Clusters of trans students prove social contagion
Robby Starbuck said:
“I'm saying that there's very clear signs of a social contagion, this has been covered widely even in papers like New York Times, where they have essentially, you know, had to concede this ground that there are these pockets that don't make sense.”
Geographic clustering of any phenomenon looks suspicious, and the phrase "social contagion" borrows the authority of epidemiology. A New York Times mention lends it mainstream credibility for viewers who associate that outlet with careful reporting.
When gay and lesbian identification rose sharply through the 1990s and 2000s as social acceptance grew, nobody called it contagion: they called it what it was, which is stigmatised people feeling safer being honest. The same logic applies here. What looks like a suspicious cluster is what any researcher would predict as the penalty for being trans falls in certain communities, and the New York Times coverage reported that this debate exists, not that contagion had been established as fact. The foundational study behind the "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" framing recruited its data from parents on gender-critical forums rather than from young trans people themselves, and it was substantially corrected after publication precisely because of that flaw. The cost of getting this wrong is not abstract: a teenager whose identity is dismissed as a social fad by their school or family loses access to support at the moment they need it most.
What I said at the time:
“Being transgender is not a cool thing to be. And yet all 2020 to 2024 it trans people, then everyone's going to do it. It's like saying, if you if if it, oh my god, if I go to the gay bar tonight, is that going to turn me gay? Doesn't. It doesn't. We know that.”
Young trans people in schools, whose identities are reframed as a peer-pressure fad, making it easier for schools and families to dismiss or suppress them.