Leon Trotsky y Wall Street

"Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze" is a book by Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal. The book speaks for itself and although I didn´t like its style (too much teenage angst - from a grown up woman - and too many Jewish cultural references), I nevertheless recommend everyone to read it. I knew some kind of weird transgender craze was going on, but clearly I didn´t know half of it! 

Until about ten years ago, the number of people with gender dysphoria (then usually referred to as transsexuals) was about 0.01% of the population. Most were male, and most had been gender dysphoric since childhood. Today, by contrast, transgendered people are literally everywhere, most of them are girls (a unique situation historically) and the gender dysphoria usually starts suddenly, with no prior history, in adolescence. In just a few years, the number of teenage girls with supposed gender dysphoria has risen by astronomical numbers. This in itself is highly anomalous - unless we assume (as the author does assume) that we´re dealing with a "social contagion". Or, to use stronger language not found in this book, a mass hysteria. 

Other factors compound our skepticism. Very often, girls "come out" as the opposite gender in clusters. Peers come out together. Virtually always, the "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD) is the result of contact with trans-activists on the web. Most girls claiming to be transgendered seem to share a similar profile: White, upper middle class parents, academically gifted, socially awkward or depressed, both the adolescent and the parents have "progressive" political views. Transgenderism seems to be a woke virus. If the phenomenon is really real, it should be distributed more evenly in the population (like homosexuality or bisexuality). Instead, it clusters in precisely the places were political sympathy for the ROGD phenomenon is strongest. Note also the curious fact that the phenomenon seems to have originated on the American West Coast, and then spread gradually to the rest of the United States, Canada and Western Europe. It seems to be largely unknown in, say, Hungary or Baluchistan. 

And speaking of that political sympathy...

California has enacted laws threatening health workers with jail time if they don´t use the "preferred pronouns" of their patients. New York State has gone even further, extending a similar law to cover landlords and employers. Over a dozen US state has prohibited "conversion therapy for transgendered individuals", making it effectively illegal for therapists to question the "gender identity" of their patients. But then, most therapists don´t even try. They are really activists, aiding and abetting the "transitioning" of teenagers. The same is true of doctors and surgeons dealing with gender dysphoria issues. In California, 13-year olds have the "right" to transition through hormonal and surgical interventions. In many states, college students can get testosterone without a prescription. The colleges and universities themselves simply sell them! "Obamacare" (the Affordable Care Act) makes it possible to obtain testosterone cheaply. The teachers are in on it, too. Many schools in the US have compulsory "sex and gender identity education" that are really trans-propaganda. This is true of both public and private schools. Many schools refer to the students by their "preferred pronouns" without even informing the parents. And yes, women´s sports are under attack, since mediocre male-to-female trans-persons can compete as women and win medals, destroying the careers of female athletes in the process. Clearly, it's not just the bathrooms! 

This is the most disturbing aspect of the phenomenon: the anti-feminist angle, dressed in "progressive" garb. It´s no longer OK to be a girl. You get higher status if you transition to a boy. If you do "typically boyish things", you *must be* a boy, rather than a girl excelling at previously all-male territory. Conversely, boys who transition to girls can now invade female spaces (such as women´s sports). In some schools, nobody identifies as a lesbian anymore, while every other girl claims to be a boy! The whole thing reminds me of how leftists genuflect before Islam and Islamism, two other patriarchal worldviews. It seems feminism is always the loser in the rainbow alliance. (It´s almost as if the feminists are right: yes, there really is a patriarchy!)

Critics are of course silenced. Therapists who question the transgender craze are fired from their jobs, teens who de-transitioned are cancelled from social forums for "hate speech", celebs might lose their sponsors, etc. I wouldn´t be surprised if Abigail Shrier´s book will be cancelled further down the line. The transgender milieu itself seems to be a fanaticized social cult. Yet, the hard facts speak against the transgender ideology. There is no evidence that suicide rates go down if teenagers or young adults "transition" through hormones or surgery. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case. Many live to regret their decisions (which may include surgically removing their breasts). 70% of gender dysphoric children outgrow their gender dysphoria if *no* intervention is made, while 100% of those on puberty blockers will start taking cross-sex hormones. (Yes, pre-pubescent girls are allowed to take puberty blockers!) This is once again different from homosexuality, which is usually set in stone, regardless of whether or not there is an attempt to stop it. However, evidence means nothing to the activists, who are rushing headlong into a disaster. 

Why has transgenderism been so succesful, while other strange subcultures on the web have remained marginalized? Shrier never discusses this problem, but it did struck me when reading her book. Why are Otherkin (adolescents claiming to be animals and hence suffering from "species dysmorphia"), Tulpamancers (ditto claiming that their imaginary friends are real) or Plural Systems (ditto claiming to be more than one person inhabiting the same body) not "affirmed" in the same manner as transgendered individuals? My guess is that the neo-trans-people have succesfully piggybacked on the gay rights movement (the current acronym is LGBTQ, after all). In the process, they have all but obliterated the "L" and will probably turn on the "G" soon enough, too. (Not to mention the original transsexuals.) However, something even more sinister might be going on.

Shrier never discusses the role of Big Pharma in the equation. Indeed, it seems to be a kind of elephant in the room. Of course it is: Shrier is an opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal. Just as Big Pharma was prescribing opiates for any conceivable depression, leading to the opiate crisis, *somebody* must be making big bucks on all the "T" (testosterone), other hormones, surgical interventions, and hours spent in "affirming" therapy. Let me guess. Big Pharma meets Big Shrink? The whole thing is a capitalist venture, to some extent even paid for by the tax-payers, with equally disastrous results as the opiate crisis. The "progressives" have been hoodwinked by Woke Capital. Not the first time! Yet, Shrier is more interested in confiscating kids´ android phones, than with wrestling this elephant... 

There is another thing, too, which struck me as odd about "Irreversible Damage". When all is said and done, I think it´s obvious that the teens with ROGD really are deeply depressed. *That* part of the equation is real. Yet, the words "autism spectrum disorder", "Asperger´s" or "ADHD/ADD" doesn´t seem to be anywhere in the book. But surely *this* is a large portion of the explanation? The profile of the typical ROGD sufferer seems to fit the autism spectrum: a socially awkward "nerd". Transgenderism is the weird coping mechanism of these kids in the hypocritical, popularity-obsessed, perfection-obsessed "liberal" upper middle class American milieu. Presumably, other teens with autism spectrum disorders and similar conditions cope in other ways, perhaps by becoming Alt Right trolls, turning autism into another "identity" or, ahem, by actually doing something real about their situation. 

It will be, shall we say, interesting to see how this will end. For end it will. Will the transgender craze be stopped cold by the American people, perhaps after trying to destroy women´s sports? Will people who were brainwashed into "transitioning" by the cult sue their therapists ten years from now? Or is the craze too deeply ingrained in the collective psyche, making the only "solution" a terrible backlash in 25 years or so? A backlash that will affect victim and perpetrator equally, and also spread to gays, lesbians and transsexuals, who have little or nothing in common with the ROGD teens?

One thing is certain. This moment in time will be remembered as another example of "extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds".