Evidence Backs the Transgender Social-Contagion Hypothesis

[mountaineer]

Evidence Backs the Transgender Social-Contagion Hypothesis
Data shows that the spike in transgender identities is not rooted in biology.
Colin Wright
Dec 03, 2025

I was an academic scientist at Penn State in February 2020, when I became the target of an online mob for tweeting about transgender identity. I shared a link to an article from the Guardian with the accompanying quote: “Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare confirmed a 1,500% rise between 2008 and 2018 in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year-olds born as girls.” My commentary was brief: “Two words: social contagion.”

Within hours, colleagues denounced me as a “transphobic” bigot. Anonymous activists emailed universities to poison my job prospects. A professional job board even published mock job listings warning others not to hire me. My academic career never recovered.

But I wasn’t making an offhand remark or comparing a group of people to a disease vector, as some accused me of doing. I was referring to research published by Lisa Littman, a physician and researcher formerly with Brown university, who had coined the term “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” in a 2018 peer-reviewed paper to describe a newly emerging cohort of adolescents—overwhelmingly girls with no childhood history of gender dysphoria or even sex nonconformity—who suddenly began describing themselves as transgender, often after friends in their peer groups did the same. Dr. Littman proposed that this pattern was best explained by social contagion, meaning the spread of ideas or behaviors through peer influence. The term isn’t an insult; it’s a well-established sociological concept used to describe how trends such as eating disorders and even suicide clusters can spread. ...

The notion that transgender identity is biologically hard-wired can’t explain why there has been a more than 20-fold surge in those identifying as transgender in the U.S. since 2010.

The social-contagion hypothesis was never hateful. It was purely descriptive: a recognition that social and cultural factors shape human behavior. ...

Read entire article at Reality's Last Stand

Dr. Colin Wright is an evolutionary biology PhD, Manhattan Institute Fellow, and CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Reality’s Last Stand. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, the New York Post, Newsweek, City Journal, Quillette, Queer Majority, and other major news outlets and scientific journals. Follow him on X at: https://x.com/SwipeWright

[berdie]

I think this is true. It's "popular" right now. It's hardly a new occurrence. Every generation has had it's behaviors that draw people into it.

[Smokin Joe]

I think it's a fad at some level, the 'cool' thing to be/do.

I just hope all those "supportive" people out there don't railroad their kids into taking steps that cannot be reversed.

THis sort of social pressure used to be about losing virginity/getting laid the first time and such.

Then the GLB set moved in to make it 'trendy' amongst those who were easily influenced, and now the 'T's are at it.

Enough is enough, but kids are not being taught to think critically--or even at all.