My new piece over at UnHerd—where I seem to be on the “New York Times is getting it all wrong” beat lately—takes the newspaper to task for bungling its reporting on online trans communities…
Online communities provide unrestricted — and, conveniently, disembodied — spaces for youth to test-drive new identities, access “emotional support through peers and role models, appraisal support for validating their experiences, and informational support for navigating health decisions and educating family and friends.” As one researcher put it: “the Internet's ability to empower users in various ways – from online support to testing and expressing different selves – makes it almost an ideal medium for transgender individuals.”
But what matters when it comes to evaluating the role of online communities in LGBTQ ‘self-discovery’ is the direction of travel. Are there some children and adolescents who are innately transgender, who struggle with their identities in isolation until they find a language for their experiences and a place to belong online? Or do online spaces that constantly prompt youth to question their gender identities — and then tell them that questioning their gender means they’re trans — precipitate such gender ‘revelations’ and set young people on the path to irreversible body modifications?
Take the story of Cassius O’Brien-Stiner, who “had some negative and even dangerous experiences online” — “[b]ut, the reporter notes, “it was also where he first learned the word ‘trans.’” Other passages are strongly suggestive of social contagion:
‘At Roosevelt High School in Portland, Ore., members of the queer-straight alliance, a student group, said social media had accelerated their understanding of their identities, and their acceptance among peers. “Representation on social media is a huge part of it,” said Regan Palmer, 16. “It’s more accessible to see the different variations you can be, and know that sexuality is not a binary, it’s a spectrum.”
Her classmate Jareth Leiker, 16, said seeing people come out online helped young people do it in their own lives: “To see someone else have the courage to do something, you have the courage.”’
My research on online trans communities paints a messier picture than the Times does. Sometimes, social support can look more like love-bombing. Online trans communities can drip-feed new sources of anxiety and obsessive fixation: “is talking about your day too girly?” how about feeling emotions or listening to the sound of your own breathing? This kind of endless negative co-rumination can have devastating effects on mental health. Members who run afoul of community attitudes and beliefs may find themselves ostracised for wrongthink.
Online trans communities also provide tips on how to evade clinical ‘gatekeeping’ — often by concealing important information from medical providers — or push young people to go it alone with black-market hormones. ‘Nonbinary’ influencers like 45-year-old Jeffrey Marsh encourage kids to go “no contact” with loving parents who dare to question whether transition is right for their children. Exposure to disordered-identity influencers — whether they promote tics, multiple personalities, or ‘top surgery’ — can send young people struggling with ordinary challenges of adolescent development down the road to dysfunction. Some young people even experience grooming by adults who tell them it’s wrong to be gay but that transition can fix all that.
A lot of what happens in online trans communities looks more like online radicalisation than anything else. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, signs of online radicalisation include: “isolating themselves from family and friends, talking as if from a scripted speech, unwillingness or inability to discuss their views, a sudden disrespectful attitude towards others, increased levels of anger, [and] increased secretiveness, especially around internet use.”
Concerned parents link trans identification to a sharp increase in Internet use, discarded interests and hobbies, isolation from family and friends, disruptions in mood and behaviour, increased intolerance toward differing viewpoints, and increased levels of anger and conflict within the home. A recent survey of Canadian young adults identified transgender and gender-diverse youth as at particular risk of radicalisation, outstripping their peers in expressing severe alienation and sympathy for the use of violence against perceived antagonists.
No matter where one stands, the NYT is infuriating. It simply will not make up its mind on the transgender issue. On the one hand it has had some decent reporting which tried to aim at “balance” and then Pamela Paul or Douthat as opinion columnists allowed to write some sensible stuff. But then came that huge uproar from the trans lobby, which tolerates neither balance nor dissent. And the Times continues to succumb by allowing various of its captured hires to publish reports, not opinion pieces, which embed gender ideology in their very framing. Not to mention this outrageous case you discuss here, where the reporter miraculously missed the elephantine issue of social contagion via the internet. It’s like they’re just not reading the room. They have a weak-kneed owner. It always starts from the top.
Eliza,
Dr. Jerry Coyne, UChicago evolutionary biology emeritus, wrote an excellent entry regarding recent reporting by NY Times on NHS announcement regarding puberty blockers. It is very much worth reading.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/11/the-uks-national-health-service-bans-puberty-blockers-for-minors-except-for-clinical-trials-nyt-reports-it-without-mentioning-potential-physical-harms/