A Survey by Gallup found an increasing rate among Americans’ adults who self identify as LGBT since 2012. The population has increased from 3.5% LGBT to 5.6% LGBT.
This increase could be because people have been increasingly more comfortable to tell the truth about sexuality, or it could be something else. This graph below shows how the generation increase in identifying LGBT as exponential. In Generation Z, (1997 to 2002) the number of young adults who identify as LGBT is 15.9%. If this trend continues, you would expect to see the next generation of young adults come in with anywhere between 25% to 30% of those who identify as LGBT. This difference across generations indicates this trend is probably influenced by some outside factor, so it does seem to support the idea of social contagion and that cultural influences are at play here.
In America, the pandemic response caused a mental health problem with an increase that appears to be correlated to the rise in the LGBT community. Lets be clear, being LGBT is not a mental illness, but a mental illness could cause you to think that being LGBT could be the solution to your problems.
Many industrialized countries also see this increase in mental health issues due to their extreme pandemic response. Many countries, including the United States, also recognize the increase of adolescent gender dysphoria. No one has yet linked these concepts together, possibly because of the political implications to a very strong and tight knit minority group. Again, its not that LGBT are a mentally ill group, its that this large increase in people identifying LGBT could be caused by the increase in mental health issues and social presence of the community as being accepting to all comers. ITs this open and loving appearance that makes the LGBT community attractive to those with depression and other forms of mental illness.
Teenagers are vulnerable to depression from their developing brain. So it should be a source of concern that this rise in LGBT teens and young adults could actually be kids and young adults finding a solution to their suffering. Its particularly concerning the American psychology community, at large, is willing to accept a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, not consider that there may be other mental health reasons and social influence that are causing the issues.
President Biden has been pushing for “Gender Affirming Care” considering it to be “conversion therapy” to provide children with psychotherapy that would help kids to accept the gender to which they were born into. Meanwhile, Sweden, the first to start transition surgeries has put a halt to all use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for minors. Brittan shut down its only gender identity clinic for kids. France’s heath department recognized the increase demand for gender transiently care in children. Additionally, are concerned about this increase in gender dysphoria is a social contagion, by recognizing that social networks could play a factor.
“The vigilance of parents in response to their children’s questions on transidentity or their malaise, underlining the addictive character of excessive consultation of social networks which is both harmful to the psychological development of young people and responsible, for a very important part, of the growing sense of gender incongruence.”
Meanwhile, in NJ schools they are teaching kids gender identity by the 5th grade thereby affirming the social networks that highlight gender incongruence.
This is all a dangerous experiment in psychology.
Wow. This is a great article.
Let's be honest. Someone challenged you to write and article perfectly demonstrating the use of circular logic to discredit yourself as a credible source. Right? You state that being LGBTQ community is not a mental health issue, then go on in the same sentence to say identifying as LGBTQ is due to a mental health issue. You explain that many more people may be openly identifying as LGBTQ because of the societal shift toward acceptance, then say it couldn't possible be that, without explaining why your own explanation is completely invalid. Gender affirming care has absolutely nothing to do with conversion or convincing a non-gender-conforming individual to identify with their assigned gender at birth, it's actually the exact opposite. It means to provide care affirming the gender a person identifies with, regardless of whether it matches their physical characteristics or the societal expectations in line with those characteristics. Describing the sexual orientation and gender identity of anyone as a "social contagion" as if it's a disease, is really just repugnant and clearly demonstrates your bigotry. You really should educate yourself on a topic before writing an article and claiming you have scientific facts.