Kerby Anderson

As we are learning more about transgenderism, the psychological conclusions validate some of the perspectives from authors I have mentioned in this commentary. Dr. Ryan Anderson wrote his book, When Harry Became Sally, to provide some perspective on the scientific, medical, and legal debates. Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, warned that young women identifying as transgender were likely doing so because of social contagion.

She focused part of her book on the research by Brown University Professor Lisa Littman who examined parental reports of “sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria” in adolescence. The symptoms appeared after prolonged social media and internet use. She suggested this was due to social contagion.

As you might imagine, her conclusions were controversial to the trans community. After speaking at a conference recently, I talked with a former Brown University professor who told me how she was criticized and how the university pulled her research from a university website.

Last year, a study published in the journal Pediatrics allegedly proved that “social contagion is not driving an increasing number of adolescents to come out as transgender.” Madeleine Kearns in a linked article to this commentary explains the study relied on faulty statistics.

But there is a simple way to see the impact of social contagion. On his TV program, Bill Maher displayed a graph showing an increasing number of Americans who identify as LGBTQ. He then asked, “If this spike in trans children is all biological, why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them, or California is creating them.”

Why are so many teens identifying as trans? Social contagion seems to be a significant factor.