trans anorexia
And unfortunately for them, until all my children are over 18, it's literally my number one priority.
Agreed. This is more than people with dicks dominating women's sports. And it's more than a few perverts stealing women's underwear or using women's locker rooms.
Those stories understandably get the most engagement, but they are relatively rare.
The bigger issue is how the spread of trans ideology has resulted in some pretty huge number of children getting placed onto the trans gender track which, if not quickly arrested, results in awful life outcomes. I think the best comparison is anorexia, which is similarly terrible for one's health and mostly the result of social contagion.
In my mind, Democrats are permanently tainted on this issue. We need more than a minor pullback in wokeness. We need investigations. We need groomers to get fired and potentially prosecuted. And we need clinics performing gender surgery on minors to be shut down, their owners sued into bankruptcy, and their practitioners delicensed.
NunoSempere
18d ago
Some news stories I'm tracking; thoughts welcome on any of them, particularly the first two.
South Korean intelligence reports that an agreement between North Korea and Russia includes an annual supply of 600-700 tonnes of rice to North Korea, a salary of US$2,000 for North Korean soldiers deployed in Ukraine, space technology, and provisions for Russian involvement in potential conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. With around 10,000 North Korean troops expected to be deployed to Ukraine, this could generate over US$200 million annually for Pyongyang. The 4 million tonnes of grains that North Korea says it produces per year are actually about 1 million tonnes short of what it needs to feed the country.
Six people have been killed in NY after a "subway surfing" trend, where people get on top of subway trends, has been going "viral". The number is really small, but the vector "social media leads people to do really stupid shit" seems like it could scale (anorexia and tumblr, lying flat in China, etc.) Admittedly, the subway surfing in question looks pretty lit.
There is a crunch in the transformer industry
Canada's National Cyber Threat Assessment classifies India a "state adversary"
198 killed, 111 injured in separate terrorist attacks in Pakistan during October.
Volcano erupted in Indonesia, killing ten people (and thousands will be relocated), but the region has a lot of volcanoes and a lot of people.
Myanmar <> India border conflict. Over 200 people have died, 60,000 displaced, and 30 km of fencing completed. The influx of refugees from Myanmar, over 60,000 in Mizoram and 5,000 in Manipur,
The Houthis have developed what they call a "marching submarine", something between a moveable landmine and an unmanned submarine.
Veterinarians back mass testing of milk for avian flu
Egypt hosted Fatah <> Hamas post war Gaza talks
US Deploys B-52 Bombers and Missile Destroyers in Warning to Iran Amid Escalating Regional Tensions
Another Hezbollah commander killed
Houthis pledge to continue red sea attacks despite Israeli asset sales. They allege that Israeli shipping companies are transferring assets to avoid detection.
Israel conducted airstrikes on military targets in Iran, damaging their missile program and air defenses.
Israel Ends Agreement With UN Agency Providing Aid in Gaza
Israel has ended the agreement enabling the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees to operate, citing alleged infiltration by Hamas, a claim the agency denies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and appointed Israel Katz as his successor. The move comes following open disagreements between Netanyahu and Gallant over the management of Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Thousands protested the move in Tel Aviv
Palestinians say Israel struck Gaza clinic during polio campaign; army denies it
Lebanon filed a formal complaint against Israel at the United Nations following deadly explosions caused by rigged communication devices. Shows how impotent Lebanon is imho
The Philippine military has opened two weeks of combat drills in the South China Sea, with more than 3,000 personnel participating in maneuvers that include seizing an island. The drills have raised tensions with China, which claims most of the South China Sea.
Newly revealed documents show that Russia's proposed agreement to end the special operation in 2022 included giving up Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, reducing Ukraine's military size, prohibiting missile development, joining NATO
Mariana Katzarova, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, reported on the widespread and systematic use of torture by Russian authorities to oppress and control society. The torture has worsened during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with thousands of Ukrainian civilians detained, deported, and tortured in Russian prisons. Despite the shocking human rights violations, Katzarova hopes for a constructive dialogue with Russian officials to address the issues. Note that the source is Voice of America; a US state-controlled outlet.
Russian operatives shipped two incendiary devices in attempts to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft heading to the U.S. and Canada. DHL was used to ship electric massagers containing a magnesium-based flammable substance as part of a covert Russian sabotage campaign. Seems like an escalation of US<>Russia tensions.
There are ongoing jihadist insurgencies in Chad, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. These are generally attacking Christians, causing large population movements,
Chaucer has launched a new nuclear insurance policy called CyNuC to provide insurance cover for cyberattacks on nuclear power plants. It doesn't include war and hostile state-sponsored action though. I thought this was cool.
Sudan conflict spirals into civil war, if it hadn't already
The US State Department is giving some assistance to Somalia's police to build counterterrorism capacity. state-funded radio show in Poland replaced all its presenters with experimental AI hosts. This initially increased listenership but then sparked backlash.
Another case of the new, more infectious mpox strain (clade 1b) has been detected in the UK, bringing the total confirmed number of cases to four. The cases are all from the same household
Norway invests ~22M USD in global pandemic preparedness
Global pandemic accord negotiations continue
Scientists track emergence of novel H5N1 flu reassortant in Cambodia The novel reassortant virus combines genes from two H5N1 clades and has worrisome mutations, including one linked to adaptation to mammals and airborne transmission. This is kind of the next worrying step between on the way between now and H5N1 being a global pandemic.
UK government to create surveillance system for future pandemics
UK raises avian influenza risk level to high
The US carried a test of its Minuteman III missile, to showcase its nuclear readiness
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1mo ago
I've seen some really interesting commentary that it seems to have displaced anorexia, and in many cases the resulting recommended treatment looks a lot like affirming anorexia. Testosterone is really effective at reducing those feminine features (adipose tissues in all the right places) that anorexics often obsess over reducing or eliminating. Both seem in practice to be strongly correlated with abuse survivors.
I'm not going to say that's the whole story, but the anecdote from a trans-questioning feminist recovering from an eating disorder I remember seemed to justify at least some concern.
TokenTransGirl
1mo ago
My personal view on trans is neither here nor there, but for the record I think it’s a mental illness spread by social contagion (like anorexia).
I'd dare say that your personal views are extremely relevant. If you didn't view it as a mental illness, you wouldn't have anything to worry about.
Realistically, the best thing to do is probably try to explain it objectively: some people get tattoos, some people do drugs, and some people transition. I think TheBailey covers this fairly well.
Depending on your comfort with the alternatives, I'd also point out that men can absolutely wear dresses, play with dolls, and learn how to do makeup. Sometimes "trans" is really just "I want to play with my sister's cool toys". Usually this ends up just being a phase - the allure of the forbidden is a lot stronger, and also you start to realize there's social consequences unless you're majorly autistic (I'm mildly autistic, but I can definitely tell whether this sort of behavior is situationally appropriate)
That said, it's worth noting that transition is one of the safest, least-regretted medical decisions a person can make. Just don't rush into anything surgical and most of it is fairly easily undone. I can still easily pass as a guy if I'm in an area where being trans/female makes me feel unsafe. Even if you view it as a mental illness, the actual known-successful treatment IS "be chill and play along with their delusion."
(Not surprisingly, this is a topic I know a lot about, and am also wildly biased about - feel free to ask me questions, although I don't check the site super-regularly)
I need some advice.
My depressive 22yo nephew just came out as MTF trans, is changing his name, and will be starting hormone treatment. It’s a huge shock: he’s been depressed for years, is mildly autistic, but he’s a gamer and has had manosphere opinions in the past so I would never have thought this possible.
This terrifies me because my 5YO son is also mildly on the spectrum and is impressionable. Now that this is “in the family” I am worried he will cotton on to it.
My personal view on trans is neither here nor there, but for the record I think it’s a mental illness spread by social contagion (like anorexia). This may be incorrect, but if it is, what model should I have for this?
My primary concern is to minimize the odds my son becomes trans, or becomes confused, exposing us to questions from his school, etc.
How should I handle this? What should I tell him about his cousin? What would you do?
Folamh3
2mo ago
Has it been confirmed that Hale was on testosterone? Many trans men (and cis men, for that matter) have reported a major spike in aggression and hostility after taking it (as was the subject of an AAQC from last month). It certainly seems like the most obvious explanation for why Hale went down this route, rather than acting out her despair and frustration in a more typically feminine way (anorexia, self-harm, suicide attempts).
Folamh3
4mo ago
The thing that most transitioners (and a whole lot of others who don't go down that path) have in common is that they want, very badly, to be the opposite sex.
I think this accurately describes pretty much all trans women who are making even a token effort to medically transition. For a lot of trans men (the canonical example being Ellen/Elliot Page), to me it looks less like wanting to be a man and more like wanting not to be a woman (including not being able to have children, not being someone who is the object of sexual desire etc.). For trans women, medical transition tends to scan as an attempt to fulfil a fantasy; for trans men, an elaborate form of self-harm and self-obliteration. The difference in the tone of trans memoirs is striking: trans women's tend to read like "coming out was the most joyous and uplifting moment of my life, I finally truly understand who I am and now I'm free to be my best self", while trans men's tend to read like "it was after my third suicide attempt during my second hospitalisation for anorexia (prompted by getting raped) that I finally realised I'm actually a trans man, and I am exactly as miserable and dysphoric since my mastectomy as I was beforehand".
2rafa
5mo ago
Everything bad is spread on social media for a certain generation.
It could be anorexia, it could be communism, transgenderism, it could be fascism, it could be islamism. TikTok is just the new thing, before it was Instagram, then Facebook, then MySpace or whatever else (or indeed just 'the internet').
Responding to a late response from last week's culture War.
I'm aware of this the various accounts of AGPs and I think back to Scott's musings on the anorexia and other culture bound illnesses. His conclusion didn't seem quite right either.
I think what's going on is that the human mind is capable of innumerable states. The uncharted territory of the mind shifts with great plasticity, but once examined begins to harden and harden in response to the type of examination. Like shining a bright on a photopolymer, call this the photopolymeme theory of identity.
The type of examination is dependent on the environment, which is not random. In a trans naive environment you are still exposed to gendered binaries constantly and there is plenty of plausible cause to start that hardening process in a peculiar direction, maybe you made a friend of the opposite gender in kindergarten and when the care takers separate out their charges by gender the nubile mind recoils in being split from your friend and some part of the identity hardens in that you belong on that side of the divide. Maybe a million other things.
When you introduce the trans meme into the environment suddenly you go from identities lightly hardened by stray beams of light to precision directed lazers etching the face of the meme on kids at industrial scale.
It's generally accepted that reading webmd had a normal effect of convincing many people that they have whatever obscure disease they're currently looking at. Symptoms tend to be vague and our senses have difficulty differentiating between imagining symptoms and having symptoms. I'm convinced that when you ask every kid Ina generation to carefully examine whether they're really trans with a laundry list of symptoms that could just be normal cisgender experience you're going to be hardening a lot of plastic minds.
I like this theory because I don't think self described trans people are usually lying. I think they've examined themselves and found these features. I think trying to reshape that hardened plastic might be difficult, painful or impossible. I think adults are probably entitled to shape their identities as they please so long as they don't harm others in the process.
I also think that as @TracingWoodgrains has described before, when talking about frames and cages has some validity. Can we be sure that the Chesterton's gendered cages we're ripping down weren't vital frames that kids need to provide structure for their identity?
Transgenderism was less popular when it was more counterculture and rose in popularity after being promoted by elites.
The narrative of current progressive movements representing a reaction against a stiffing conservative order is not true. It rose after the liberal institutions promoted much more aggressively in the 2010s such agendas that they have been promoting in a weaker fashion before. They especially did this for the trans issue where there has been a bigger disparity in the fervor in 2010s and how they promoted it previously. And it rose in an age that wasn't conservative except by the standards of the progressive movement. Where conservative appeasement has been a reason for things turning in a progressive direction and not the solution. Conservatives compromising with progressives will not lead to progressives to back down, but to double down. This doesn't mean that conservatives should be purity spiraling, but they should refuse to compromise in many issues of principle and maintain wise standards.
Without such elite push, youthful transgression energy would focus on something less harmful. To the extend it is true that there is a social contagion, this is an argument that favors the conservative side in the trans debate. Even if as you argue there are also many that aren't going to seriously live the trans life. Better for people who had such inclinations for transgression, to be something like goth, punk, etc. Or even for their transgression to be limited to rebelling against illegitimate authority, like corrupt power abusing political factions, or warmongering.
An escalation of transgression isn't something that must be respected as a law of the universe when the consequences are severe enough.
To give another example. Lets say that to an extend there has been a fad of anorexia among teenage girls, or even of self harm which also relate with transgression having an appeal. Someone could claim that many of those affected might not kill themselves, or get over it. And yet it is still harmful, and more decisively harmful for a part of those affected. This kind of transgression is the kind that should be suppressed and not encouraged.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
10mo ago
If I ever addressed it, it's scattered across different posts. I don't think 3) is a wishy-washy halfway house, I think it's a perfectly respectable position, and would be happy if this ends up being the new compromise. I also don't think it's a good idea to make decisions for adults, but I don't think this is what the controversy is about, nor do I think it's about the amount off attention paid to the issue. For me, it's two things:
- Scientific legitimacy. Transgenderissm has very little, but anyone who objects to maximum affirmation is beaten over the head with Trust The Experts. We can let adults make their own decisions without acting like doubters are essentially flat earthers.
- Imposssition of philosophical views. Personally I find the "gender" framework nonsensical. Go ahead and "live as a woman" if it makes you happy, but you have no right to demand I act like the concept of "gender" makes any sense at all.
I do have to admit I started leaning a bit towards 2), since I heard that anorexia essentially didn't exist, until one case was documented, covered by the media, and suddenly the whole thing became endemic. I started thinking that some people are just Not Well, and gravitate towards these self-harming behaviors, for reasons which might by unknown even to them. What to do about it is anyone's guess, the answer will depend on one's values rather than any evidence, and I heard compelling arguments for and against either approach.
Lobotomies and Electroshock Therapy went through significant pop-culture crusades against them before they were forgotten.
But psychosurgery did not. It was a separate episode from lobotomies, and it really does look like a case of Culture War that went down the memory hole.
Vocally supporting or opposing trans stuff makes trans stuff interesting, teens want nothing more than they want to be interesting. Overly villainizing something gives it power.
The idea that trans issues gained power on the back of being villanized strikes me as extremely ahistorical. I also don't see how pretending it's not there will take away it's power stemming from it being taught as fact at the local school.
I suspect where I depart from many people who believe the prior statements is that I don't think of people being trans or gay as being strictly worse than cis or straight such that society or government ought to be oriented around the minimization of such people.
All things being equal, I don't think of being gay as strictly worse than being straight. According to some definitions of what "trans" is, it absolutely is worse than being cis, according to the very terms insisted upon by trans activists.
If one assumes that a prerequisite for being "trans" is suffering from gender dysphoria, it just seems obvious that not having gender dysphoria is preferable to having it. All other things being equal, I think pretty much everyone would rather feel happy with their bodies as they are, not experience a sense of profound distress when looking at their reflection in the mirror, and not feel any urge to hack bits of healthy tissue off their bodies.
Analogies with anorexia are no accident. Anorexia is a mental illness in which one experiences profound distress at the sight of one's body. It seems extremely susceptible to social contagion (particularly in female adolescents) and culture-bound (almost exclusively diagnosed in WEIRD countries). I want anorexic people to be treated with respect and compassion, and to get the best treatment available. I also think that being anorexic is obviously worse than not being anorexic in essentially every way, and it's irresponsible to promote or glamorise it.
You may be working off a definition of "trans" in which a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is not a prerequisite. This is long past the point at which the concept has completely collapsed into incoherence for me, so I can't really comment as to whether it's better, worse or indifferent to be trans (according to that definition) or cis. The "trans without gender dysphoria" cohort does seem to contain a disproportionate amount of vocal bad-faith actors, which is bound to colour my perspective.
hydroacetylene
1yr ago
All the other cult members performed that feat of cognitive mutilation however.
This is utterly unsurprising. People want to belong more than they want to be right. People want to belong more than they want to be safe. People want to belong more than they want nice things, or sex, or space, or sanity, or health. Frankly the surprising part is that one member refused the feat of cognitive sodomy.
And I think trans is similar- like it or not, trans are provided belonging in a world that’s bereft of it. It’s the same thing behind munchausen or anorexia; you now belong to a community of other practitioners by virtue of doing something crazy and stupid, United against the rest of the world which can never do enough to cater to you and yours. Yes, trans is getting supported by big institutions that never supported anorexia or munchausens, but I think that’s tribal dynamics driven by polarization- remember that ‘people want to belong’ thing again? And as the US white population undergoes ethnogenesis where the blue and red tribes live in different worlds, I think you’re going to see more stupidity and craziness get declared sacrosanct because the wrong tribe opposed it, so you can declare yourself closer to the core of your tribe by declaring your support, damn the consequences.
Now obviously we should get people back to family, church, neighborhood associations, local sports leagues, etc. But those mostly aren’t coming back. We’re stuck with a cycle of pillarizarion into obvious craziness. Trans is the first expression(well, that hit the mainstream), it won’t be the last. And that’s a damn shame.
I think that truscum, while I prefer it to transtrender (trans as a human right/existential lifestyle choice), still just begs the question of whether that is the best way to treat dysphoria. Ive noticed its being talked about less in any case these days with a preference for trans rights or existential transcendence narratives.
The low regret rates apply to a different cohort, being studies on older adults, mainly MtF and we don't know the rates for the recent so-called ROGD cohort. We know from one study that most of those with gender dysphoria who do not transition, desist from having dysphoria, with most of those turning out to be gay and in a recent study it was found that 30% of those prescribed hormones were found to have stopped them within 4 years.
Clearly we don't know enough to identify 'true trans', or 'true truscum' and given that early treatment with puberty blockers followed by hormones will result in infertility we have a high ethical bar, even for research. We know rates of mental illness are increasing rapidly in this cohort also and that there is frequently overlap with other conditions such as autism, OCD, anorexia/eating disorders, self harm, generalised anxiety etc.
I don't see why dysphoria is able to claim special status when it may only be a component of the actual condition the individual is caught in. Autism could easily involve a distorted self concept at its root, as well as a fastidious compulsiveness, and gender dysphoria be just the culture-bound manifestation of this for autistic people. Similarly we could think of the desire to be something different as resulting from some underlying OCD mechanism, with the gender content available to be the focus.
As I've said before, the rationale you raise for younger transition, indicates already that attempts to appear as the opposite sex are not necessarily effective in resolving dysphoria, especially when there are any cosmetic concerns. We don't know if some degree of persistent dysphoria, or dis-ease might be apparent in later in life, even for good-passers.
After all there is something existentially fragile about the reliance on passing in the first instance and I would speculate a fear perhaps of not being authentic could always be a risk.
As I've said before, this wish for young transition starts to fall into a transhumanism paradigm, as you acknowledge with your queering of the normative of puberty in human development. It's obviously better to treat somebody while causing the least harm. This is a normative claim we could all agree on surely. The big question beg is what's to say there won't be better treatments that don't involve risks to fertility or altering body parts? Lobotomy was also justified on their being no good alternative but then they discovered antidepressants/anti-psychotics.
The transhumanist desire for transcendence through technology along with anti-natalism is part of the broader frame of understanding the culture bound syndrome we are seeing expressed. We need to understand the cultural level if we are to remedy peoples distress in this regard as it's more and more apparent to me we are all stuck in a lack of meaning.
curious_straight_ca
1yr ago
It's definitely the kind of post that belongs here, it's just very well-trod ground, without a particularly novel angle. Direct trans-anorexia analogies are not new here
Also, the OP should probably have a few excerpts or more commentary on the title post. (And I imagine, if we had a BLR, OP would be on the high end of the average post there! Generally, that the BLR would have low quality posts says something about the userbase.)
No_one
1yr ago
but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before
It's been debated here. I didn't get much pushback for saying it's contagion.
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
Could well be, there may be something underlying it, say extreme anxiety. It's not necessarily psychosomatic as it were. The culture bound syndrome gives expression to the underlying symptoms and as you note, the expression/diagnosis can change. I argue that gender dysphoria is potentially like that, something actually experienced by the self, but reified into a particular form. I'm also combining this with the idea of social contagion.
As for social contagion, it is well known that for adolescents in particular, conditions can spread among peer groups, including suicide, anorexia, and antisocial behaviour. I mean we aren't surprised by the positive side of this phenomenon re fashion, musical tastes etc so we shouldn't really be surprised about the negative side.
Another potential clue is that for young people, other mental health indicators such as self-harm and suicide have been increasing rapidly at the same time that gender dysphoria has been rising, again particularly for young adolescent girls, and corresponding to the use of social media. Along with anecdotal reports by teachers and parents of people in the same class coming out as trans around the same time and Lisa Littman's survey of parents showing that internet use was a precursor to coming out and I think you are seeing a pretty strong case for social contagion.
Just do a search of the number of trans/rainbow groups on discord. These internet spaces in addition are perfect in creating cult-like dynamics of conformity. This helps explain how gender clinicians at the Tavistock observed people's narratives to be almost scripted.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Regardless of the extent that social contagion didn't become top-of-mind for the readership until maybe then, I recall comparison between trans/anorexia as far back as 2015 (you have to read down a few comments, but the context probably starts around there). Perhaps there was already some undercurrent of folks implicitly believing something like social contagion for anorexia at the time, even.
iprayiam3
1yr ago
I'm suprised you haven't heard this before. I agree with your last sentence, especially with MTF. I think the phenomenon is multi-faceted, but AGP is a tremendous part of it, and I don't think anorexia is particularly fetishistic.
Just spend a minute looking up the concept of 'euphoria boner', and it lays waste to most of the narrative. Especially on trans forums where it gets brought up as the most crushingly painful example of pretending something isn't there by closing your eyes. The essential concepts is that it's really common for dudes with TD to get really turned on by crossdressing etc. Instead of accepting this as straightforward evidence that this is psycho-sexual in all the obvious ways, they've invented a tortured concept that no, no, just the opposite. This 'euphoria boner' transcends fetish and is a result of a much deeper sense of self-understanding.
Noone reflects on why this concept only exists conveniently in this use case of convincing yourself a clear turn on is more meaningful than that. Thinking with the wrong head and the related post-nut clarity is pretty well trodden and understood male pyscho-sexuality, and this is the most painfully transparent attempt at gaslighting this into the opposite.
A very common and sad gaslight is some recently cracked egg on these forums makes a comments like, "yo, I'm worried this is a fetish / sexual fantasy, because I get super aroused when I induldge" (usually much less concisely and straightforward, but that's their real point). To which, they are showered with " no no, it's the exact oppposite. Your sexual excitement in this context actually proves it's not a sexual indulgence.... because...um... euphoria boner".
I’m not sure exactly how culture war-like this idea is, but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before.
This is very much a big issue in the Culture War! If you don't want to be banned or harrased e.g. on certain subreddits you need to avoid this line of reasoning. Because you are supposed to say: "they have always been there they are more comfortable to express in the modern day". One of the first things you notice is that you haven't heard of it: my claim for the reason is "media bias" and gender ideologs.
I don't see a reason why a study in academia couldn't be constructed that could prove or disprove a link between eating disorders and gender dysphoria. I've seen claims made by various people that this research is not being funded or passing an ethics board because the research would be deemed "transphobic".
ShariaHeap
1yr ago
I think a useful frame for thinking about trans identification is as a culture bound syndrome. Some conditions obviously have a plain physical aetiology but other conditions are given shape by the culture of the time. For example, hysteria was a common diagnosis of a previous era but no-one suffers from it today. Similarly while people have always starved themselves historically for various reasons, ie religious martyrs, the modern form of anorexia as self-harm among mainly female adolescents is a recent culture bound syndrome - in a sense the cultural availability of the syndrome within the medical context of the time combines with the experience of the individual to give rise to the condition. This culture bound syndrome is hen active and in the modern age can be easily exported as happened with Korea which experienced a sudden arrival of anorexia as essentially a new condition. Note this means it's still very real.
Over time the experiences and language of how people to describe their state spreads and this is what I think is happening with trans. In adolescence significant anxiety and transition to the social world from childhood create a space of confusion and sometimes extreme anxiety in the self-space. The experience of feeling different from everyone else, not fitting in, is actually really common. Additionally some people have additional challenges around sexuality or gender non-conformity, or they may have dysfunctional family or have experienced abuse. In the past, people may have experienced this as more generalised anxiety, deep depression, self-destructive behaviours etc, in more recent times it has become expressed in new modes such as anorexia and direct self-harm. Because gender has become so salient it is now being expressed as gender dysphoria - the language and experience are given to the person by the culture and this reifies their self-experience in these terms.
Combined with the social contagion of the internet and in-group cult dynamics that give short term alleviation of the sense of difference and alienation then we see how the culture bound syndrome can spread.
That might be ground zero for trans as social contagion. And his reader base is smarter enough to make the connection between anorexia history and the current trans movement.
For his writing style not saying it directly can slowly change the minds of true believers and the middle ground if he’s not immediately labeled a transphobe.
Also I’d say social contagion is a bit of high class way to say grooming and lacks the pedophilia connotations.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
Ever since Scott ran an article on social contagion in anorexia and how anorexia wasn’t common at all until females herd about it.
He didn't make the connection explicitly, but transgenderism was surely on his mind when he wrote it. "Looking back on the debate, it seems as if acceptance of neurasthenia had been so successful that psychiatrists felt obligated to restigmatize this mental disorder in hopes of limiting its adoption. [...] He who has ears to hear, let him listen."
It's disappointing how chickenshit Scott has become in his ACX days. He's effectively cancelproof so there's no need to be this cagey.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I’ve been making that comparison for atleast 8 months. Ever since Scott ran an article on social contagion in anorexia and how anorexia wasn’t common at all until females herd about it.
Honestly been curious if I was the first to use the term like that. But it’s been popping up a lot on social media past few months and others here have been using for atleast 3-4 months. I probably wasn’t first but the social contagion comparison between trans and anorexia I’ve been using for a while.
I don't think your comparison of gender dysphoria to intense romantic infatuation is quite as illuminating as you seem to think it is.
We've all had the experience of being romantically infatuated with another person. Probably almost all of us have felt "lovesick" at one point or another, in the sense of being romantically attracted to someone who's unavailable, or being attracted to someone but being too afraid to tell them how we feel for fear of rejection, or telling someone how we feel and finding out that it's unreciprocated, or getting dumped by someone we're still very much in love with. Short of bereavement, romantic rejection is one of the most unpleasant, destabilising and humiliating emotional states that the average person is likely to find themselves in, and I would never dream of making fun of someone who's having a tough time because they got rejected by their crush or broken up with (one of the reasons "Radicalizing the Romanceless" really resonated with me). (Of all the toxic, antisocial behaviours that social media aids and abets, there are few worse than that trend when a guy texts a girl to tell her he really likes her, and she immediately screenshots the conversation and sends it to her group chat with the caption "OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE 😂😂😂".)
But some people's intense romantic fixations can lead them to behave in extremely unhealthy ways which violate the boundaries of the object of their affection: repeatedly texting them, calling them or buying them gifts when they've made it perfectly clear they aren't interested; following them; bothering them in public places; sending them hateful messages; and (much more rarely, of course) physically intimidating or assaulting the object of their affection, or their current romantic partner. We call such a person a "stalker", and much of the aforementioned behaviour is actually illegal (however difficult it is to enforce), and rightfully so. As sympathetic as I might be towards someone whose affections aren't reciprocated and is feeling sad about it, my sympathy ends when they engage in unacceptable behaviour like this.
Likewise with gender dysphoria. Obviously I have no idea what gender dysphoria feels like, having never experienced it personally. But I can certainly relate to the experience of hating how your body looks in the mirror (both directly and indirectly, as I've had multiple friends who suffered from severe anorexia). I've been depressed for lengthy periods of time, and sincerely wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Much as I'd never make fun of someone who's sad because they love someone who doesn't feel the same way, I'd never make fun of someone whose gender dysphoria is causing them intense emotional distress. I am sincerely sympathetic.
But some people's gender dysphoria can lead them to behave in extremely unhealthy or toxic ways: emotionally manipulating lesbians into having sex with you by accusing them of bigotry if they don't; getting lesbian speed dating events cancelled; suing women who refuse to wax your male genitalia; sending rape and death threats to a female victim of sexual assault who expressed discomfort about using a bathroom alongside trans women; physically assaulting a gender-critical woman in her sixties; shooting up a primary school and so on. As sympathetic as I might be towards someone suffering from gender dysphoria, my sympathy vanishes the instant they engage in behaviour like this.
So I think I'm actually being perfectly consistent, per the terms of your analogy.
I'm open to correction on this and fully admit I may be falling victim to confirmation bias or the availability heuristic, but my impression from this community is that, when trans issues come up, it's usually not so much people complaining about the former (i.e. "this person has gender dysphoria, gross, what a disgusting fetishist") and more people complaining about the latter (i.e. "this person is suffering from gender dysphoria, which is leading them to engage in behaviours which would be grossly unacceptable if carried out by anyone"). And I admit there's a bit of Chinese-robbering going on, wherein people highlight bad behaviour by self-identified trans people which obviously bears no causal relationship to their gender dysphoria as a means of casting aspersions on the whole group, which I'm not cool with for the same reason I'm not cool with any use of the Chinese robber fallacy.
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