No plausible explanation? I disagree.

It’s about the social safety of transitioning. The paper you referenced is from the UK, which is famously a TERF island (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). In the TERF island, it’s much less safe to be a trans woman than a trans man. Adolescents can sense the risk of being a trans woman is much higher, so many trans women stay in the closet and don’t come out.

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nuggets 3 days ago | parent [-]

Then why were there more boys who want to be girls referred prior to a decade ago, compared to girls who want to be boys?

The radical feminist movement in the UK has existed much longer than this, since around the late 1960s to early 1970s.

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heavyset_go 3 days ago | parent [-]

Because a decade ago marks when the American right decided to scapegoat transwomen after losing their previous scapegoat, gay people and marriage, to SCOTUS in 2015.

2015-2016 is when rhetoric online and globally shifted towards villainizing trans women that weren't on the public's radar before. This was exported to UK politics and has been an incredible political success.

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nuggets 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

If that is the cause, how does it explain both the sex ratio shift and the rapid increase in referrals starting from around 2011-2012 onwards? There were gender clinics across Europe reporting similar demographic changes in pediatric referrals. This precedes the political developments in the US that you mentioned.

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nxor 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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tomhow 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Please stop. HN is not a place for political/ideological battle, including about this topic. What HN is for is curious conversation, including about difficult topics, but the guidelines apply, particularly these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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heavyset_go 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Speak for yourself, literally. I'm in that "rest of us in LGB".

It's actually quite the contrary, the rest of the LGB looks at gay transphobes as the hypocrites and useful idiots they are.

	▲	exoverito 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		[flagged]