But it couldn’t be social contagion, folks. It’s just that young people, especially autistic, gay and mentally ill ones, are finally free to be their authentic selves. The sudden explosion of young women who want to cut off their healthy breasts and take testosterone? Well, it’s absolutely not the newest form of self-harm, to which troubled adolescent girls are provably prone, ok? It’s not a consequence of the commonplace fear of becoming an adult woman, with all that that entails. No, there’s nothing to worry about there. The possibility of regret? Naturally, we don’t let minors get tattoos or own guns or vote, because that would be ridiculous, but if they want irreversible surgeries and drug treatments, they must be given them, and everyone around them must immediately agree they are now the opposite sex. That’s called being kind. And the mounting numbers of detransitioners? They were never trans, obviously, and should be mercilessly attacked, especially if they now say they were vulnerable and in a friendship group, online or off, dominated by trans identities, where transitioning was presented as a way to resolve all their social and emotional difficulties. (I have the emails). No, there’s nothing whatsoever to see here. Keep justifying it, keep cheering it on, keep insisting that the doctors and drug companies making serious money out of it all are acting with the purest of motives. Answer every reasonable question with an accusation of hatred and bigotry. Dispel every qualm of conscience with an activist-approved talking point. Reassure yourself that everyone on your dinner party circuit agrees with you. And when, in years to come, we’re all looking back on graphs like this, be proud that you did your bit to monster whistleblowers, parrot unevidenced claims and create the climate of fear that allowed the worst medical scandal in a century to take place.

The more nonsensical and obviously absurd a belief is, the more people who hold it (or pretend to) will resist recanting. The potential for humiliation rises in direct proportion to the ridiculousness of what they've publicly swallowed. They see no choice but to double down.