7 ms·

Gender dysphoria is rising – and so is professional disagreement

37 points by thegrimmest 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tenpies 4y ago
> For example, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, which sets guidelines for care, determined earlier this year that the risks of puberty blockers and treatment with hormones “currently outweigh the possible benefits” for minors. What does Sweden do differently in their scientific community that they so frequently arrive at a different cost/benefit result than the rest of the West? This has happened so much that it's clearly not by chance. We saw them reach a different conclusion about lockdowns - the cost would not make up for the benefit. When the mRNA vaccines emerged, they too had a different determination of cost/benefit and they were one of the first countries to determine that the benefit does not make up for the risk in certain populations. Then puberty blockers for minors, which in the US are effectively considered a perfect treatment with no side effects and to express even a hint of hesitation is met with professional and personal ruin. It's unthinkable in the US today, yet it would not surprise me if this is Sweden again lapping the other countries in what will be scientific consensus in 5 years time.
- kamranjon 4y ago
  Sweden had one of the highest death rates in Europe during the first wave and did not fare so well on the second wave of the pandemic either. Their own government formed a commision that concluded they were unprepared and that earlier and more extensive action should have been taken before the first wave.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    This doesn't answer the OP's question: "What does Sweden do differently in their scientific community..." Obviously, they're doing something very differently, though with the pandemic it seems, the results weren't very good.
  - nwienert 4y ago
    Total excess mortality compared pre and post pandemic they are likely the very best of all euro countries. There were a few extensive Twitter threads into this recently, but the latest data is showing they likely did at or near the best.
  - hnra 4y ago
    Sweden had a lower or same excess death rates than almost all other European countries [1]. The large death spikes early on in the pandemic can be mostly explained by the fact that Sweden had a much lower death rate among its elderly population in the years preceding the pandemic (if I recall correctly). [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-per-100k-economist?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~IDN~BRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-...
- Unduereturn 4y ago
  This is very interesting as Ive been under the impression that Sweden is generally seen as very accommodating to transgender ideology. I belive that many people flock there for comfort in acceptance. Perhaps they analyse and leverage more data of the outcomes and wellbeing of these people.
- brabel 4y ago
  The rest of the West has a unified position regarding this? No way. Sweden's position is based on lots of cases of teenagers regretting the procedure and some even suing the government for allowing them to have done it... it's not a position Sweden arrived at out of prejudice, if you know the social situation in Sweden today you would definitely understand that.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    I don't buy the "lots of teenagers". Maybe a couple, plus a lot of media coverage. Give me a source.
    - brabel 4y ago
      In Swedish: https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1431961 https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1431961 and https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/explosionsartad-okning-av-tonaringar-som-genomgar-konskorrigering https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/explosionsartad-okn... and https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/har-behandlas-flera-som-angrar-sin-konskorrigering-fem-till-tio-personer https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/har-behandlas-flera... In summary, there's been a recent explosing in the number of people performing transition in the last 10 years or so (from around 20 people per year in 2003 to 2007, to over 400 people in 2018)... so the number of cases where we have information about this is very few, and those who used to do it in the past, despite the stigma, were likely much more "certain" that this is what they want. But of that older generation, only 2.2% are known to have actually gone though a de-transition (the figure does not include those who did seek help but did not go through with the process)... however, it's possible that many more regret it but never tried to revert it, as de-transitioning is even more difficult, and perhaps even more "embarrassing" (sorry for the term, I don't know if it's the best word here as I don't think anyone should be embarrassed for that, but I suspect they do) for the person to "come out" than for transitioning. One doctor interviewed claims "a handful" of patients (5 to 10) they treated have regreted and are currently detransitioning. So I think my argument that "lots of teenagers" are regreting is accurate, given there's a lot of other doctors doing this in Sweden, but up to you to make up your mind if a handful of people doesn't matter. What shocked most people was the fact that teens as young as 14 were allowed to go through with the transition despite them having other serious mental health issues (half of the girls had autism or self-harm issues or anorexia) and without a serious, properly investigated diagnosis. Some who regret have to keep their identity secret because apparently they get told that they are hurting the trans community by talking about it, so it's not unresonable to believe at least some people decide to keep quiet about their regrets. Finally, researchers in this area seem to agree that there's almost no data regarding the long term impact of transitioning and hence the process should be much more scrutinized than it currently is (some of the trans in the linked articles say they were basically treated as "lab rabbits")... Hope that informs you enough to understand the debate that has been going on in Sweden, which unlike in the US, almost completely lacks the transphobic arguments and focuses on the actual data (or lack thereof) regarding trans people's wellbeing and whether there's enough evidence that people who are allowed to transition could not have been just suffering from other mental issues at the time their extremely serious decision was made.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  The Scandinavian countries are well-run high trust societies that score highly on most positive metrics. Most of the rest of the world are run like shit-shows in comparison.
faeriechangling 4y ago
The evidence of the efficacy of some of the treatments for gender dysphoria like hormones are among the very best we see in mental health, we see outcomes just a bit below what we see for stimulants for ADHD, and they smack the shit out of crap like SSRIs. One can question the quality of this evidence, and how strong of an endorsement we should be giving, but things look good. My biggest point of caution is that the past is not the present, and the amount of patients has exploded to such an extreme that said evidence is very arguably irrelevant because we're not treating the same body of patients as we were when most long-term evidence was gathered. We're seeing a tripling in the amount of people identifying as transgender. I question if we truly know how these drugs affect the MAJORITY of people seeking them. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teenagers-national-survey.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teena...
- autoexec 4y ago
  > I question if we truly know how these drugs affect the MAJORITY of people seeking them. My suspicion is that they'll help in the short term, but I do worry about the long term. As long as we're careful about keeping research active and objective at least it won't take very long to start getting answers. Since it seems we've already committed to the experiment, our focus should be on collecting data on the outcomes and making sure that no matter what those outcomes are these children are given our support and are treated with compassion as they grow.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >We're seeing a tripling in the amount of people identifying as transgender. This really makes me wonder if there isn't something else going on, such as young people simply being unhappy with their lives or the gender roles expected of them, and jumping on the "transgender" bandwagon as a way to escape that. The idea that 20% of the population is transgender really makes no sense. Maybe a large part of the population simply doesn't want to conform to what conservative society expects of "masculinity" or "femininity", so instead of simply ignoring that crap like they did in the past, now they believe they're "transgender" and try acting like the opposite sex.
klyrs 4y ago
Meanwhile, mainstream american right-wingers are literally calling for the eradication of transgender people. What is the political motivation behind posting this article?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I'm not saying this out of scepticism but curiosity - what specifically are you talking about when you say that?
  - dahdum 4y ago
    Probably a reference to Knowles. > During his speech on Saturday, Knowles told the crowd, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” Knowles subsequently claimed that “eradicating” “transgenderism” is not a call for eradicating transgender people and demanded retractions from numerous publications, including Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-speaker-transgender-people-eradicated-1234690924/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-spe...
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Bull. Shit*. One does not simply "eradicate" an "ideology" when that so-called ideology is practiced by people. If I called for the eradication of Judaism, and demanded people retract their claims that I'd called for the eradication of Jewish people, would that demand be taken seriously? * this directed at Knowles, not dahdum
      - dahdum 4y ago
        He's a provocateur who likely carefully chose his words knowing the backlash would raise his personal profile, while giving just a bare thread of deniability about what he really meant. I have no doubt he's relishing the attention.
jamilton 4y ago
>For example, a recent analysis of insurance claims found that nearly 18,000 US minors began taking puberty blockers or hormones from 2017 to 2021, the number rising each year. I'm having trouble parsing this, is this saying the overall total in that time period was nearly 18,000 and the yearly amount was increasing, or that the yearly total was 18,000? This article seems very vague about what treatments are being given to whom. My understanding is that in the US, minors with gender dysphoria who haven't started puberty don't get medical treatment, which is in line with the NHS guidelines. The article seems to be implying otherwise, but doesn't outright say so.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > My understanding is that in the US, minors with gender dysphoria who haven't started puberty don't get medical treatment, It's the wild west in the US. If you have the money you can usually find a doctor who will do whatever you want. We can (and probably should) ask how often it's happening, but children are getting medical and even surgical treatment. I haven't seen any evidence of children under 6 getting hormones or puberty blockers though. For example: > Dr. Gallagher said she performed top surgeries on about 40 patients a month, and roughly one or two of them are under 18. Younger patients are usually at least 15, though she has operated on one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, she said, both of whom had extreme distress about their chests. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transgender-teenagers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transg...) > Over the 3-year study period, a total of 204 gender affirmation surgical cases were identified: 177 chest/top and 27 genital/bottom surgeries (Table 1). Most cases were masculinizing chest reconstructions 177/204 (86.8%) with 65/177 (36.7%) of those patients being less than 18 years of age (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm-11-01943.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm...) > The Komodo analysis of insurance claims found 56 genital surgeries among patients ages 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis from 2019 to 2021... In the three years ending in 2021, at least 776 mastectomies were performed in the United States on patients ages 13 to 17 with a gender dysphoria diagnosis, according to Komodo’s data analysis of insurance claims...A total of 17,683 patients, ages 6 through 17, with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis initiated either puberty blockers or hormones or both during the five-year period. (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-tran...)
kelseyfrog 4y ago
> But without an objective diagnostic test, others remain concerned, pointing to examples of teenagers being “fast-tracked to medical intervention” with little or no mental health involvement. How would a test like that even be constructed? There's no morphological, biochemical, or electrophysiological proxy for measuring gender dysphoria. Just taking people at their word, seems perfectly ok.
- leoh 4y ago
  That’s not true. Not having an agreed-upon canonical test is not the same as there being tentatively useful ones, such as brain morphology. Also, maybe just trusting folks’ lived experiences instead of telling them what to feel or what they are is a fundamentally decent and humane idea? But what do I know… ^ sarcasm intended, for those too dense to have any kind of awareness of basic humanity
  - leoh 4y ago
    To those downvoting, are you doing so on the basis of the idea that you believe that denying one’s personal experiences and telling them who they are and what to feel is preferable? Because if so, I would highly recommend you consider whether you might be an authoritarian if not just a huge jerk.
dehugger 4y ago
I see a common theme of cis (meaning not trans) that are confused about why numbers for trans people are rising. I'll take my best shot at explaining what I believe to be the reason. If you ask most trans people why the numbers are going up you'll typically get the same response: awareness and exposure to other trans people that can help explain gender dysphoria. Many trans people do not understand that they are suffering from gender dysphoria. It's not a crystal clear set of symptoms. They will rationalize or bury symptoms, which are more or less entirely mental, and it is frequently not at all apparent to an outside observer that they are experiencing it. I distinctly remember the first time I read a forum with others describing gender dysphoria and how it manifested for them. I discovered that feelings I thought were something only I felt, that no one else seemed to understand, actually had a root cause which was shared by others. That there was a name for what was "wrong" with me, and that I could fix it. I was 26. Awareness about gender dysphoria has risen and more people are finding out that there is a name and a solution for the wrongness that they experience. It's only natural that more trans people are coming out. It's unfortunate that cis people cannot experience what gender dysphoria is like, even for a moment, because they have no frame of reference for why it is so confusing for trans people, especially prior to them realizing what it is that they are experiencing. Eventually things will level off as the number of people with gender dysphoria that have recognized and treated it approaches 100%, though I doubt it will come to rest anywhere near there.
- becquerel 4y ago
  Put in other terms, it's like asking why the left-handed percentage of the population rose after left-handedness stopped being beaten out of children.
  - junofan 4y ago
    No, because left-handedness is not commonly treated with hormones and surgery, and medical practitioners do not report feeling pressured to eschew normal clinical reasoning when a child presents with left-handedness.
    - 4y ago

37 points by thegrimmest 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

> For example, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, which sets guidelines for care, determined earlier this year that the risks of puberty blockers and treatment with hormones “currently outweigh the possible benefits” for minors. What does Sweden do differently in their scientific community that they so frequently arrive at a different cost/benefit result than the rest of the West? This has happened so much that it's clearly not by chance. We saw them reach a different conclusion about lockdowns - the cost would not make up for the benefit. When the mRNA vaccines emerged, they too had a different determination of cost/benefit and they were one of the first countries to determine that the benefit does not make up for the risk in certain populations. Then puberty blockers for minors, which in the US are effectively considered a perfect treatment with no side effects and to express even a hint of hesitation is met with professional and personal ruin. It's unthinkable in the US today, yet it would not surprise me if this is Sweden again lapping the other countries in what will be scientific consensus in 5 years time.

kamranjon 4y ago
Sweden had one of the highest death rates in Europe during the first wave and did not fare so well on the second wave of the pandemic either. Their own government formed a commision that concluded they were unprepared and that earlier and more extensive action should have been taken before the first wave.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  This doesn't answer the OP's question: "What does Sweden do differently in their scientific community..." Obviously, they're doing something very differently, though with the pandemic it seems, the results weren't very good.
- nwienert 4y ago
  Total excess mortality compared pre and post pandemic they are likely the very best of all euro countries. There were a few extensive Twitter threads into this recently, but the latest data is showing they likely did at or near the best.
- hnra 4y ago
  Sweden had a lower or same excess death rates than almost all other European countries [1]. The large death spikes early on in the pandemic can be mostly explained by the fact that Sweden had a much lower death rate among its elderly population in the years preceding the pandemic (if I recall correctly). [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-per-100k-economist?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~IDN~BRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-...
Unduereturn 4y ago
This is very interesting as Ive been under the impression that Sweden is generally seen as very accommodating to transgender ideology. I belive that many people flock there for comfort in acceptance. Perhaps they analyse and leverage more data of the outcomes and wellbeing of these people.
brabel 4y ago
The rest of the West has a unified position regarding this? No way. Sweden's position is based on lots of cases of teenagers regretting the procedure and some even suing the government for allowing them to have done it... it's not a position Sweden arrived at out of prejudice, if you know the social situation in Sweden today you would definitely understand that.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  I don't buy the "lots of teenagers". Maybe a couple, plus a lot of media coverage. Give me a source.
  - brabel 4y ago
    In Swedish: https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1431961 https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1431961 and https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/explosionsartad-okning-av-tonaringar-som-genomgar-konskorrigering https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/explosionsartad-okn... and https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/har-behandlas-flera-som-angrar-sin-konskorrigering-fem-till-tio-personer https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/har-behandlas-flera... In summary, there's been a recent explosing in the number of people performing transition in the last 10 years or so (from around 20 people per year in 2003 to 2007, to over 400 people in 2018)... so the number of cases where we have information about this is very few, and those who used to do it in the past, despite the stigma, were likely much more "certain" that this is what they want. But of that older generation, only 2.2% are known to have actually gone though a de-transition (the figure does not include those who did seek help but did not go through with the process)... however, it's possible that many more regret it but never tried to revert it, as de-transitioning is even more difficult, and perhaps even more "embarrassing" (sorry for the term, I don't know if it's the best word here as I don't think anyone should be embarrassed for that, but I suspect they do) for the person to "come out" than for transitioning. One doctor interviewed claims "a handful" of patients (5 to 10) they treated have regreted and are currently detransitioning. So I think my argument that "lots of teenagers" are regreting is accurate, given there's a lot of other doctors doing this in Sweden, but up to you to make up your mind if a handful of people doesn't matter. What shocked most people was the fact that teens as young as 14 were allowed to go through with the transition despite them having other serious mental health issues (half of the girls had autism or self-harm issues or anorexia) and without a serious, properly investigated diagnosis. Some who regret have to keep their identity secret because apparently they get told that they are hurting the trans community by talking about it, so it's not unresonable to believe at least some people decide to keep quiet about their regrets. Finally, researchers in this area seem to agree that there's almost no data regarding the long term impact of transitioning and hence the process should be much more scrutinized than it currently is (some of the trans in the linked articles say they were basically treated as "lab rabbits")... Hope that informs you enough to understand the debate that has been going on in Sweden, which unlike in the US, almost completely lacks the transphobic arguments and focuses on the actual data (or lack thereof) regarding trans people's wellbeing and whether there's enough evidence that people who are allowed to transition could not have been just suffering from other mental issues at the time their extremely serious decision was made.
reducesuffering 4y ago
The Scandinavian countries are well-run high trust societies that score highly on most positive metrics. Most of the rest of the world are run like shit-shows in comparison.

faeriechangling 4y ago

The evidence of the efficacy of some of the treatments for gender dysphoria like hormones are among the very best we see in mental health, we see outcomes just a bit below what we see for stimulants for ADHD, and they smack the shit out of crap like SSRIs. One can question the quality of this evidence, and how strong of an endorsement we should be giving, but things look good. My biggest point of caution is that the past is not the present, and the amount of patients has exploded to such an extreme that said evidence is very arguably irrelevant because we're not treating the same body of patients as we were when most long-term evidence was gathered. We're seeing a tripling in the amount of people identifying as transgender. I question if we truly know how these drugs affect the MAJORITY of people seeking them. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teenagers-national-survey.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teena...

autoexec 4y ago
> I question if we truly know how these drugs affect the MAJORITY of people seeking them. My suspicion is that they'll help in the short term, but I do worry about the long term. As long as we're careful about keeping research active and objective at least it won't take very long to start getting answers. Since it seems we've already committed to the experiment, our focus should be on collecting data on the outcomes and making sure that no matter what those outcomes are these children are given our support and are treated with compassion as they grow.
midoridensha 4y ago
>We're seeing a tripling in the amount of people identifying as transgender. This really makes me wonder if there isn't something else going on, such as young people simply being unhappy with their lives or the gender roles expected of them, and jumping on the "transgender" bandwagon as a way to escape that. The idea that 20% of the population is transgender really makes no sense. Maybe a large part of the population simply doesn't want to conform to what conservative society expects of "masculinity" or "femininity", so instead of simply ignoring that crap like they did in the past, now they believe they're "transgender" and try acting like the opposite sex.

klyrs 4y ago

Meanwhile, mainstream american right-wingers are literally calling for the eradication of transgender people. What is the political motivation behind posting this article?

faeriechangling 4y ago
I'm not saying this out of scepticism but curiosity - what specifically are you talking about when you say that?
- dahdum 4y ago
  Probably a reference to Knowles. > During his speech on Saturday, Knowles told the crowd, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” Knowles subsequently claimed that “eradicating” “transgenderism” is not a call for eradicating transgender people and demanded retractions from numerous publications, including Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-speaker-transgender-people-eradicated-1234690924/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-spe...
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Bull. Shit*. One does not simply "eradicate" an "ideology" when that so-called ideology is practiced by people. If I called for the eradication of Judaism, and demanded people retract their claims that I'd called for the eradication of Jewish people, would that demand be taken seriously? * this directed at Knowles, not dahdum
    - dahdum 4y ago
      He's a provocateur who likely carefully chose his words knowing the backlash would raise his personal profile, while giving just a bare thread of deniability about what he really meant. I have no doubt he's relishing the attention.

jamilton 4y ago

>For example, a recent analysis of insurance claims found that nearly 18,000 US minors began taking puberty blockers or hormones from 2017 to 2021, the number rising each year. I'm having trouble parsing this, is this saying the overall total in that time period was nearly 18,000 and the yearly amount was increasing, or that the yearly total was 18,000? This article seems very vague about what treatments are being given to whom. My understanding is that in the US, minors with gender dysphoria who haven't started puberty don't get medical treatment, which is in line with the NHS guidelines. The article seems to be implying otherwise, but doesn't outright say so.

autoexec 4y ago
> My understanding is that in the US, minors with gender dysphoria who haven't started puberty don't get medical treatment, It's the wild west in the US. If you have the money you can usually find a doctor who will do whatever you want. We can (and probably should) ask how often it's happening, but children are getting medical and even surgical treatment. I haven't seen any evidence of children under 6 getting hormones or puberty blockers though. For example: > Dr. Gallagher said she performed top surgeries on about 40 patients a month, and roughly one or two of them are under 18. Younger patients are usually at least 15, though she has operated on one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, she said, both of whom had extreme distress about their chests. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transgender-teenagers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transg...) > Over the 3-year study period, a total of 204 gender affirmation surgical cases were identified: 177 chest/top and 27 genital/bottom surgeries (Table 1). Most cases were masculinizing chest reconstructions 177/204 (86.8%) with 65/177 (36.7%) of those patients being less than 18 years of age (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm-11-01943.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm...) > The Komodo analysis of insurance claims found 56 genital surgeries among patients ages 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis from 2019 to 2021... In the three years ending in 2021, at least 776 mastectomies were performed in the United States on patients ages 13 to 17 with a gender dysphoria diagnosis, according to Komodo’s data analysis of insurance claims...A total of 17,683 patients, ages 6 through 17, with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis initiated either puberty blockers or hormones or both during the five-year period. (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-tran...)

kelseyfrog 4y ago

> But without an objective diagnostic test, others remain concerned, pointing to examples of teenagers being “fast-tracked to medical intervention” with little or no mental health involvement. How would a test like that even be constructed? There's no morphological, biochemical, or electrophysiological proxy for measuring gender dysphoria. Just taking people at their word, seems perfectly ok.

leoh 4y ago
That’s not true. Not having an agreed-upon canonical test is not the same as there being tentatively useful ones, such as brain morphology. Also, maybe just trusting folks’ lived experiences instead of telling them what to feel or what they are is a fundamentally decent and humane idea? But what do I know… ^ sarcasm intended, for those too dense to have any kind of awareness of basic humanity
- leoh 4y ago
  To those downvoting, are you doing so on the basis of the idea that you believe that denying one’s personal experiences and telling them who they are and what to feel is preferable? Because if so, I would highly recommend you consider whether you might be an authoritarian if not just a huge jerk.

dehugger 4y ago

I see a common theme of cis (meaning not trans) that are confused about why numbers for trans people are rising. I'll take my best shot at explaining what I believe to be the reason. If you ask most trans people why the numbers are going up you'll typically get the same response: awareness and exposure to other trans people that can help explain gender dysphoria. Many trans people do not understand that they are suffering from gender dysphoria. It's not a crystal clear set of symptoms. They will rationalize or bury symptoms, which are more or less entirely mental, and it is frequently not at all apparent to an outside observer that they are experiencing it. I distinctly remember the first time I read a forum with others describing gender dysphoria and how it manifested for them. I discovered that feelings I thought were something only I felt, that no one else seemed to understand, actually had a root cause which was shared by others. That there was a name for what was "wrong" with me, and that I could fix it. I was 26. Awareness about gender dysphoria has risen and more people are finding out that there is a name and a solution for the wrongness that they experience. It's only natural that more trans people are coming out. It's unfortunate that cis people cannot experience what gender dysphoria is like, even for a moment, because they have no frame of reference for why it is so confusing for trans people, especially prior to them realizing what it is that they are experiencing. Eventually things will level off as the number of people with gender dysphoria that have recognized and treated it approaches 100%, though I doubt it will come to rest anywhere near there.

becquerel 4y ago
Put in other terms, it's like asking why the left-handed percentage of the population rose after left-handedness stopped being beaten out of children.
- junofan 4y ago
  No, because left-handedness is not commonly treated with hormones and surgery, and medical practitioners do not report feeling pressured to eschew normal clinical reasoning when a child presents with left-handedness.
  - 4y ago