Peer pressure almost never pushes teenagers to good places. Recently, it’s been pushing them to the gender clinic.
We’ve all seen teenagers—especially girls—adopt new fashions en masse. Their friends are doing it, so they do too. It’s true of music, clothes, those ridiculous, furry Ugg boots… But lately, fashion-conscious teens are changing much more than their clothes.
The Economist recently reported a flood of adolescent girls seeking treatment for gender dysphoria over the last eight years. In 2009, less than half—41 percent—of teens walking through the doors of gender clinics in the U.K. were female. But by 2017, that number jumped to almost 70 percent.
Now, if gender dysphoria—feeling yourself to be the opposite gender from your biological sex—were actually something innate to the human condition as trans activists claim, we’d expect these numbers to remain consistent and roughly balanced between boys and girls. But they’re not. According to Dr. Lisa Littman, who teaches behavioral and social sciences at Brown University, transgender identity, like Ugg boots, has become a trend.
According to Littman, droves of adolescents, with no prior history of gender confusion, are suddenly announcing they’re transgender after “immersing themselves in niche websites,” or “after similar announcements from friends.” Breakpoint.
