I am not an intellectual or an ideolog, just a critical thinker and a Father trying to make practical sense of a phenomenon that is frequently confusing to many.  Thank you, and apologies for the lack of attribution below for the many words I have borrowed from others (I just couldn't keep track).

So what is this Trans phenomenon all about?  Here is my attempt at a comprehensive but concise summary with links to deep dives on the various sub-topics.

In a nutshell, the Trans movement at large appears to me to be a very trendy ideology.  Where it only about equal rights for Trans people, or acceptance of gender diversity I would be their ally.  A prime example to illustrate how trendy it is would be a Brown University recent survey of 1000 students found that 40% identify as LGBTQ+, that is a popular trend!  (historically speaking 2-4% of the population identified as gay).

This ideology has it's roots in philosophy, specifically Post Modernism and it's offshoot Queer Theory (although most Trans kids wouldn't understand this)

Gender Ideology -  incorporates or is closely related to a broader family of political and philosophical trends:

Social Justice Theory, Marxism (equity of outcome, not equality of opportunity), victimhood culture, cancel culture and wokeism in general.

Biology Denialism - and other logical fallacies abound in the Trans movement, e.g. denial that there are two types of humans, men and woman.  One produces sperm, the other eggs.  So the belief is that human's exist of a spectrum not a sex binary, but if true, why have surgery to change yourself to the other 'binary'?  As a result, we find ourselves treating a mental issue with surgery and hormones.

A biologiest explians why sex is binary

Why evolution is true

Sexual orientation and Sex vs Gender

• Sexual orientation, Gender and Sex are not the same things and should not be conflated.  Sexual orientation is not a choice, sex is dimorphic and also not a choice, and gender is a term that describes the superficial attributes that we use to define cultural stereotypes and exists on a spectrum.

Types of transgenderism

1. Autogynephilic transsexuals - the vast majority of Transexuals prior to the recent trend were of this type, 100% male heterosexuals and rare (1/60,000).  They are sexually aroused by the idea of being a woman, enjoy cross dressing, and typically if they transition it is in middle age,  frequently after raising a family.  

2. Childhood onset Gender Dysphoria, most common in pre-gay (or potentially pre autogynephilic) children, boys who may be more feminine than a typical straight man, or lesbian girls who may be more masculine than a typical straight woman.  Because being Trans is trendy, it is likely that otherwise Gay/Lesbian kids are pressured to identify as Trans with potentially permanent damage to their health.  These kids generally outgrow their gender confusion as they come to terms with being gay post puberty.  Some would add the rare cases of straight kids who are so uncomfortable with their sex in childhood and say they want to be the opposite sex, and they too outgrow this discomfort post puberty. 

   • 'Homophobia in drag' is a good read to understand how trans ideology can ironically be a form of homophobic conversion therapy and is likely harming homosexuals.  

   • Similarly, Lesbians are discriminated against and invalidated by a form of biology and sexual orientation denialism known as 'The cotton ceiling' which ignores same sex attraction and substitutes gender for sex thus accusing lesbians of being Transphobic if they say they are only attracted to natal females with a woman's anatomy.

3. ROGD or Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria - this is where the trendy factor is causing an explosion of Trans identified youth (~70% female). This recent study is great, that they flag it as 'retracted' is a testament to it's willingness to look at the evidence without ideological bias.

Transition types and stages - in my view, social transition and binders may well act as a gateway drug to hormones and therapy.

• Social - i.e. change of name, pronoun preferences, clothing and other fashion choices.  While pronoun changes may seem a small thing, it does have broader ramifications in normalizing support of an ideology without realizing it.  This is a good thoughtful article on the topic.  That many schools enable social transition without parental consent or notification strikes me as severe overreach (schools need to  have permission for tylenol, for field trips, but not social transition of impressionable children). Why they would think they don’t need permission to change a child’s name and gender is hard to understand?  If you tell a child they can be any sex and that there are more than two sexes, should you be surprised if they are confused?  Keep in mind many of them still believe in Santa Claus. This is not based on biological science and is therefore a religious ideology at best and potentially a cult.  I would have thought public school is not the place for religious teaching of any sort. 

• Binders - may seem like a good compromise but, there are a range of negative effects, some permanent.

• Hormones - first, know that the prescription of these powerful drugs is off label.  I had never heard of this until Gender Ideology hit my radar and I truely can't wrap my brain around the justification for 'off label use' of any powerful drug.  Side effects of hormones, which are frequently actually the effects (i.e. the norm not the exception) include infertility, sexual disfunction, osteoporosis, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, vaginal atrophy and possible brain damage.  Also stunted sex organ development, inability to orgasm, infertility, and menopause.  For girls, extended testosterone use frequently results in hysterectomy, in addition to the expected changes in voice (within a few short months and it's permanent), hair growth, weight gain, shape change, etc. 

• Surgery - the most common surgery is a double radical mastectomy (top surgery), more rarely phalloplasty/vaginoplasty (bottom surgery).  The costs and list of complications is very long. Keep in mind these are poor attempts at opposite sex organ construction and are not fully functional so what is the point?  I sometimes wonder what a breast cancer patient thinks of a voluntary cosmetic radical mastectomy?  I am dreading the day I see a headline about the first transplant of healthy breasts from a mentally troubled child to an adult who recently had breast cancer but sadly it doesn't seem we are far from this.  As a point of comparision, FGM or femal genital mutilation is broadly considered a bad thing, how is this any different?

Healthcare treatment 

• The 'affirmative' model in the US/Canada is unique to Gender 'medicine' by which I mean 'ideology'.  It basically means we let the patient self diagnose and tell the grown ups and experts what care they want.  For what other medical condition (mental or physical) do we let patients self diagnose, and choose what type of treatment they want?  They do play lip service to the idea of needing to do therapy first but in the main, it's an informed consent model, sign here and you can have your hormones.  Many states even mandate that health care plans must cover hormones and surgeries thus parents wanting to protect their childs health are ironically left considering removing them from their health insurance to ensure they can't afford surgery (sadly hormones are cheap until the effects kick in and start causing all sorts of health issues).

• Therapy

  • It is obvious to me that this is what is needed to treat what is obviously a mental health problem.  Ironically, Gender Ideology's marketing has successfully branded 'normal therapy' as 'conversion therapy'.  Cancel culture has most therapists terrified of doing anything to err on the side of caution before supporting medical interventions.  Be very careful what if any therapist you take your child to.  Gender Critical therapists can be found here and here.

  • Risk of suicide is frequently used as an excuse for medical intervention.  If someone wants to amputate their arm (apparently it's a thing) for no good reason, would we allow this under the guise of reducing the risk of suicide or instead, would we get them the mental help they need?  The truth of the matter is that these are troubled kids, and yes they are at higher risk of suicide as are all 'troubled people', but medical intervention and the affirmation of a fantasy are not going to make them less suicidal and when/if the long term studies come in, I would expect those that had medical intervention will have increased or unchanged rates of suicide, not a reduction. The limited data I have seen on this supports this view.  I have never found a single credibly executed study to support the idea of suicide risk reduction through medicalization. This is one of the biggest misinformation campaigns from the Trans activists.

• How can the medical industry possibly be so wrong: 'Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things'

  • Find it hard to believe or understand how the healthcare system could be so far off the mark? A history lesson might be instructive

    • The Myth of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine

    • When Sterilization Was Dogma: Why the Eugenics Movement is Relevant Today

    • Remember when butter was bad, and margarine good?  No science to back this up at the time and plenty of science to refute it now.

    • Consider the continued practice of Female Genital Mutilation, is the medicalization of Gender Ideology really any different?

  • Eventually the medical community comes to it's senses (in the UK), but after how much harm?  Sweden, Denmark and others have also come to their senses after 'systematic reviews of the evidence'.  In the US, Florida is the only state to have done a systematic review and came to the same conclusion as these EU countries, the evidence simply does not support the ideologies assertions.

  • As an aside, the current focus on age of consent legitimizes the idea that medicalization is ok and beneficial for adults, but shouldn't the same evidence drive the same conclusions for how to treat adults?  Would we allow an adult to self diagnose a medical condition so they can gain access to narcotics?

Causes

• The origin of the word/idea of Gender came from the 50's - ironically, John Money's cruel and failed experiment repudiated the idea that nurture trumps nature and yet the idea took hold.  This discussion is the best I have found on the topic and a good overview of the flaws and contradictions in the ideology.

• Social contagion and peer pressure

  • Kids are coming out in clusters around their social groups at school and online.  Online sites are frequently where the indoctrination begins, in particular Tumbler, Deviant Art, YouTube, Twitter/X, etc.

  • Yes it's true that 'Trans' is more socially acceptable these days and thus might explain some of the increase but why the concentration in woman vs men, and why the concentration in adolescents vs other ages?  This was not the pattern when homosexuality became more socially acceptable. Clearly it's trendy and social contagion is driving the very rapid rise in Trans identification.

  • This is a good read on Tumblr's influence with young girls, these days it may be that other platforms dominate: How Tumblr Confused a Generation Of Girls with Woke Propaganda and Gender Ideology

  • There are many sad social contagions in the past, e.g. the Salem Witch trials, Anorexia, Recovered Memories (Time article here), Satanic Panic, etc.  Why can't we learn from these before so much damage is done?

• Porn

  • It is hard to find good scientific research on this topic, but it seems intuitive to me that easy access to porn (of increasingly extreme varieties) is likely having a significant impact on our society, especially young people.  What young girl when exposed to extreme hardcore porn at the early age of 11 (this is the average for many) would think….that sounds wonderful, it will be a pleasant and enriching experience?  No wonder so many girls want to be boys or neither a girl nor a boy (non-binary).  Here is the best talk on this I have found.

• Education System

  • School's are more and more teaching what they view as the politically correct ideology that there isn't a sex binary, and that biology doesn't matter. No wonder our kids are confused about some very basic realities.

  • Can you imagine how confused this young child would be listening to this ideology being taught by a grownup they look up to? Kohlberg demonstrations

• Medical system governance

  • Sadly the scientific process seems to be broken and most research is taken out of context and manipulated/misused to make ideological points.

Myths

• Puberty blockers are not just a pause and certainly aren't without serious consequences. 99% of those put on puberty blockers go on to cross sex hormones.

• Suicide risk as mentioned is used to bully parent's and therapist's into medicalizing children instead of taking the watchful waiting approach (what happened to 'first do no harm'?).  These days between 2 and 9% of the population identifies as Trans, if this is organic and was previously hidden due to lack of social acceptance, why wasn't there a rash of suicides in the past when gender care was not available?  I for example knew of zero Trans people in my large high school and there were zero suicides in 4 years.

• Regret rates are likely much more frequent than the often cited 1% due in large part to the failure to follow-up with people who Transitioned.  Also, most detransitioners don't emerge until 5 plus years after transition (it seems to me the health issues that accumulate over time are the big catalyst opens the door to question the ideology and consider detransition). We have no studies that properly track outcomes of all participants in the longer term.

Cult , Mass psychosis, Religion, or something else

• Religions can usually recognize their beliefs are not based on science (i.e. they require 'faith')

• Cults actively groom new members and encourage you to reject your parents (anyone outside the cult).  The Trans community does this, i.e. 'join the glitter family online'.  In addition, cults tend to demonize unbelievers as does the Trans community.

• Mass psychosis is a known scientific phenomenon.  Previous examples include many medical tragedies of the recent past, e.g. repressed memories (where therapists led children to 'remember' FALSE memories of child abuse resulting in the ruin of many children and parents), lobotomies, anorexia (young girls became anorexic in social clusters), devil worship in rock music (i.e. the hysertia behind the false belief lyrics played backwards hide devil worship messages), and the list goes on.  It appears to me the Trans trend is in part a mass psychosis not unlike these previous examples.  

• Clearly a leap of faith is required to ignore the various logical fallacies in Trans ideology.

Who is at risk 

• Co-morbidities of ADD, autism, other mental health issues are common.  In general, those struggling socially seeking a friend group that accepts them are going to be more susceptible to the allure of trans ideology and peer pressure influences in general.  This article on how the 'gifted' might also be more susceptible was very thought provoking. 

Where has it all led us

• Male rapists in women's prisons

• Men in woman's sports

• Sterilizing kids and teaching them they can be born in the wrong body instead of self acceptance

• Enforcing regressive sexist stereotypes

• Converting gay kids to trans through medicalization

• Erasure of same sex attraction, i.e. redefining gay and lesbian to mean same gender attracted as opposed to same sex attracted

• Redefining the language used to describe human females to no longer refer to them as a sex class

• Without words to refer to human females, any law, services, spaces, anything that was for 'women' is now redefined as being for "people who feel like a woman", so anyone. 

Logical fallacies

• 'Gender Affirming Care' - is itself a logical fallacy

  • Gender - the 'care' provided is focused on changing secondary 'sex' characteristics, not 'gender' (a term that describes the superficial attributes that we use to define cultural stereotypes which obviously don't require medical intervention to change). 

  • Affirming - nothing is being affirmed, but rather ones self is being rejected as false while presuming changing ones self is required (the exact opposite of 'affirmation').

  • Care -  medical care is supposed to be evidence driven with a bias to 'first do not harm'.  Gender Affirming 'Care' is the polar opposite of this.

• How can the trans community say gender is fluid, but support permanent medical transition for an identity that therefore might change.

• How can you be gay or straight if you can't define what a woman or man is, or if you define man/woman as a stereotype with no regard for the physical body/sex.

• The majority of girls that transition who elect surgery will only have top surgery, i.e. a mastectomy and thus spend the rest of their lives as woman appearing to be sexually ambiguous (without further intervention), intuition would suggest this would cause not cure gender dysphoria.

• If genitals don't indicate gender, then why do you need to remove them to change gender?

• Conversion therapy, i.e. causing harm to a person to attempt to change something they can't change.  The trans community wants to brand regular therapy as conversion therapy.  With great irony, nothing could more obviously fit the definition of conversion therapy than using hormones and surgeries to destroy someone's health in an attempt to change something (your sex) you can't change.  They are literally trying to 'convert' themselves into the opposite sex. That path obviously fits the definition of 'Conversion Therapy'!

• The T in LGBTQ+ is homophobic, i.e. the Cotton Ceiling

• In follow up surveys post gender surgery, the Dutch studies switched the definition of sex and thus asked natal female who are now a trans man if their erections bothered them, and asked natal men who are now trans woman if their periods bother them as a measure of improvement in gender dysphoria, of course these things don't bother them, they don't have them.  Well explained in this podcast, start at 45:33

Other good sources of information from thoughtful thinkers:

Keeping your sense of humor:

• Monty Python's The life of Brian: I want to be a woman

Best sources of evidence based critical thinking:

• GENSPECT - this website is a top source of evidence based critical thinking on this topic.  This article and it's links are a great overview

• Therapy First - the alternative to the current practice of 'affirmative care' (i.e. self diagnosis)

• Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) - Here is a good deep drive reviewing the evidence

• Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics

Podcasts/Youtube:

• Gender a Wider Lens (the most educational podcast on the topic by far)

• Calmversations

• Why does the Trans community hate J.K. Rowling? The Witch Trail's of J.K. Rowling.  This is an incredibly well produced and thoughtful series.

• Reality vs. Trans Ideology  | Helen Joyce & Peter Boghossian

• The gender Identity Divide

Email/Newsletters/Articles:

• Parent with Inconvenient Truths about Trans

• The Distance

• Broad View

• Sex Matters

• As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They no longer do

Documentaries:

• 'The Reality of Gender Affirming Care' 

• 'Trans Kids - Who knows best' done by the BBC but since banned in most countries due to Trans activist complaints.  

• Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Gender?

• The Trans Train -  (English subtitles)

• Transbarnen (Trans Kids) - Swedish documentary about the harm being done to children

• Dysphoric: A Four-Part Documentary

Books:

• When Kids Say They're Trans: A Guide for Parents

• Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

• The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

• Trans: Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women's Rights

• The man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism

• Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice

Other reading:

• Transgender Trend.com

• Left-handedness argument is a red herring

• Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

• If like me, you are wondering how a body like the APA (American Academy of Pediatrics) could be so wrong

• The Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research

• Doctors/Therapist's showing the critical thinking needed to speak out in conflict with their standards bodies, i.e. American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Endocrine Society, American Psychology  Association, etc.

  • Sasha Ayad

  • Stella O'Malley

  • Dr. William Malone, Endocrinologist - 'The Hormone Health Crisis'

• Pronouns : Why I won't be putting pronouns in my bio

• The only comprehensive review of the evidence done in the US (so far) 

• "Trans Women are Women": A Closer Look at a Difficult Subject  

• What is Conversion Therapy?  

• The Cotton Ceiling? Reilly?

• Parent support - 

  • Parent's of ROGD Kids - We are the parent of ROGD kids

  • 4th Wave Now - A community of people who question who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth

• Is the Trans community a cult, religion or a manipulative group?

• Johns Hopkins, after pioneering sex-change surgery, we demonstrated that the practice brought no important benefits. As a result, we stopped offering that form of treatment in the 1970s 

• Male and Female Athletic Performance: Worlds Apart

• Gender is not a spectrum

• Unraveling the Mindset of Victimhood

• Social Justice Ideology, The Coddling of the American Mind

• Top Trans Doctors Blow the Whistle on ‘Sloppy’ Care

• Gender Dysphoria is not one thing

• Wanting to protect my daughter's health does not make me a bigot

• Trans men fight back (against Gender Ideology)

• The Economist - 

  • Worries grow over treatments that can leave children sterile

  • When girls won't be girls