Is being trans a social fad among teenagers?

recover completely, which means a lifelong increased risk of breaking bones. Other studies have suggested that taking puberty blockers increases the risk of heart problems and may lead to genital underdevelopment or fertility complications.  Although I must warn you that at the moment none of those studies are particularly conclusive because the sample sizes are small. Added to this is the psychological problem that it is not easy to face the fact of not entering puberty when all your peers do. In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered manufacturers of puberty blockers to add a warning about mental health problems to the drugs' labels after receiving several reports of suicidal thoughts in children taking them.

Clearly you want to have a good reason for putting your child through this. Unfortunately, the evidence that puberty blockers actually improve the mental health of children with gender dysphoria is scarce. Some studies have found a small benefit in reducing suicidality, but these studies did not have control groups, so the benefit could have come from simply receiving treatment and receiving care. Other studies have found that puberty blockers given to children with severe and persistent gender dysphoria had no significant effect on thoughts of self-harm or body image. The UK's National Institute of Health conducted a systematic review of the literature in 2020 and found that the results of the studies reviewed were "of very low certainty" and that the studies "suggest little change from baseline to follow-up" in gender dysphoria. ,   mental health and psycho

social

impact.

They also say that, quote, "studies that found differences in results could represent changes that are of questionable clinical value, or the studies themselves are unreliable and the changes could be due to confounding, bias, or chance," the quote ends. Let's look then at hormone therapy that replaces the hormones of the assigned gender with those of the chosen gender. This is usually done between the ages of 16 and 18, much later than the usual onset of puberty. When hormone therapy is subsequently discontinued, some characteristics, such as skin texture, muscle mass, and fat deposition, are partially reversible. Others are not.   Protrusion of the Adam's apple, voice changes, male pattern baldness and breast development are irreversible once developed.

Yes, once your hair falls out, not even estrogen will make it come back, sorry guys. The effects of hormone therapy on fertility are currently unclear. Does it benefit the well-

being

of

trans

gender people? Just a few months ago, a team of American researchers published the results of a study on gender-affirming hormone therapy in adolescents.   They followed 315

trans

gender and non-binary participants between the ages of 12 and 20 for two years. In the summary, they state that they found an increase in reported appearance congruence, that is, how well participants felt their gender aligned with their appearance, positive affect, and life satisfaction.

They also found a decrease in symptoms of depression and anxiety. These declines are statistically significant, but that doesn't mean they are large. Life satisfaction, for example, increased 2.3 points per year on a 100-point scale, and depression scores decreased 1.3 points per year on a 63-point scale. You could say it's better than nothing, but these numbers alone don't mean anything because the study didn't have a control group.   Many previous studies have found that life satisfaction in this age group on average declines, suggesting that they either had a non-representative sample to begin with or that receiving treatment itself had a positive effect.

If you look closer at their data, it also turns out that the researchers only saw psychological improvements in anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction among those designated female at birth, but not among those designated male at birth—a fact that, interestingly, it is not. mentioned in the summary. The authors speculate that the reason may be that they only followed the participants for 2 years, but it typically takes longer for trans girls to develop breasts of a decent size. So it may take more time for the benefits to become apparent.  They also point out that the

social

acceptance of trans women and trans men is different.

Maybe that's the right explanation, or maybe not. As we have seen above, young women, on average, suffer more mental health problems than children. And a 2019 meta-analysis of 27 randomized, placebo-controlled trials found that testosterone treatment is associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms in men. So maybe the hormones did it. But does it have anything to do with a gender transition? Another problem pointed out by Jesse Singal is that the variables analyzed in the article are not the ones they said they would analyze in the pre-registered protocol. This means they had the opportunity to cherry-pick their results, making their measure of statistical significance obsolete.

I'm not saying that's what they did, but since they didn't follow the protocol they recorded themselves beforehand, it's possible that their results are just random noise. Another article that is often presented by people who favor hormonal treatment is one that was published in 2022 in the journal Pediatrics. They followed about 100 young Americans who were transgender or nonbinary. Or at least they tried. At the end of the test there were only 64 left. So we are talking about a really small sample.   About two-thirds of the participants began therapy with puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones during the trial, the rest served as a control group.

The researchers observed a 60 percent lower odds of depression and 73 percent lower odds of suicidal thoughts among youth who had started puberty blockers or hormone therapy compared to those who had not. They saw no effect for anxiety. If that sounds good, here's the fine print. The mental health of those who were treated did not improve. Instead, what happened is that the mental health of those who *weren't

being

treated worsened. And in the end, the untreated control group consisted of 7 people. I know that as a particle physicist I may have unreasonably high standards for statistical significance and sample size, but I'm not impressed.

Aren't there better studies? No, there is not. There are currently no high-quality studies that conclusively demonstrate that these treatments are beneficial. Britain's National Health Service examined this in 2020 and found evidence from 5 observational studies that "suggest that... gender-affirming hormones are likely to improve symptoms of gender dysphoria and may also improve depression, anxiety, quality of life, suicidal tendencies, and psychosocial functioning,” but they point out that these studies were not controlled and that “all results were of very low certainty.” A comparison that is often made is that between transgender and transgender identity. left-handed, which was recently popularized by the British comedian John Oliver.

Until about the 1970s, children were forced to learn to write with their right hand, until someone suddenly thought of letting them write however they wanted. People started writing with the other hand. This had nothing to do with social contagion, it was simply that they could now be who they had wanted to be from the beginning. Something similar is expected to happen with transgender identification, where as it becomes more socially acceptable, more people are seen to feel comfortable being who they really are. And, so the argument goes, no one would subject themselves or their children to a gender transition if they didn't think it was truly necessary.

But. For one thing, this doesn't explain why the gender ratio of those seeking treatment for gender dysphoria has suddenly changed.  And also, as much as I like John Oliver, it's an extremely unfortunate comparison. You can switch a pen from one hand to the other and back again in a few seconds and without lasting consequences. Puberty blockers and hormone therapies are not that easy to undo and we don't understand the long-term consequences. In summary. What I gather from the data is that the sudden increase in the number of teens identifying as transgender is real and substantial. It is also clear that the demographic is changing markedly and is now heavily skewed towards those assigned female at birth, many of whom present with other mental health disorders.

The evidence that such children would benefit from puberty blockers or hormone therapy is scarce and there are large uncertainties, the side effects can be substantial and the long-term consequences are mostly unknown. No one knows exactly what is happening, but the reasonable expectation is that the current increase in reports of gender dysphoria is due to a combination of two causes. Young people feel more comfortable being openly trans *and some of them mistakenly believe they are trans because they have heard so much about it.   I would say that anyone who insists that one of those possibilities does not exist is pushing an agenda and should not be taken seriously.

The question is how to differentiate these two possibilities. This is currently unclear and is why countries such as Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom are asking doctors to refrain from prescribing medications. Because right now they don't know how to deal with the sudden increase in girls with gender dysphoria and they don't want to do any harm. So what do you think? Do you have children that age and are you worried about them?   Are you transgender and see the situation differently? Let me know in the comments. Gender dysphoria, like most physical and mental health issues, is a sensitive topic.

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