Is being trans a social fad among teenagers?

As a trans person, I can say for a fact that the worst part of this "culture war" is that we can't talk freely about the complexities, and that the underlying compassion for individuals themselves is utterly lost. The gender critical campaigns have reduced things down so far that it's now not about how do we appropriately give support to people, but instead about basic rights to personal freedom and being able to participate within society. Faced with extreme threats to survival, it is normal for humans to drop nuance, and so those opposed to trans people get to say "look at those crazy trans people, ignoring science/safety/etc". And there's strong history of trans people strawmen being created by GCs and widely publicised as real, further stoking hatred. Trans people want to talk about things seriously and openly. We've always existed, and don't pose any kind of new danger to anyone - indeed, many of the gender critical arguments are misogynistic in basis ("protecting innocent girls"), and there's a documented rise in transphobia and of cis women getting harassed for "not looking feminine enough to be a real woman". Core to Sabine's argument is that this is an area of science & healthcare, and not something for petty fights, political wins, and media sensationalism. And frankly, most trans people absolutely agree - we just want to go about our lives with the same dignity as anyone else.

Regardless of the science, can we just be kind to each other? Asking for a friend. She’s not here to ask anymore.

“If you want to be a girl, you join the physics club!” 😂 I love this

"It Takes All Kinds" is what my mother used to say when asked about people who spoke/acted/behaved differently. The beauty of this line is that it encourages, even insists on tolerance but doesn't require that you actually understand every divergent branch of humanity. Sure, its important to try but its OK not to as long as you are tolerant and respectful.

"if you want to be a girl you join the physics club" GODDAMN she is dropping bombs just because she can

I have real empathy for people who feel they got the wrong body parts. If I was born with a female body, retaining everything else I know about myself as a red blooded American man, I don’t know if I could deal with it. Especially when family and society just thinks your crazy, and when surgery is risky, and kids will bully you on top of your already difficult circumstances. I’m sure there are fakers, some people fake cancer. But nobody bullies you when you say you have stage four melanoma.

In my experience, transgender women tend to be less likely to come out due to societal pressures. They tend to pass less frequently and are more strongly argued against in the media's eye. Most trans arguments in the media seem to feature transwomen and women's spaces whereas the transmen side is less critiqued in the same way. This may offput transwomen from coming out in fear of social stigma

It's like being taught to wear your shoes on the wrong feet. Everyone tells you to do as they say, but it hurts too much.

".....have you ever seen a normal person? I haven't." Well said Sabine.

I am sick to death of people talking about it. Thanks for adding to the pile. I am trans, I live out my life in peace and don't bother others. I just want to be left to get on with things without going on twitter and seeing me being painted as a predator or a groomer, to walk down the street without seeing angry faces of people with preconceived beliefs about me based on what they have seen in this culture war. I am especially bored of the allies who think that activism is boycotting a video game or telling me what words I can or can't use to talk about myself. I am super sick of people who claim they are being cancelled, usually super rich celebrities who will never have to worry for anything in their lives.

I'm a little late to the game here as i just saw this video. One important factor that was completely ignored when discussing the psychological satisfaction of recipients of treatment is the fact that systemic hatred of trans people is a common thread before, during, and after treatment. Of course someone is going to be depressed if they are constantly inundated by an endless barrage of hate! As a trans woman who transitioned 20 years ago i can definitively say that transitioning made me happier and more satisfied with my life but the world's hatred continues to drag me down.

11:30 "If you want to be a girl, you join the physics club." Ha! Ha! I love you, Sabine!

In the Netherlands the ratio of girls and boys waiting for gender affirming care seems to have balanced out again. In any case, the requirements in the Netherlands to receive this care are pretty strict, it is not a procedure you can just get on a whim. Also people are closely monitored both before and after transition to check their well-being and see if any mistakes have been made in the assessment. Ultimately it is about people actually transitioning not people that may entertain the thought for a while.

I’m sure this topic won’t be controversial at all. Good luck, anyone venturing into the comments!

Great video Sabine. Small observation. When I was a child, there was no common term to be used. So if I had known I was transgender when I was 5, I sure wouldn't know the word was transgender. That was the 60s. Today, we have a lot of kids able to better understand themselves, there isn't more of us, there is just more of us that understand what makes us uncomfortable.

Like so many senselessly politicized issues, this is one that requires the wisdom of Solomon. As we are not Solomon, perhaps we should leave this to the children, their parents, and qualified mental and medical professionals while the rest of us butt out!

I'm a trans guy who transitioned as an adult (18): I've been out and living as a guy for 3 years now and have been on hrt for a few months. I read through many of the other comments, and I'd like to add on to them and address a topic I saw a bit underepresented: the medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The modern sociological consensus is that you do NOT need to have dysphoria to be trans, and you may have dysphoria about a body part but that doesn't necessarily indicate you are trans. Dysphoria is a mental reaction to feeling a discrepancy between how your body is and how you expect it to be/feel like it should be. Since everyone processes certain traumas differently, not every trans person actually experiences dysphoria to the same level. At the same time, treating dysphoria doesn't actually treat depression, anxiety, or any other mental health problem an individual could've developed due to the trauma of being trans. Going to a therapist and getting treated for those is just as crucial as receiving medical transition care...unfortunately many trans people I know assumed all their problems would disappear upon starting hrt, and although they are happy with their changes, hormones obviously don't make depression go away. So even just from my experience and from extensive talks with my psychiatrist, I am not at all surprised that studies found that mental health of patients medically transitioning did not significantly improve, because medical transition is not a "cure to depression", it just helps to alleviate dysphoria and make someone feel more comfortable in society. I should note here that I don't study medicine, and I think we should leave it up to medical professionals and the patient to thoroughly evaluate the best course of care for each individual. I understand how someone not diagnosed with dysphoria wanting to medically transition can be a difficult situation, and I am not smart enough in this topic to resolve such issues. I advocate strongly for thorough medical evaluation before commiting to any sort of gender care, but I don't think it is as simple as "HRT is a perfect solution" or "HRT is bad for everyone". I really do think this should be evaluated on a person-to-person basis and best left up to the psychiatrist, GP, and the patient without government intervention (anymore than the government intervenes in other medical issues, that is)

"Have you ever seen a normal human? I haven't." Thank goodness for you. ❤

One thing that I've heard about the case of Sweden "rolling back" is that the country has been at the forefront of gender-affirming care with much easier access to treatments, including surgery for younger people, than most other places in the world. That was from a documentary on the "rollback" on French TV a year or two ago, a state owned channel if I remember correctly (seen as left-leaning if anyone wonders why it would matter). What I gathered is that after some highly mediatized cases of people regretting their decisions to switch genders with medical assistance at a younger age there has been a backlash against somewhat zealous use of these therapies, but it's still rather more accessible and common than in many other western countries. I wanted to say this because in the video it seems like the countries who go back on these treatments may have completely changed their course but in my understanding and memory of it it's more of a case of three steps forward and one step back.

I was born in 1958. I wouldn't have told anyone that I was the wrong sex when I was a teenager for anything in the universe. I just kept my mouth shut and drank and took drugs, tried to unalive myself multiple times and wished I had the courage to do it right. Abject misery was my life. At the age of 35, in 1993, I was living in San Diego,(rather than North Carolina), and finally got the courage to come out and transition. It was like coming alive. Soaring out of hell to take part in life....finally! I never regretted it for a second.-weezi-🙏💖🙏🌄