“Social Contagion” Isn’t Making The Kids Today Trans Says Study

The authors of a new research study, published in the journal Pediatrics, say they have debunked the claim narrative that young people who are assigned female at birth are coming out as trans or nonbinary because of media and peer pressure are making them pretend to be trans to fit in. Between 2017 and 2019, there was no increase in the number of AFAB young people who identified as trans or nonbinary.

According to LGBTQ Nation, researchers looked at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2017 and 2019 biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey collects data on trans identity from young people between the ages of 12 and 18 who live in 16 different US states.

The researchers found that in 2017, 2.4% of the 91,937 surveyed adolescents self-identified as trans. In 2019, only 1.6% of the 105,437 surveyed adolescents identified the same way.

Since trans representation in the media improved in those years, researchers concluded this decrease was “incongruent” with the claim that “social contagion” is persuading more youth to embrace their trans identity. Researchers also pointed to the higher rates of bullying experienced by trans youth, noting that it would act as a deterrent rather than a motivator for coming out as trans.

“The hypothesis that transgender and gender diverse youth assigned female at birth identify as transgender due to social contagion does not hold up to scrutiny and should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for adolescents,” said the study senior’s author Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian, director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at the Fenway Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program, according to Today.com.

Claims of “social contagion” stem from a 2018 paper published in the journal PLOS One by Dr. Lisa Littman, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University. Littman said that adolescents experienced RGD, a conflict between their birth sex and gender identity “suddenly during or after puberty” due to social influence. RGD differs from the “consistent, insistent, and persistent” gender dysphoria that pre-pubescent trans children normally experience during childhood.

Littman’s claims were echoed in the bestselling book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, written by Abigail Shrier, a prominent transphobe who regularly equates trans people with misogynists, child sex predators, and mentally ill people who have succumbed to peer pressure.

The “social contagion” and RGD claims have also been repeated by right-wing politicians and activists who support laws criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. But the largest medical and mental health associations in the US have all said that gender-affirming care and acceptance of trans youth is necessary for their overall wellbeing.

Read related myGwork articles here:

Texas Supreme Court Allows Investigations Of “Child Abuse” Into Parents Of Trans Youth To Continue

Spain Approves Landmark Bill Making It Easier For Trans Youth To Change Gender

Americans Are Deeply Divided On Trans Rights, A Poll Shows

All Four Tory Leader Frontrunners Support Trans Conversion Therapy Ban, Says Ex-Equalities Minister

Keep up to date with the latest myGnews

LGBTQ+ professionals, LGBTQ+ Graduates, LGBTQ+ professional network, LGBTQ+ professional events, LGBTQ+ networking events, LGBTQ+ Recruitment, LGBTQ+ Friendly organizations, LGBTQ+ Friendly companies, LGBTQ+ jobs