An article posted on a right-wing blog about teenagers trying to alter their gender simply to impress others has been met with fierce backlash from activists.
The piece, entitled: “Gender expert says teens are trying to be transgender because it’s cool”, by the conservative US platform The Daily Wire, quoted a psychiatrist saying many young people were "trying out being transgender" to get attention.
Dr Steve Stathis, who worked at a Australian gender clinic, said one child told him being transgender was “the new black”.
The article was based on an interview by Australian tabloid The Courier Mail. The doctor, who claimed to be an expert on gender, said he expected to see about 180 children with gender issues this year, but only a minority would be diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Twitter users criticised the The Daily Wire for not including a quote that appeared in the original article, which explained the psychiatrist had also witnessed some children become so desperate to alter their anatomy they tried to remove their genitals themselves.
“I’ve seen genital mutilation, some who try to cut off their penis,’’ Dr Steve Stathis told The Courier Mail.
The Daily Wire, headed up by former editor-in-chief of Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, claimed: “Being young and transgender has become the new hotness on the left.” It cited a recent article by The New York Times suggesting children suffering from gender dysphoria could be offered hormone therapy as evidence.
One Twitter user said: "This poisonous narrative that transgender people are fashionable and cool now hides the serious atrocities right in front of us".
Another argued: "There have literally been at least eight cases of transgender people being murdered in the US so far this year," asking, "how exactly is that 'cool'?"
According to the US-based LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign, at least 22 transgender people were killed in the US in 2016, the highest number ever recorded. At least eight more transgender people have been killed violently in 2017 so far, according to the organisation.
