The basic idea of the paper is investigating teens who did not show symptoms of gender dysphoria in their youth, who had what the author calls "Sudden onset gender dysphoria" after being exposed to trans-friendly content (youtubers, tumblr blogs, etc), and who have one or more friends in their social group who become trans at the same time as they did. You can read more here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
I agree with you that I am not likely to transition if one my peers did. That's not really what the author is saying. The author is saying that some people (specifically teenage girls) seem to be transitioning together, without prior symptoms of gender dysphoria, after being exposed to content about trans people.
This research may be right or wrong. Trans-identification may or may not be a social contagion. I lack the expertise and evidence to judge. However, I can tell that the idea that this is a "completely unscientific" question is wrong by evidence of their being scientific research about it.
"Social contagion" doesn't mean the author thinks of trans-identification as "a disease". Social contagion means that it is spread through social interactions, which is why multiple individuals in friend-groups will sometimes develop sudden onset gender dysphoria together.
I agree with you that I am not likely to transition if one my peers did. That's not really what the author is saying. The author is saying that some people (specifically teenage girls) seem to be transitioning together, without prior symptoms of gender dysphoria, after being exposed to content about trans people.
This research may be right or wrong. Trans-identification may or may not be a social contagion. I lack the expertise and evidence to judge. However, I can tell that the idea that this is a "completely unscientific" question is wrong by evidence of their being scientific research about it.
"Social contagion" doesn't mean the author thinks of trans-identification as "a disease". Social contagion means that it is spread through social interactions, which is why multiple individuals in friend-groups will sometimes develop sudden onset gender dysphoria together.