It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

I understand gender dysphoria (as opposed to body dysphoria/dysmorphia in a stricter sense) to be a mismatch between someone's own preferences, interests etc. inasfar as they touch on categories that society has declared to be gendered, and society's expectations of the same - at least those of your local bubble of society.

This means there are two non-mutually-exclusive ways to make the lives of gender dysphoric people better: (1) let them change themselves (many options from pronouns to hormones and surgery), or (2) change society's expectations. Out of sympathy for people suffering from gender dysphoria, I wish for a bit more of (2) in the world.

Even in a vastly improved society, there will be people who decide that medical changes such as hormones/surgery are right for them, and as far as possible we should support them. These people existed, in small numbers, before "trans" was cool, and they will still exist when the media interest has picked up some new favourite category. (By analogy, Tourette's syndrome is also a real thing that existed before the internet, and will still exist when this particular media spike has died down.)

All of you futurists who have slipped down the slope are worried about media spreading “sociogenic illness”. Of course media is powerful. It always has been. There has been about 75 years of fears and schemes about using TV to mass hypnotize its watchers. The same with radio before it.

What is happening is mass unstructured clustering by social algos, specifically TikTok. Historically content and ad algorithms have focused on contextual relevance with structured categories. Graphs have extended that to included social context. TikTok has novel input parameters about user behavior. There have been many reports that this unstructured clustering is surfacing niche medical diagnoses regularly.

A lot of neurodivergent traits have historically been under diagnosed for the same goddamn ignorance as OP’s piece: “it’s just attention seeking”. This type of dismissal by parents, teachers, and doctors alike have lead to millions of people leading shorter, harder lives. ADHD, Autism, Tourette’s, Bipolar, schizophrenia, etc are present in larger numbers than are diagnosed. Often time these lifelong genetic differences lead to 10x+ higher suicide rates, inability to sustain work, and myriad health issues. It’s really common that mental health issues that don’t result in property damage just get ignored, downplayed, or under treated even if acknowledged.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 29. Having that information combined with medication, therapy, and exercise has changed my life for the better dramatically. If TikTok was the surface where I discovered that, I would have likely been dismissed or even openly mocked by my doctors, and continued with a life of suffering or worse.

By the way, it seems people cited in the article are experiencing a form of Tourette’s syndrome that is a typical neurological trait associated with other pathology. Echolalia has far less cultural awareness, but accurate describes the behavior: “Echolalia is not only associated with Autism, but also with several other conditions, including congenital blindness, intellectual disability, developmental delay, language delay, Tourette's syndrome, schizophrenia and others.” it’s not just swear words like on TV. My child does this. What happened to start as a YouTube ad for “Raid Shadow Legends” turned into a joke punchline, turned into a phrase that they cannot stop themselves from saying compulsively at odd times, after multiple years. It’s sub-clinical by itself, but is consistent with the diagnosis they do have.

This article is red meat, BS fear bait at best, dangerous at worst. To the extent content like this actually promotes diagnosis denial, it’s complicit in very literal harm of patients and those around them.

If I say "For me it's a choice" then it undermines the people for whom it is not a choice. Because most of the audience in the bathroom stall aren't doing research to put together a comprehensive understanding of gender, they're just reading what in front of them for that day, and then leaving.

If I say gender can be learned, we can spend days bickering about what "learned" really means.

It's not fun. And I'm sorry that someone else said something you think is contradictory.