Abigail Shrier Irreversible Damage

Annotation

Wall Street Journalist, Abigail Shrier investigates why groups offemale friends in universities and schools across the world are coming out as'transgender'. These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort intheir biological sex. Teenage girls havea constant online diet of social media which feeds and magnifies everytraditional insecurity. Feeling inadequate as girls, they are beingencouraged to think that they are not girls actually at all and unsuspectingparents now find their daughters in thrall to YouTube stars and'gender-affirming' educators and therapists, who encourage life-changinginterventions. Until just a fewyears ago, gender dysphoria - severe discomfort in one's biological sex - wasvanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of thepopulation, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively. Abigail Shrierhas talked to the girls, their agonised parents, and the therapists and doctorswho enable gender transitions, as well as to 'detransitioners' - young womenwho bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out astransgender immediately boosts these girls' social status, Shrier finds, butonce they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back.