do it because it's 'normal' and having it taught in schools is just that, damaging.

[–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

No idea. Would be an interesting thing to discover. Real problem with researching these types of questions is that in many cases they're the type of questions academia isn't prepared to ask because they might uncover uncomfortable answers.

I don't really think they're good comparisons though. Also I'd love to know how many of these girls just grow out of it and who never pursue any life changing intervention like hormone treatment or body modification. I'd imagine the amount that actually do is very low. We could be looking at a modified version of the 'College Lesbian' phenomenon. If it were men doing the same in their adolescence I'd be hair on fire worried -- which is all the more horrifying that it's very young boys who are getting into this.

Whole thing reminds me of this sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yCQKiaIB9s

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Boys might develop an inclination towards transgenderism in part due to the social climate that is hostile towards men and masculinity. The message that men are bad and harmful to women, while women are assigned that status of the "moral victim", might be contributing towards this trend. In some men it is also (somatic) narcissism at work, which I believe explains why some pretty masculine men decide to transition later in life, when their bodies or athletic achievements can no longer serve as narcissistic supply, as in the case of Bruce Jenner, probably. That environment is particularly narcissistic. Our social climate might encourage narcissism -- maybe not the prevalence rate, but the rate at and the ease with which it can now be openly expressed without reproach.

But, I think there is also a huge cultural blindness, especially in America. Now more than any other generation, there is an over-reliance on medication and quick fixes. People have an expectation, now more than ever before, about both physical and psychological comfort. Nowadays, we are very quick to take a pill, swallow a pain killer, resort to cosmetic surgery, avoid discomfort, shut out dissent or psychological discomfort, and various other phenomena that have been roundly described as a sort of infantilization of society, a sort of tendency towards a degree of hedonism only now made possible through the luxury that modern society affords us. It is therefor also apt to describe it as "first world problems" perhaps. A level of discomfort during puberty is completely normal. I assume most of us here are adults, but it is easy to forget one's own emotional instabilities during that time of one's life. It is downright predatory to exercise this sort of psychological suggestion on children during this vulnerable, volatile stage. The same aversion to discomfort and reliance on quick fix methods might be a social ill that has resulted in a growing number of young adults seeking a resolution to normal personality changes during puberty. That is most likely the reason why, when left undisturbed, so many young adults grow out of it. More and more people, at the slightest discomfort with their bodies or the natural process of aging, will now resort to surgical intervention and the inclination to expect yet another surgery to fix the discomfort most people experience at some point in their lives about their bodies or their genitals appears completely consistent with the same overarching social trends.

Without the above explanation it might have seemed far-fetched to bring up the opiate epidemic in the same breath, let alone the same paragraph, but with that preamble out of the way, maybe it is more apparent why I wonder if the two are symptoms of a similar social malaise.

[–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Great comment.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

boys are doing it too though aren't they? especially techy kinda guys? somebody told me this used to be a trend with techy guys even years ago... transhumanism? pornography?

a modified version of the 'College Lesbian' phenomenon

Right, that kind of thing... which suggests something similar happens with LGB. I've known guys who "experimented" and went back to women eventually too.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For men working in technology there might be several factors. Autistic traits might be one, as there are connections between that and GID.

It could also very well be that this is confusing cause and effect. It might be that it is not men in tech more likely to transition but that men, as a whole, are more inclined towards working in tech so that those who do transition more frequently appear to work in that field.

Unsurprisingly, transgendered men, since they are men, will have interests more typical of men, which should be a huge slap in the face for the "born that way" hypothesis and the nonsense about "female brains" or "born in the wrong body" claptrap. But, it is hard to push past that, because, similar to feminists attached to patriarchy theory argue, there is always the out of explaining everything with a tabula rasa conditioned by society, a social constructionist view, despite the obvious complication that it fails to explain why then every culture across human history would have developed along the same gender lines in the first place.

Baker, Philip, and Eman Shweikh. “Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Personality Disorder and Offending in a Transgender Patient: Clinical Considerations, Diagnostic Challenges and Treatment Responses.” Advances in Autism 2, no. 3 (2016): 140–146.

Cone, Marla. “New Study: Autism Linked to Environment.” Scientific American. Accessed June 8, 2020. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-rise-driven-by-environment/.

Fombonne, Eric. “Epidemiological Trends in Rates of Autism.” Molecular Psychiatry 7, no. s2 (2002): S4–S4. McDowell, Maxson J. “Autism, Early Narcissistic Injury and Self-Organization: A Role for the Image of the Mother’s Eyes?” Journal of Analytical Psychology 49, no. 4 (2004): 495–519.

Schalkwyk, Gerrit I. van, Katherine Klingensmith, and Fred R. Volkmar. “Gender Identity and Autism Spectrum Disorders.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 88, no. 1 (March 4, 2015): 81–83. “The Image of the Mother’s Eye: Autism and Early Narcissistic Injury. Maxson J. McDowell, Ph.D.” Accessed June 8, 2020. http://cogprints.org/2593/1/eye22fixed_by_cogprints.html.

In popular discourse there is also too little acknowledgment of the possibly psychogenic causes of autism that were the original hypothesis for the origin of autism in children. Nowadays, these are almost entirely ignored in favor of a focus on the portions that heritability plays. I also remember that another causal hypothesis, that of the "refrigerator mother", has long been abandoned by the psychology establishment, despite it having shown promise to be a more consistent and powerful (in the sense of statistical power) explanation when combined with an initial predisposition rooted in heritability.

Douglas, Patty. “Autism’s ‘Refrigerator Mothers’: Identity, Power, and Resistance.” Comparative Program on Health and Society-Working Paper Series, 2014.

Epstein, Griffin. “Refrigerator Mothers and Sick Little Boys: Bruno Bettelheim, Eugenics and the De-Pathologization of Jewish Identity.” Disability Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (2014).

Jack, Jordynn. Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks. University of Illinois Press, 2014.

Maldonado, Nancy S., and Mariann Pezzella Winick. “Refrigerator Mothers.” Childhood Education 79, no. 3 (2003): 190.

That avenue of research might very well have fallen out of favor due to the affront it has caused women. There is a tendency in the psychology literature to converge towards the women are wonderful effect and to have a bit of a misandrist tendency, as the care professions are dominated by women. Single mothers are now lionized, probably for similar reasons, despite the gratuitously documented harm it is causing to children. So-called helicopter parents have replaced the traditional family. Children are being raised by screens and electronic devices. Non-conformity will be medicated with Ritalin. In every way, this is a recipe for a social mental health disaster.