Questioning teens and social contagion

Young people who for some reason feel dissatisfied with their sex often go to reddit’s various transgender communities to ask for advice.

A 14 year old kid asks for advice on two different subreddits about how to talk to family members about gender issues and about medications like estrogen.

On one of the posts, an adult invites the 14 year old to take contact privately.

In the other post, concrete advice about how to obtain prescription medication illegally is given, complete with dosages:

Or how about this 13 year old, who writes:

Hello all, I’m thirteen today (yay!), and I’m kinda confused about my gender.

For my entire life, I’ve been happy with being a guy. I knew I didn’t fit in with other boys however, and surrounded myself with girls as my friends. I’m rather feminine, you can blame my sisters for that.

So, just turned 13, and is feminine boy.

About a year ago, thoughts passed through my head such as “if only I was a girl”. These thoughts were rare and I pushed them aside, not thinking anything of them. Roughly six months ago, I joined an online forum. I noticed that more than a few people were transgender. I knew what the term was before this, but, again, I didn’t think anything of it.

This story sounds familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention to the stories many newly trans teenagers post online. An intense period of bingeing on social media accounts of being trans leading to the teen suddenly identifying as trans themselves.

Two months ago, I started thinking about this. What if I was female? I liked the idea of it. I changed my gender on a few sites to female. One month ago, I started really reading up on it. I was a bit obsessed for one night, then I stopped thinking about it. Because I stopped thinking about it, I dismissed it again. Even though I thought I stopped thinking about it, three weeks ago I came out to my boyfriend, and then one week ago, my sister. They both took it very well. Last night, I was thinking and reading up on this like crazy, I was obsessed. I saw that most people realised at a young age, and so I thought I must be doing this for attention, or forcing myself to think this, or it might just be a phase which will go away.

What is the consensus in asktransgender?

You’re transgender.

If you think, “I want to be a girl” at all then you are probably trans

Or this 14 year old, who asks for advice about feeling like a trans boy

I apologize in advance but I am desperate for insight and am feeling hopeless!! I’ve been considering if I’m a trans boy for the past two months (thinking about gender for almost a year) I am 14 and hopefully any of you can help.

It all started with my best friend and I talking about our characters (we dream of writing a series one day together haha) and I proposed if one of my characters was transgender and while exploring the character it was as if they way i saw them changed, that they were happier in the end and it was as if I was supposed to create them as a trans character to begin with (it’s strange and probably hard to understand)

After this I became uneasy, like something had shifted and when I asked my friends about my feelings they said maybe physiologically I identified as that character and was actually trans myself. This at first seemed unreal but also made sense in a away.

I have a obsessive personality and continued to research the hell out of the Internet, watched hours of youtube videos and began looking back at my self as I grew up. It seemed I was okay with being a girl as a child nothing really struck me as typical trans story of knowing at a young age(not trying to invalidate other people’s transitions whatsoever) but as a child I often enjoyed portraying the boys in pretend, years even. When I started puberty I became very insecure about my body (breasts and starting my period) I was always humiliated when people brought things even if it was my mom and it was just us. It seems I tolerate being a girl but I know I’m something other than that. Now more than ever I think about my gender for hours at a time, during school, while bathing and before I go to bed. I seem to be more comfy able with male clothes. 

It’s again a similar story. Being obsessed with transition videos on YouTube. Feeling uncomfortable during puberty. Feeling more comfortable in “male” clothes.

Not a single person who replies to this child mentions that most of the experiences being described are 100% normal and common. Which young woman has not felt embarrassed about getting breasts and a period? Nobody tells this child that which clothes you wear don’t make you a man or a woman.

The poster goes on to post again a month later, still confused:

Need some insight. I’ve been wondering about my gender for a year questioning If I’m trans for 3 months and have been in gender limbo since. I’m a indecisive, awkward and sensitive person which I believe relates to the fact I can’t make a decision on who I am. I believe being on t would make me happy but I’m terrified of loosing hair and being overly hairy, im uncomfortable with my chest and hips as well. Im not very masuline but neither am i feminine, it’s hard for me to imagine myself as a woman in the future but a man just seems like a far off dream. I can’t seem to imagine myself with anyone or having children and I believe that may relate to my gender issues. I feel like a fake and a phony and am terrified of realizing this is a phase. I’m only 14 but I’ve been obsessively researched everything (hours and hours, while in bed, sitting in bath, during class) and am in this exhausting gray area where everything is awful and just ‘exploring’ my identity isn’t an option. Am I maybe in denial or just confused ? (I understand people can’t tell me exactly who I am but still) Please any advice would be lovely.

And of course, gets this answer:

You’re textbook Trans

It turns out that this poster has no less than three friends who have also recently come to identify as transgender:

Teenagers have always been struggling to fit in, to figure out who they are, to label themselves. But it’s not until now that discovering your true self involves taking hormones and getting surgery. And it’s not until now that questioning whether it is wise for teens to be getting medication advice online is bigoted.

 

 

“Do you feel uncomfortable with yourself in some way?”

Many young teens come to the realization that they are transgender through watching videos online, particularly on YouTube. There has been a dramatic increase in young people being referred for treatment because they are transgender. The increase is so large that many people, especially parents of young trans people, are beginning to ask the question if we are witnessing the phenomenon of social contagion.

Clinic sees 20-fold increase in referrals

Number of pediatric referrals quadruple

This graph comes from an article about the rise of gender identity related referrals in the UK:

Source: The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

Many parents of young people tell similar stories about kids who go on YouTube binges, and end up identifying as transgender, and then go on to wanting to transition medically. This is especially common for girls. So what are they being told in these YouTube videos? Let us have a look at one example:

Partial transcript:

[1:09]: Do you feel uncomfortable with yourself in some way? (…) There must be some sort of discomfort with yourself currently. Look inside yourself and think about the times where you may have felt discomfort from hearing your birth name, from being referred as though your assigned sex, or simply feeling discomfort on wearing the clothes off your back. Those are just general examples but really look inside yourself and think back  on to the past of situations that really should have been taken as no big deal but they were taken as such and you never really knew why.

[1:42]: Have you tried experimenting outside your assigned sex? Maybe if you have an inkling that you’re trans, but you don’t know where to go from here. Try experimenting by wearing things that are not typical of your assigned sex, you know like wear T-shirts if you’ve been used to wearing dresses or something like that. (…)

[3:43]: Have you seen or are familiar with other stories of transgender people? If (…) you’re still somewhat on the fence, ah, I would definitely check out some other people’s narratives or stories, and find if you’re, if there are some that are relatable to you. Find like you identify, or you’re finding like, similar struggles with other people who are going through somewhat the same, similar struggles as you. (…) They will definitely  be helpful to you, to help you figure out whether or not you are trans

There are three points about this video that should give you pause. One, viewers are urged to comb through their memories for any discomfort they recollect, and such memories are to be taken as signs of trans-ness. No other options are even acknowledged. Two, superficial preferences like clothing are taken as proof of trans-ness. Feeling comfortable in a T-shirt is a diagnostic sign. Three, the viewer is encouraged to delve into the stories of  people with “similar struggles” to find experiences that are similar to their own. The video goes on to mention the video blogs of other trans people. This means that the viewer is encouraged to seek only confirming evidence. What if there are stories by people who felt the same way but were not actually trans? Such people certainly exist, as seen here, here and here (just a few examples), but these stories never come up in the types of videos shown here.

These YouTubers are giving young people bad advice. They mean well, but the results have chilling consequences when young people go on to medically transition based on the type of advice presented here.

“I would not be sad to see his male body go away”

A parent posts to r/asktransgender for advice regarding her young son. The son is four years old.

My 4 year old son has for awhile been saying he’s a girl. We have corrected him, just thinking he’s confused (he learned to speak late) but lately he’s been saying he wants to grow up and be a princess, and be pretty like mommy, he’s even said he would wear dresses, he loves to play apps on his tablet that involve makeup and hair styling, he likes to show us his “boobs”…

Please note.. I have stopped correcting him. Because of our enlightenment on this issue and the education that’s available, I understand the possibility for all my children to question everything about their identity, and I just want them to be who they are so they can do what they are supposed to do in this world.

My question is: is it too early for him to intrinsically know he is a girl? Not in the sexual sense, of course he’s not a sexual being yet, but in terms of gender? And if he could already know, how do I protect him yet nurture him?

What is a parent to make of this behavior? Well, how about asking the kid why he would like to be a girl? Is it because he thinks only girls can be pretty and wear dresses? Kids very often have this naive view of the world. She does not seem to have asked him this, and the suggestion to do so does not come up. However, the commenters advise her to let the kid wear whatever clothes he wants, which is very good advice. Just let him do his thing, several commenters say, he has years ahead of him to figure things out. For most kids, insisting they are the other sex is a phase, and the majority grow out of it and come to be comfortable with their bodies. And for a concerned parent, that should be great news, right? After all, the medical treatments for transgender people are nothing to take lightly; they can have serious side effects.

This mom however, seems very eager to have a transgender child, and she seems very sure that he really is fundamentally different from his brothers:

Many little boys who are effeminate in childhood end up being gay men as adults. That is apparently not an option this mom has considered.

She mentions several times how she dreamed that he was a girl when she was pregnant with him.

“I wouldn’t be sad to see his male body go away“. That is a deeply disturbing statement, and no one calls her out on it.

She talks about wanting to make “transgender art”.

She even has a media strategy ready:

The commenters praise her for being such an understanding and good parent, and the media thing is brought up again:

Just a month later, the mom posts an update. Note that both posts are to r/asktransgender. She does not ask for advice on any of reddit’s parenting forums. If she did, she might have found support in other parents of children who do not conform to gender roles, and she might realize that this type of behavior is actually pretty common with young kids.

The reddit community was so helpful to me. I thought I should update our story, and frankly I need support…

My son has been quoted as saying “the words that come out of my mouth talk about fire trucks. But I really want long hair with big pink bows in it”

He was previously ok with getting his hair cut. We took him yesterday to get a haircut and he begged the stylist to make him look like mommy.

My MIL took him shoe shopping. He requested in the car on the way there he wanted “dancing shoes”. At kohls he picked out (to everyone’s horror) a pair of pink shoes studded with jewels. (I was not present so he did not get the shoes)

He’s asked me not to cut his hair off ever again.

I’m ok with all of it. Excited to help him. He said he wants be called a girl.

Why does the kid seem to think there is something wrong with talking about fire trucks AND having long hair? The incident with the shoes is a clue here. He’s being told that he can’t have pink “dancing shoes”, presumably because he’s a boy. This is unfortunately very typical, adults enforcing rigid gender roles on their children. Of COURSE boys should be able to wear pink dancing shoes. It seems to us that what this mom needs is people who support her and her son in saying “no” to gender roles and assuring him that it’s okay to be different.

Again she seems to have already made up her mind about the kid. “I just know something is different”.

Again she brings up dreaming that her son was a girl:

Commenters are again falling over themselves to tell her what a great parent she is. Some of the commenters recommend books and blogs, all of them are about specifically transgender children. No one posts links to books or blogs about gay children or non-transgender children who do not conform to gender roles. We are witnessing the “funnel effect” again in the online transgender community. Most children who act like this kid grow up to be adults at peace with their bodies. Some do not, but this mom is seeking out only the stories of those kids. And again, it is striking just how much she seems to want her child to be transgender. “I would not be sad to see his male body go away”, she says. Would she trade a kid with a healthy male body for a child who gives up their fertility and risks serious side effects from puberty blockers and hormone treatments?