Bunk Science Is Influencing the Transgender Kid Boom

The story

The phenomenon of American celebrities showcasing their supposedly transgender children to the public is reflective of a new normal in American life. Parents and healthcare providers in Western countries are contending with the enormous increase in Gen-Z kids identifying as LGBT, with 22.3 percent of that generation identifying as LGBT and 5.3 percent as transgender or non-binary.

Many suspect that celebrities are pushing their children into identifying with unusual sexual identities and behaviors.

The widely anticipated Cass Review, commissioned by the British government to asses the state of youth transgender “healthcare” in the U.K., was released earlier this spring. The report, tempered in tone and brimming with long-awaited clarity, explains that an overwhelming amount of research on this subject is of poor quality.

Much of that research has been influencing a pervasive transgender social contagion.

The report’s transgender-identifying author and pediatrician Dr. Hillary Cass, recommended a halt to medical gender transition for minors in the UK and more high-quality research to be conducted. The review also argues for a move away from the immediate affirmation of gender identity toward a more holistic model that explores various possible explanations for gender-related distress.

The politics

The left and right have fundamentally misrepresented the Cass Review and its findings, with Yale and MedPage Today providing more measured criticisms. Cass says the right has used the report to argue that transgender people do not exist and that trans youth should be denied access to healthcare. Radicals on the left argue that Cass made the very claims that the right accuses her of making, which Cass denies.

Following the review’s release, Dr. Jill Simons, Executive Director of the right-wing advocacy group the American College of Pediatricians announced “enough,” calling for an end to “social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for children.” The right-leaning Walt Hayer, a de-transitioner and activist, said in response to the celebrity controversy, “transgenders…don’t exist,” an assertion contended by Dr. Cass.

Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) led the congressional hearing on youth gender transition last July. He grilled Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an adolescent medicine specialist, about the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) standards of care for youth gender transition. When asked what evidence those standards were based on, McNamara was unable to answer the question because those standards were not based on any evidence.

In fact, the evidence and ethics sections and much of the gatekeeping around youth transitioning, including for surgery, were removed from WPATH’s youth standards of care in 2022, despite protestations from organization members and nearly 1,700 transgender “healthcare” providers.

Many Republican-majority states have passed laws restricting youth access to transgender healthcare, and in some states, those restrictions extend to adults. Blue states have been much more permissive with gender affirmative laws, with California making so-called “gender affirmation” a custody issue for parents in court battles.

Beyond the headlines

The Cass Review illuminated one of today’s most important and controversial issues: Why has the transgender-identifying youth population increased so significantly?

It has become a matter of orthodoxy that the massive increase in youth identifying as transgender and non-binary cannot be caused by social influence — despite the common assertion that gender is a learned social construct.

Dr. Cass disagrees with this orthodoxy, arguing in the report that there are multiple likely causes for the increase, including social influence and social media.

A frequently cited study published in Pediatrics purporting to disprove the social contagion hypothesis has been criticized for methodological flaws. The first study to support the social contagion hypothesis, and the most villainized, was described by its publishing journal PLOS One as containing no errors.

Hundreds of messages from WPATH were leaked to the public earlier this year, showing how doctors willingly provided minors and severely mentally ill patients with life-altering procedures that they could not understand. These risks included long-term surgical and hormonal complications, including possible infertility and cancer risk. WPATH members dismissed concerns about these issues as “gatekeeping.”

Dr. Cass discusses such concerns in the report, stating that some “parents described their dismay about actions taken without their consent and in ignorance of the various other difficulties their child may have been through….” Cass goes on to argue that the discourse around this subject has become too toxic and that those with dissenting views should not be dismissed.

Even the United Nations is concerned, with Reem Alsalem, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls saying that the revelations in the Cass Review reveal a violation of children’s human rights.

Why it matters

“Transgender” children are likely just experiencing difficulties associated with going through puberty, and it is doubtful their parents are interested in actual science. While it is normal for children and adolescents to explore their identities in new and transgressive ways, the trendiness of LGBT identities among kids is pushing some into a medical pathway that can lead to irreversible changes and damage to their bodies

Further, it has become anathema to openly discuss the possibility that the increase in transgender identification may be partially caused by social influence. Without such discourse and accompanying research, it is impossible to come to evidence-based conclusions to provide high-quality care to youth who are experiencing discomfort with their bodies.

The witch hunts against detractors of gender orthodoxy not only stifle debate, but they ruin lives.

The journalist Katie Herzog had to move to a new city for the crime of writing about de-transitioners. A Harvard Professor was forced to resign for saying biological sex is a dimorphic trait. Dr. Cass received violent threats and was warned by police not to take public transportation following the publication of her Review.

The debate around transgenderism is rarely about the actual science and evidence regarding the subject at hand. Rather, it is a religious orthodoxy that demands obeisance, permanently damaging children and shutting down legitimate scientific and political discourse.