Something is happening in the world of teen girls. Something bizarre, alarming. Abigail Shrier calls it a Transgender craze: Large numbers of teen girls with no history of childhood gender dysphoria are suddenly self-identifying as Transgender. The phenomenon “has sped across North America and parts of Western Europe at lightning speed,” says Dr. Kenneth Zucker in his words of praise for Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. In the UK, between 2008 and 2018 there was a 4,400 percent increase in teen girls seeking gender treatment. In the USA the number of teen natal girls undergoing gender surgeries quadrupled from 2016 to 2017.
At the same time, something unthinkable, and very frightening, has happened in the field of medicine: In the United States the vast majority of physicians, mental health professionals, and gender clinics are now required to affirm these girls’ self-diagnosis without question and support them in “transitioning” to male. The teen simply has to appear at the treatment facility and say that she knows she is Transgender, and she must be offered support in transitioning: socially (name change, pronouns, dress), cosmetically (a binder to flatten her chest), and medically (puberty blocker and cross-sex hormones). Even sex reassignment surgery can be arranged on request. Student health plans at many colleges in the United States cover costs for these services. Parents need not be notified. If they do know what their daughter is doing, they are told there could be disastrous consequences if they do not affirm their daughter’s claim and support her transitioning.
Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, noticed this rapid rise in the numbers of teen girls claiming to be Transgender. She also noticed that this was happening in clusters. Shrier was concerned, and published an article on the phenomenon. A mother of one such teen girl read the article and pleaded with Shrier to investigate further. Shrier, not an investigative journalist herself, tried to find another journalist to do it. When she failed, she decided to do the research herself. Her book is the result of her extensive and broad research, and what she found increased her sense of horror at what is happening.
What Shrier discovered:
- This is a totally new phenomenon. Until now, gender dysphoria has been found almost exclusively in males, and almost always began in early childhood.
- Never before has it been so prominent in girls or begun suddenly in the teen years, with no childhood history of dysphoria.
- Never before has it happened through “social contagion.”
- And yet, the medical profession unquestioningly accepts the self-diagnosis of a troubled teen girl.
What is going on?
To be continued
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