Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

by Abigail Shrier

I wonder things I don’t say aloud, too: Whether this transgender craze isn’t partially the result of over-parented, coddled kids desperate to stake out territory for rebellion. Whether it is no coincidence that so many of these kids come from upper-middle-class white families, seeking cover in a minority identity? Or is it the fact that they overwhelmingly come from progressive families—raised with few walls, they hunt for barriers to knock down? And then there’s our modern-day obsession with mental health, medicating everyone toward the optimal level of happiness, as if we are all just tires in need of topping up. With the help of battalions of therapists, the upper-middle class has made a habit of extirpating anxiety, depression, and even the occasional disappointment wherever they find them. Perhaps we’ve trained adolescents to regard happiness as a natural and constantly accessible state. Perhaps they’ve come to believe momentary sadness amounts to a crisis—teenage doldrums a catastrophe to rectify rather than a phase to ignore.