Many girls look for a sense of identity amidst the confusing and socially awkward years of adolescence. Often, young women channel this pursuit into group fads that are physically and mentally damaging, including obsessions with anorexia and cutting. Writer for The Wall Street Journal Abigail Shrier argues that the contemporary tide turning young girls transgender falls into the same category. Typical gender dysphoria is defined as extreme, unbearable distress in one’s body, and though it originally impacted a sparse .01% of the population, 1,000% more people in the US bear this label today. Culture, therapy, and the medical field have wreaked havoc on the lives of many young women, misdiagnosing their distress and pushing them toward a lifestyle that only perpetuates their pain.

Prior to the mid-2000s, young boys comprised a majority of people experiencing gender dysphoria, or the feeling that one’s birth sex isn’t right. The symptoms of the diagnosis initially called “gender identity disorder” appear early throughout childhood in kids aged 2 to 4, and in the past, 70% of discomfort actually dissipated with time. The DSM-5, or the medical encyclopedia of mental health conditions, lists the various indicators of gender dysphoria. According to its description, individuals with dysphoria must portray a combination of several behavioral traits usually apparent in their childhood. These include the wish to switch genders, a tendency to prefer the clothing and toys of the opposite gender, and a lack of comfort with one’s body. If a young boy started showing intense interest in his sister’s toys or his mother’s shoes, that was viewed as a sign of possible gender dysphoria, and cases of such were few and far between.

Only recently did this documented trend begin to shift. By 2017, women comprised 70% of gender surgeries in the US, rising from 46% in the previous year. Meanwhile, in 2018, there was a 4,400% rise in young girls desiring gender transitioning in the UK. Witnessing this trend while scrolling on social media, psychologist and researcher Dr. Lisa Littman conducted a study of over 200 parents whose daughters recently declared themselves transgender. Her findings pointed her toward an important distinction in the adolescence-shaking diagnosis: As the author writes, it’s a “craze.” Littman’s work attests to the “craze” of this phenomenon, finding that the transgender diagnosis was 70 times more frequent than expected. The trend is a wildfire flaring fast. In a highly contentious academic paper published in 2018, Littman called this new socially curated form of gender dysphoria “rapid onset gender dysphoria.”

The key factor that distinguishes these young girls from the few who experienced symptoms of gender dysphoria in the past is their childhood. Many parents with daughters who recently declared themselves transgender, in some cases changing their name at school and seeking therapy on their own, expressed complete confusion. The author tells the story of a transgender girl named Julie, the daughter of two lesbian parents. Though Julie’s parents initially endorsed her decision, they were taken aback because she never displayed any male inclinations earlier in girlhood; in fact, she was an accomplished ballerina. It simply didn’t seem right to them. They aren’t alone, either; many parents of recently transgender daughters are pulling open the blinds to see that their daughters in fact may not be transgender at all—perhaps they’re simply young and confused, bandaging their hurt with an increasingly captivating illusion.

Anxiety is an unavoidable part of life. But it’s also one that’s nearly unbearable in those young, confused, and impressionable years of adolescence. Unfortunately, many young girls receive the brunt of this, grappling with pangs of social anxiety and fear of awkwardness as they attempt to navigate the sea of trends and judgements created by their peers. This is where gender dysphoria comes in with the appealing offer to diminish despair and repair self-image. At a time when girls are most vulnerable to social pressures and bodily discomfort, diagnosing oneself as transgender seems to check various boxes. It simultaneously rewards a young girl with a new identity and a trendy explanation for the otherwise normal adolescent discomfort of puberty.

Several factors exacerbate the pull of the transgender diagnosis, including the replacement of the physical with the digital—as life moves online, mental health rapidly declines in young girls. Academic psychologist Jonathan Haidt asserts that young women are facing a “mental health crisis” in America, Britain, and Canada with unprecedented growth in anxiety and depression. He attributes this rise to the growth of social media, which tellingly parallels the rise of gender dysphoria as a prominent self-diagnosis. The iPhone was released in 2007, and by 2018, 95% of teenagers had access to one, with 45% admitting to being on the device nearly all the time. Similarly, the author notes that the academic literature on gender dysphoria in girls aged 11-21 was nonexistent before its rapid growth in 2012. With constant exposure to social media and a lack of in-person engagement, young girls are facing their bodily discomfort alone and more intensely than ever. 

Sites like Tumblr, Instagram, and DeviantArt present impressionable young girls with an increasingly popular answer to their problems. The author’s work found that most girls self-identifying as transgender are middle-to-upper class, intelligent students prone to social anxiety. Additionally, Dr. Littman found that 65% of girls in her study came to their conclusion after intense social media exposure fueled by the encouragement of highly popular YouTubers and media influencers. Psychologist Amanda Rose notes that the social orientation of young girls as empathetic and emotional friends makes them especially vulnerable to the sway of others’ experiences, too. When one girl in a friend clique or a social media celebrity in an online video comes out as transgender, relating her experience in emotionally-stirring detail, others will naturally relate and identify with her pain. In this case, sympathy turns destructive.

Dr. Littman views this turn as a way to self-medicate one’s valid underlying mental health issues. In young girls, gender dysphoria is similar to the equally damaging illnesses of anorexia, bulimia, and other self-harm habits, all sad realities of unaddressed and overwhelming anxiety in young girls. When insecurity, isolation, and natural empathy clash, young women seek out unhealthy channels for identity and support. A preoccupation with gender is our culture’s answer.

With more than 166,000 loyal followers and over 10 million pairs of eyes watching his formative videos, Chase Ross is one of today’s most prominent transgender activists. He’s just one of many transgender activists who uses online spaces to garner support and steer other young women and men toward a similar lifestyle. In fact, the author notes that many transgender influencers actually stumbled upon their diagnosis by the prompting of another YouTube video—a questionable means to discover something as personal as one’s gender identity. Still, YouTube channels, Tumblr pages, and other forms of social media evangelize the transgender lifestyle to vulnerable youth seeking companionship in the midst of their own confusion and anxiety. Activists advise young girls to bind their breasts, inject testosterone, and believe in their own unstable feelings rather than their parents’ more experienced advice. It worked for them after all, they’re YouTube stars now. Why wouldn’t it work for you?

Behind this facade of an idyllic life unbound by anxiety and fear is the truth: Activists promote a mentally and physically unhealthy lifestyle, fixating on their bodies as the source of all their troubles much like the person with an eating disorder does with her weight. While there are many transgender adults living accomplished and satisfied lives after transitioning, they didn’t arrive at their decision with a swarm of other people watching an online video or reading a forum. Rather, they arrived at their decision with consideration, thought, and maturity, three things that culture dissuades adolescents from seeking. 

Similarly, public and private schools alike are implementing gender ideology into their curricula despite parental disagreement and scientific fact. Not only is the language of gender identity and transgenderism introduced to young and impressionable children, including kindergarteners in California public schools, but it’s forcefully encouraged as well. Meanwhile, state-level laws prohibit teachers and other staff from informing parents of a child’s newly found transgender identity. Most recently in 2019, the California Teachers Association enabled transgender students to leave school to receive transitional hormone treatments without their parents’ knowledge. That’s only the beginning: Every Ivy League university and over 100 other institutions actually cover the cost of hormones on school insurance plans as well. From kindergarten to college, gender is applied as a proper lens to diagnose the world and oneself.

As a young girl learns her ABC’s, she also learns that she might not be a little girl after all. Education plants the thought and waters its growth through politicized curricula and funding, leading hurting youth to false conclusions and parents to the crucial question: What are we teaching our kids?

When was the last time you visited the doctor’s office? Chances are you didn’t arrive at the door of your cardiologist with a correct self-diagnosis at the ready (or at least not one you were absolutely certain of). You probably didn’t sit in the examining room telling your doctor not only the symptoms of your condition but its cause and potential remedies as well. Your doctor would probably laugh at you if you did. Physical and mental health examinations require acute degrees of questioning and testing; the patient’s word is rarely ever taken verbatim. 

And yet, the medical assessment for gender dysphoria espoused by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Psychological Association, and other leading health institutions does just that, arriving at its conclusions backwards. Psychiatrists, therapists, and doctors alike are entreated to adopt the “affirmative-care” method to assist transgender youth. Within this practice, doctors affirm and agree with a child’s self-diagnosis, no questions asked. If a young girl of 12 says that she has gender dysphoria, then she does—simple fact.

Therapist Randi Kaufman, head of the Gender and Family Project of the Ackerman Institute for the Family and leader in gender-affirmative therapy, encourages parents to agree with their child’s feelings and diagnoses to avoid the potential of self-harm and discomfort. While the model appears to have the best intentions—especially considering that the rates of suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression are especially high among transgender youth—it practices faulty science. Instead of questioning the child’s thought process and conclusions, therapists and parents are pushed to affirm them. This simply encourages a child’s unhealthy perception of herself, making it increasingly difficult for her to change her mind in the future should she go through with transitioning and regret her decision.

The author notes that affirmative-care rests on evidently false foundations. For instance, adolescents don’t always know who they are; if anything, the struggle with identity is one of the most stable components of tumultuous adolescence. Additionally, transitioning isn’t proven to decrease rates of suicidality and depression. The transitioning process isn’t easy, and it isn’t effortlessly correctable either.

Another issue with the affirmative-care method is its politicization. Therapists and doctors who refuse to practice it for the sake of adolescents’ health do so at their own peril. Leading gender psychologist Kenneth Zucker established the practice of “watchful waiting,” allowing gender dysphoric patients time to consider their discomfort and seek out other causes before transitioning. In a study of over 100 boys, this method proved successful, with 88% of previously dysphoric patients overcoming their discomfort with time. In 2015, zealous affirmative-care activists cried wolf on his practice and shut it down. Other psychologists and therapists who refuse to fold to scientifically questionable ideology experience the same pushback and defamation. There’s no room for truth anymore, not even in science.

As a result, young girls are left in the lurch—traveling in damaging mental circles that affirm their pain and dig even deeper grooves into their suffering brains.

Puberty blockers, testosterone, “top surgery,” phalloplasty—these are some of the terms that denote the medical process of transitioning. Changing one’s gender isn’t as simple as waking up one morning and telling friends to call you Brian instead of Brianna. Due to the lack of medical necessity, the author notes that transitioning is a process that never satisfies—binding one’s breasts might lead adolescents to desire “top surgery,” or the complete removal of breast tissue, and administering testosterone, or “T,” is a constant and addicting practice. These are procedures that alter the body forever, but doctors and therapists fail to inform patients of the potential risks and lifelong changes; instead they agree, sign their prescriptions, and schedule their procedures.

The US housed only one gender clinic in 2007, but now there are over 50, each offering minors the option to transition with nothing more than “informed consent.” In Oregon, girls as young as 15 can receive a course of testosterone without parental permission or even a doctor’s note. Transgender activists parade transitioning as a revelatory process that finally freed them from dysphoric pain, but that isn’t the whole truth. For instance, testosterone decreases anxiety and depression, causing women to slip quickly into less anxious, hairier, admittedly effeminate men. But it’s also a Schedule III controlled substance with health risks as varied as mental fogginess, a permanently altered voice, vaginal atrophy, and cardiovascular impacts. It’s no wonder that transgender YouTube stars advocate the life-changing impacts of taking “T,” but should they ever wish to detransition, the process grows thorny. The difficulty of detransitioning is only exacerbated should the young woman join the 36% of transgender people who receive a double mastectomy, or the 3% who elect to alter their female private parts irreparably. 

Detransitioning is possible though, as far-fetched as it may seem to young girls surrounded by affirming gender ideology. The story of Helena is proof. During high school, Helena threw herself into her identity as a transgender person; it consumed her and everything she loved. After taking courses of testosterone throughout college, she found her condition worsening—she was depressed and angry, trapped inside a bubble that promised salvation but delivered suffering instead. When Helena witnessed her own altered body in a photograph, she finally realized how far she’d drifted from herself and into a self-destructive world filled with anger and instability. The bubble that held her for so long finally shattered, and she saw the community surrounding her as a lie fed to hurting girls who need help. In 2019, she founded the Pique Resilience Project as an outlet for other gender detransitioners, empowering people to question themselves personally beyond the dialogue of culture. 

Adolescence is a period of instability, fluctuating between this feeling and that one, wondering if you said the right thing or joined the most interesting group. Parents, therapists, and doctors must recognize this crucial part of young adulthood: Teens are constantly changing their likes, interests, and even personalities, so allowing them to enact permanent alterations on their bodies is shortsighted. So many girls are crumbling beneath a cultural ideology that views their biological femininity as inferior. To truly counter culture, young girls must embrace their femininity, seek out the wisdom of adults who know and love them, and finally ask themselves the powerful question: Do I really want to do this? Is this really who I am?

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