Telling Kids To Hate Their Biology Might Be What’s Actually Killing Them

[Kamaji]

Telling Kids To Hate Their Biology Might Be What’s Actually Killing Them

Might the increase in ‘gender dysphoria’ among American youth be related to broader societal dysphoria felt by an entire generation of kids?

BY: CASEY CHALK
AUGUST 05, 2022

Whenever anyone expresses concern about pressing gender ideology on American youth, the typical retort is to cite suicide statistics. “Transgender and nonbinary youth have considered suicide at higher rates than other LGBTQ youth,” warns an NPR article from May. “Children and teens who do not identify with their assigned gender can face higher rates of depression, suicide and self harm than other kids,” The New York Times reported in March.

Because of the vulnerability of “trans youth,” activists claim, resisting pro-trans indoctrination is a direct threat to the welfare of an already victimized and marginalized group. School leaders claim they are justified in hiding the trans identity of students from parents who might harm them. “Affirming trans children’s genders reduces their risk of attempting suicide,” asserted a March article in Vox, and compared “anti-trans legislation” to genocide (yes, really). A political cartoon in The Washington Post earlier this year even accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of being personally responsible for the suicide of trans children.

Yet what if the opposite is true, that promotion of alternative sexual identities among America’s children is aggravating our national mental health crisis, and increasing the likelihood of self-harm among vulnerable young populations?

Is There Something in the Water?
Sometimes it feels as if over the last decade the world awoke to to find itself transgender. The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in just five years, according to a report from earlier this year. Moreover, the rise in young people identifying as trans has been steadily increasing for the last two decades. Earlier in 2016, The New York Times reported that the number of adults identifying as trans had doubled in five years (see a pattern?). “The sharp increase could be because many more young people now feel more comfortable identifying themselves as transgender … or it could be that more accurate data sources are now available to account for them,” conjectured an article at Education Week.

There are other plausible theories — such as a 2018 scientific study that suggested trans identification among youth might be socially contagious — but they have been quickly and aggressively maligned as bigoted and “anti-transgender” by pro-trans liberal elites. That fact is telling: rather than pursue unbiased, dispassionate study of data to understand an unprecedented social phenomenon, the pro-trans movement resorts to name-calling and cancellation. And however many “hidden” trans children there were in 2000, it seems a bit presumptuous (and dare I say unscientific) to conclude, with no data, that this sea change is wholly explained by growing acceptance of trans persons in America.

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Source:  https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/05/telling-kids-to-hate-their-biology-might-be-whats-actually-killing-them/