The number of children in the United States who claim to not identify as their biological has increased dramatically in recent years, but until recently, we haven’t been able to get a clear idea of just how prevalent it is. And the details are quite terrifying.
According to an analysis of 330 million Americans’ medical records by Komodo Health Inc., done on behalf of Reuters, there was a 70% increase in diagnoses of childhood gender dysphoria in 2021 over 2020.
“The United States has seen an explosion in recent years in the number of children who identify as a gender different from what they were designated at birth,” the report acknowledges. “The analysis, the first of its kind, found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the five years to the end of 2021. More than 42,000 of those children were diagnosed just last year, up 70% from 2020.”
“The number of children who started on puberty-blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 over the five-year period, rising from 2,394 in 2017 to 5,063 in 2021, according to the analysis,” the report continues. “These numbers are probably a significant undercount since they don’t include children whose records did not specify a gender dysphoria diagnosis or whose treatment wasn’t covered by insurance.”
Make no mistake about it. There’s nothing natural or organic about this ongoing explosion of gender dysphoria.
Back in 2018, a study by a Brown University professor found that “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” among teenagers and young adults may be a social contagion caused by socializing with LGBT friends, identity politics, peer culture, and increased internet use. You may not have heard of it because the study was suppressed since it contradicted the preferred narrative of the left.
“Social media has presented an image of gender transition which is far from the reality, but many teenagers buy this positive spin on a difficult process,” Stella O’Malley, psychotherapist and director of the gender-critical organization Genspect, told The Daily Caller last month. “When teenagers look at trans kids on social media, medical transition seems edgy, cool, and interesting. In reality this is a difficult pathway that is littered with complicated problems that come about because of difficulties with medicalizing our bodies.”
Over the summer, the FDA formally acknowledged the dangers of puberty blockers because they can cause pseudotumor cerebri, also known as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which can cause brain swelling, severe headaches, nausea, double vision, and even permanent vision loss. This is huge because now these drugs will have to be labeled with warnings of their potential side effects, meaning that parents will now have to be informed of the risks.
However, because there is so much money in transgender surgeries, it is hard to predict whether doctors will push for these surgeries despite the risks. According to a report that was recently published by Grand View Research, the transgender surgery market was valued at $1.9 billion last year, demand for “gender-affirming operations” is expected to “accelerate in the coming years,” and it is now anticipated that the transgender surgery industry will reach $5 billion by the end of this decade.
Related: Should Performing Transgender Surgeries on Kids Be Criminalized?
But the risks are very real and are far more likely to destroy lives, not improve them. A recent study linked kids’ access to “gender-affirming care” without parental consent to an increase in youth suicides.
The explosion of gender dysphoria diagnosis and “medical” transitions can also be traced back to the Obama administration pushing insurance providers to cover transgender-related “medical” procedures. Most states provide Medicaid coverage for transgender procedures, while only nine states prohibit such coverage outright. The transgender craze was manufactured by the radical left, and if we don’t nip it in the bud soon, it’s going to spiral out of control.
