The review comes as divorced parents fight complex and messy legal battles over who gets to decide the course of hormone treatments for their transgender teen, and as experts report more youth with no known histories of gender identity issues in the past suddenly identifying as transgender. A recent controversial study on so-called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” suggested “social and peer contagion” could be behind “cluster outbreaks” of gender dysphoria among friends, and that some teens (mostly trans boys, female to male) are being influenced by social media, including YouTube transitioning videos. The study, based on parental reports, has been attacked by transgender advocates as seriously methodologically flawed and is now being reviewed by the journal that published it.
Without a thorough mental health assessment, “the risk is that teens may be started on irreversible medical interventions...