Tech And Trans ConfusionIf parents and policymakers want to protect kids from the harm of transitioning, they need to turn up the heat on tech companies.
JUNE 17, 2022
JARED ECKERT
In December 2000, the Atlantic published an exposé reminiscent of The Twilight Zone. Earlier that year, reports broke of a British surgeon who had amputated the healthy limbs of two patients. What author Carl Elliott found underneath these strange events was even more puzzling. A once rare condition—psychological distress over healthy limbs—was now plaguing thousands. How did this happen?
In his interviews with amputee-wannabes, Elliott discovered a common factor fueling what is now called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID): the internet. For those with access, the internet provided a flood of information and social connections. Its disembodied, anonymous environment may have made the problem worse. The result? An ecological niche in which BIID could bloom.
That was 2000, when internet use was far less addictive and ubiquitous than it is today.
Since then, “new media”—the internet, smartphones, and social media—have spread almost perennial strains of body dysmorphia. By the mid-2010s, Tumblr’s image-saturated blogs were fueling pro-anorexia, or “pro-ana,” blogs. Today, TikTok is filling teens’ feeds with eating disorder content, and Instagram is causing body image issues for 1 in 3 teen girls.
There has been public outcry against these tech-fueled crazes in outlets like, well, the Atlantic. But the latest contagion has been ignored outside conservative media: rapid onset gender dysphoria. Worse, much of the left has celebrated the phenomenon in the name of “inclusivity,” “equality,” and—this month—“Pride.”
Like the amputee-wannabes of 2000 or anorexic teens of the 2010s, new media are fueling yet another form of teenage self-harm. Take Keira Bell, the young woman who won a United Kingdom High Court case against the gender clinic that fast-tracked her transition. Before the counselor’s office, clinic, or classroom, she was exposed to gender ideology on the internet.
Or consider Grace Lidinsky-Smith, who was featured on the 60 Minutes transgender report. Grace has traced her “gender journey” back to social media: “It all started when I got on Tumblr as a 13-year-old.” For Grace’s teenage self, virtual “friends” helped diagnose her anxiety and depression as symptoms of being born in the wrong body.
Helena Kirschner, a popular American detransitioner, has also shared how social media incubated her desire to transition. Like Grace, Helena’s transgender fantasy began on Tumblr, which she used “as an all-day alternate reality escape from the real world.”
The evidence of internet contagion extends beyond the anecdotal. Recent surveys find that most teens who transition are exposed, encouraged, and supported online. In one survey, 65 percent of those who transitioned cited online groups, forums, and/or social media as the biggest sources of help. Another survey found that YouTube, blogs, Tumblr, and online forums were the top sources that persuaded detransitioners to transition in the first place.
* * *
Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/tech-and-trans-confusion/
