New Research: 50-Fold Increase in ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in UK

New research out of the University of York has found a 50-fold increase in “gender distress” in children and young people in the United Kingdom in just 10 years. Social contagion and mental illness may play a role in the large rise.

The BMJ reported the results, which were originally published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood on January 24, 2025.

The study looked at primary care data in England, and suggests that “1 in every 200 17-18 year olds are affected” by “psychological distress caused by a mismatch between birth sex and gender identity.” The BMJ reported that “from 2015 onwards, the numbers of cases rose more rapidly in those recorded as female than those recorded as male by their family doctors, and were around twice as high by 2021.”

The researchers also found that 53% of the children “had concurrent anxiety, depression, or self-harm recorded.”

Such a large increase in a significant mental health disorder doesn’t happen naturally, societal factors must play a role.

While the York researchers didn’t study the issue of causation, they suggested some possible contributing factors to explain the dramatic increase in children struggling with sexual identity confusion:

Recent increases in incidence of gender dysphoria/incongruence have a range of potential explanations, including social factors (for example, changes in public attitudes towards gender differences, greater awareness and acceptance of gender dysphoria/incongruence, increasing use of social media and networking); [and] increasing rates of emotional distress and poor mental health in this age group, particularly for females. …

Here in the U.S., the number of minors with gender dysphoria diagnoses have also surged, with one report showing an increase from 15,175 children in 2017 to 42,167 in 2022.

Those numbers don’t count the growing number of children and young adults identifying as something other than their biological sex. As reported in the Daily Citizen, a 2023 Gallup study of 18 to 25-year old members of Gen Z showed almost 20% identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, with 3.3% identifying as “transgender” or “other LGBT.”

In 2024, Mia Hughes published a devastating exposé of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (WPATH) “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People.”

WPATH supports dangerous, experimental and body damaging “gender-affirming care” for children and adults, including puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries.

Hughes’ report, The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, demonstrated “the world-leading transgender healthcare group is neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care.”

In a post about the new study on X, Hughes stated, “There has never been a more obvious social contagion in all of history.”

Executive Director and Founder of Genspect Stella O’Malley said of the increase

I put it down to social contagion, I put it down to social media, and I put it down to an extraordinary politicization of the trans identity. So that people who are lost, and people who are vulnerable, and the children in this study are shown to have a disproportionately high level of maybe autism, mental health problems.
People are lost and lonely, they look for solutions, and the idea that they can be a different person with a different identity is very alluring to a lost and lonely person, especially a young person who hates their body and is going through an exploration of who they are.

She added that she could understand children struggling, adding that clinicians and other “adults in the room need to exercise caution and be very careful with the treatment they give” children.

Indeed. Children who struggle with this intense self-hatred, along with the fantasy that they can become a different sex, deserve compassionate, loving care to embrace their bodily sex.

What they don’t need are harmful, experimental medical interventions that top their natural body and brain development and growth; disfigure and sterilize them; and risk major medical complications such as low bone density, high blood pressure, breast cancer, liver disease, thrombosis, and cardiovascular disease.

Related articles and resources:

British Lawsuit Says Children Are Too Young To Consent To ‘Transgender’ Medical Procedures

Counseling for Sexual Identity Concerns: A Measured, Careful, and Compassionate Approach

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

Important New Journal Article Calls Out Doctors for Harming Youth with Medicalized Gender Ideology

Questioning Drugs, Hormones and Surgery for Youth Confused about Their Sexual Identity

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria – Researcher’s Work Vindicated

Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show? ‘Trust the Science’ About ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ What Science?

Image from Getty.

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