Social contagion explains the rise in trans-identifying young people
Lucy Johnston said:
“Do you think there's any societal pressures, trends? Do you think there's anything in that?”
The rapid increase in referrals, particularly among adolescents assigned female at birth, is a real and documented trend, and it is natural to ask whether social factors play a role. The social contagion hypothesis has been widely discussed in mainstream media and given apparent academic backing.
The academic paper that gave the social contagion theory its apparent credibility, Lisa Littman's 2018 rapid-onset gender dysphoria study, was substantially corrected after publication, and the core criticism has never gone away: it recruited parents from gender-critical forums, not from clinical or community populations, which means it was measuring parental alarm rather than anything happening in the young people themselves. Subsequent peer-reviewed research has not replicated a contagion effect. What the referral numbers actually show, when you look at the evidence rather than the headlines, is what happens when language becomes available, when stigma lifts, and when young people feel safe enough to say what they have always known about themselves: more of them come forward. Treating a trans young person's identity as a trend to be waited out is not caution, it is a decision, and it has consequences for every month of an unwanted puberty they are living through while adults debate whether they are real.
What I said at the time:
“It's always been there. It's always been there. What we didn't have before, and as often happens in society, is we didn't have the language, we didn't have the understanding, we didn't have the acceptance... So there's no social contagion. The social contagion has been looked at, examined and discarded.”
Young trans people whose identities are treated as a passing trend rather than genuine, leading families and clinicians to withhold support.