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Did you actually read that article? Nothing I see justifies the notion of social contagion.
300,000 more teens that identify as trans is nothing, statistically. What we are seeing is more or less in line with what happens when you destigmatize being trans.
In all honesty, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was a combination of both. The fact that people are more comfortable coming out now vs. 30 years ago doesn't negate the possibility of people glomming onto something in a "fad" capacity.
The percentage of people identifying as trans has nearly doubled from Millennials to Gen Z, and there is something of a regional component to it.
There's also been a sharp increase in the percentage of young people identifying as a generic "non-conforming"/"nonbinary"
To entirely dismiss the "fad" component would be dismissing everything we know about people in the 16-20 age group (and their desire to rebel for rebelliousness's sake). It would also be dismissing what we know about the "vibe" on certain campuses, which is that there's a certain "coolness" or "hipness" with identifying as anything other than "a boring ol' cisgender straight white person" in certain social circles.
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