I’m going to try to stay out of this after this post, as I had to walk away and put the last thread on ignore that started down this road. Precisely because there’s a lot of FUD about me and mine out there on this topic, and people keep phrasing it as if they are just asking questions rather than taking to heart we are talking about people’s lives. But at the same time, I also need to stand up for me and mine.
When it’s being used to equate being trans to a social contagion, then yes. When it’s being used to argue that the increase itself is a problem, rather than try to understand why, then yes. When it‘s being used to work back from a conclusion or reinforce a pre-existing bias or belief that trans people need interventions to dissuade them from being trans, then yes. See phrenology, et al.
When we stopped stigmatizing being left handed, we saw sharp increases of people “being left-handed”. Was it because it was now trendy, or because we stopped rapping on the knuckles of anyone trying to write with their left hand in school? As stigmas around being anything but straight loosen, we see increases in people being open about not being straight. Oh gee, when we stop giving gay men the choice of prison or chemical castration when it’s found out, maybe they’ll talk about it more in public. Maybe more people will understand why they feel the way they do instead of bottling it up, and maybe more people will not hide the fact that they aren’t straight.
One of the most common things I see being discussed in the trans community is how being able to interact with other trans people and hear them describe their experiences unfiltered finally helped put language to something they already felt. To bring those things into the light rather than hide them. This is a community that in the last couple decades, with help of the internet, is finally figuring out how to tell their story their way, rather than in the myopic way the media has treated and questioned trans people in the past (which if you haven’t seen the stuff from the 90s, it’s gross and voyeuristic, talk about sexualizing people). It’s akin to left handed people finally finding other left handed people in a world that raps your knuckles for writing with “the wrong hand” and being able to go “oh hey, it’s not just me, I don’t have to feel shame for this”. Or akin to a woman finally being given the mental framework to understand why they’ve never had any gratifying relationships with men, but keep wanting to flirt with their cute lady barista.
There’s unfortunately some junk science in this space that has been used for decades to stigmatize being trans, much like with the gay and bisexual communities, and some very recent efforts as well that has helped fuel the new panic around trans people.
Citation needed. See above.
