The Transgender Contagion

Abigail Shrier

by James A. Bacon

Abigail Shrier deserves a Pulitzer Prize for her 2019 work of journalism, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.” She’ll never get the recognition she deserves from the literary establishment, though, because her conclusions transgress some of the holiest orthodoxies in the progressive canon. Despite the outcry that greeted her book, it became a best seller and transformed the way many people think about transgenderism. I am one of them.

Anyone reading the book, as opposed to imbibing the mischaracterizations of her critics, will readily see that Shrier is no “transphobe.” She is highly empathetic to the struggles that transgender people undergo, and she respectfully refers to them by their transgendered names and pronouns. She also acknowledges that gender dysphoria is a real (but exceedingly rare) phenomenon that occurs mainly among boys as young as three or four who believe that their minds and bodies are mismatched.

Shrier is reviled because she regards the unprecedented surge of transgender identity among adolescent girls as a cultural contagion, and she sees “affirmative” practices of hormonal treatment and breast removal as one step removed from medical malpractice. She criticizes teachers, psychiatrists and medical professionals who automatically “affirm” transgender identity rather than inquire about other potential explanations of emotional distress.

One critic described her work as “a fear-filled screed, full of misinformation, biological and medical inaccuracies, logical fallacies, and propaganda.” Perhaps. I’m no expert. But I found her credible.

Virginians can hear Shrier speak for herself when she appears at the University of Virginia October 11, Room 125 of Minor Hall, at 7:00 p.m. The event is sponsored by The Jefferson Council and the Common Sense Society as part of our ongoing effort to bring diverse voices to UVa. Register here

I got no sense from her book that Shrier is a cultural conservative. Cultural conservatives have embraced her because she validates their suspicions that there is something terribly misguided about the transgender movement. However, writing in 2019, she never referenced culture cons as sources and betrayed no sympathy for, say, the MAGA movement. She strikes me as an old-fashioned liberal who believe what old-fashioned liberals believed before progressives rose to cultural and political dominance.

Shrier interviewed hundreds of people for her book, and she steeped herself in YouTube videos, Reddit chat rooms, and other social media. She talked to parents, teachers, psychologists, and medical doctors — not just skeptics but those who supported the transgender movement. It was an impressive feat of journalism.

The starting point for Shrier’s investigation is the observation that gender dysphoria was vanishingly rare among adolescent girls a decade ago. Pubescent girls in our society have long had body-image issues, and phenomena such as anorexia and bulimia have been a gnawing issue for years. But the conviction among teenage females that they were really boys exploded in the mid-2010s, simultaneous with the widespread use of the iPhone and social media. Girls who were unpopular, confused, or unhappy — typically suffering from anxiety and/or depression — sought answers for their misery, fell down social-media rabbit holes, and found a sense of belonging online. Reinforcing the theory that the spread of transgenderism arises from social contagion is the fact that the phenomenon occurs most frequently among girls from affluent White families, is clustered in peer groups, and is most common in households with politically progressive views.

Shrier is sympathetic to these girls. They are suffering emotionally, she says. In politically progressive environments, identifying as trans gives them affirmation and status that they lacked before. But there are tremendous risks when these girls-now-identifying-as-boys undergo “gender-affirming treatment” such as taking testosterone shots, having their breasts removed, or in extreme cases, undergoing phalloplasty, the construction of an artificial penis. Each of these procedures has potential side effects — most notably sterility — and are potentially irreversible.

In 2019 when Shrier’s book was published, the medical evidence conflicted as to whether gender-affirming treatment improved or worsened transgenders’ sense of wellbeing. More recent findings in Europe suggest that such treatments offer no psychological benefit at all. Indeed, a number of young women have decided they are not transgender, regret their disfigurement and sterility, and decry the educational/medical establishment that rushed them into their affirmative treatment.

Transgenderism is real in a tiny percentage of cases (less than one in a thousand people), and transgenders deserve compassion for their struggles. But most of the cases we see today reflect the medicalization of anxiety, depression and loneliness into hardened culture-war dogma. Affirmation likely does more harm than good. As one of the first to explain how America succumbed to this madness, Shrier is a prophet. Everyone needs to hear her.

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Lorna gladstone
Lorna gladstone
1 year ago

Having first hand experience because of a young grandniece I can textify to the tragedy of this whole movement. Ignorant parents and woke school teachers are largely to blame

Wahoo74
Wahoo74
1 year ago

This is an outstanding article, Jim. Ms. Shrier addresses a key issue getting disproportionate attention in today’s society. I’ve registered and very much look forward to the talk.

Robert Pyles MD
Robert Pyles MD
1 year ago

Is there any way to hear this presentation on line or virtually, as on zoom?

The Bootstrap Kid
The Bootstrap Kid
1 year ago

I will be amazed if the woke left democrats and their “Brown Shirt” surrogates – ANTIFA and BLM, allow this woman to speak.

walter smith
walter smith
1 year ago

But I ask…for the umpteenth time, how come the really bootstrapped TJC has to fund this “diverse” viewpoint (which also happens to be sane and scientifically and socially correct), while UVA with $14 billion in foundational support doesn’t lift a finger to help?

(To ask the question is to answer it)

Practicing Lawyer
Practicing Lawyer
1 year ago

Negative feedback in the form of downvotes on the comments. But no comments from the critics. I would like to hear what they have to say. Proponents used to argue, “it’s better to have a transgender son than a dead daughter.” Experience shows that to be a false choice. In addition, the demographic clustering of the disorder in wealthy, white, leftist communities proves there is a social contagion.

Believing you are a different sex is the same disorder as a seeing person who believes they are blind and wants their eyes removed. Politics dictates that one is beautiful and brave while the other remains a horror (for now).

Hoostalkin82
Hoostalkin82
1 year ago

You would rather your child be dead than transgender? That seems a bit harsh. It is our job as parents to support our kids and if something is affecting their mental health that much than it seems cruel to ignore it or say it isn’t real. There must be a middle ground where children are allowed to explore their gender because even Abigail admits that transgender people exist. Whether you believe it or not is it really worth taking the chance?

walter smith
walter smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Hoostalkin82

Would you rather your child be dead or transgender is a blackmail tactic from the “gender affirming care” clinics, and has been proven a false choice. In fact, a downright lie as the suicide rate is higher post transing, but you can manipulate statistics all sorts of ways and where there is money, one should be on the lookout for such manipulated statistics.
I don’t think it is our “job” as parents to “support” our kids by encouraging them to do lifetime harm to themselves for what was until recently recognized as a mental problem. Do we give anorexia affirming care? Kleptomania affirming care? Arsonist affirming care? as to this issue, I don’t think there is a middle ground for youngsters. We don’t let them drink until they are 21, but we let them decide their sex (which they can never change) at 9 years old? And ruin their chances to have a child or father a child and doom them to a lifetime of hormone treatments, with further complications. This is not a one and done and VOILA! you are the opposite sex thing.
So yes, let’s have an honest discussion. That’s what we are trying to do.

Skylar
Skylar
8 months ago

Somewhere in your title should probably say that this article is a book review and a look over at the author instead of just “The Transgender Contagion”. Also, I might quote this article in a paper I’m writing and want to represent you right, so what political identity do you align with?