In September 2018, responding to a welter of press coverage on this issue, the then Women and Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt MP announced an inquiry into the increase in the number of ‘girls’ seeking support with their gender identity (the inquiry was later quietly shelved when Mordaunt was sacked in a cabinet reshuffle by Boris Johnson). Evidence for such a social contagion is spurious and based on the subjective and hostile impressions of commentators.
