Right, but why has it been normalized? This is a
disorder according to DSM V, and the word “dysphoria” also suggests profound discomfort and unease. Like “body dysmorphic disorders” like anorexia (another issue for young girls).
Perhaps people are trivializing the actual affliction and are “appropriating” the identity the way it has been done with blackface or wearing drag for the fun of it etc. I actually hope so since the opposite would imply a lot of psychological torment. But regardless, we must once again look at society and upstream issues.
For example, if a girl preferred traditionally male activities, today that is 1 of 2 criteria she needs to be considered as having gender dysphoria, while in the past she’d be called a Tomboy before. That was a normal acceptable category for explaining her tendencies. It didn’t come with an assumption that she is “REALLY” a boy inside and should make a decision on whether to take advantage of the latest technology to physically transition her gender before she hits puberty. And to be fair, the amount of people undergoing hormone blockers or surgeries is still low compared to the number of young kids who identify as trans. But if the capitalist psych and pharma industries have their way, they’ll push it to increase.
Most tomboys eventually changed as they got older, it was a phase, and it was contextualized differently by society. Also they had a mom at home, raising them, etc. Today both parents are away. School administrators cover their butt and say the parents can’t be notified and even if they do, they have no say. A lot of the industry increasingly is pushing ONE interpretation on all cases. An interpretstion that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. This is an experiment in novel interpretations and it’s not working well so far in terms of mental health outcomes.
Many times throughout history we had such interpretations (eg Hysteria for women, or chemical castration for gays) it turned out that the problem was societal.