Over the past few weeks, I’ve been interviewing teachers and parents of schoolchildren caught up in the ongoing transgender social contagion that is an open secret visible to all teachers and parents in certain Blue enclaves. I spoke to multiple parents who reported that between 20 percent and 50 percent all the girls in their children’s middle or high school classrooms identify as trans or non-binary. The following is written by someone whose identity I have confirmed, who teaches in a Blue enclave somewhere in America.

Last month, I wrote another piece for Wesley’s Substack where I talked about the biggest barrier to discussing DEI programs productively: If you’re honest about what’s going on, no one will believe you, because it just sounds too crazy to be true.

Here are some solid figures: I had six classes last year, and I didn’t have a single one without multiple students who identified as transgender. The absolutely lowest number was two in a 26-person class. 70% or so of these students are female, and talk about breast binding and “top surgery” are common conversation topics at lunch time.

It’s relatively common for students to transition, detransition, and transition again, especially in response to the identity shifts in their classmates. At one point, a single student’s decision to go with they/them pronouns set off a chain reaction that resulted in four more of her friends doing the same. It’s gotten so ridiculous that a neighboring teacher recommended weekly pronoun checks.

It’s primarily a way for straight kids to make themselves gay.

And why wouldn’t they?

In these internet-poisoned youth subcultures, being a boring straight kid (especially a boring straight girl!) puts you at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy, a totally acceptable target for barely-concealed contempt and passive bullying. I had a group of queer students who ate lunch by my desk every day, and every other joke they made was about the one “token heterosexual” who liked to hang out with them.

Of course, she was non-binary too by the end of the year – you can only take peers “punching up” at you for so long before you’d want to join them on their level.