[nuggets]

Regarding the change in sex ratio for childhood referrals, this is well documented. See for example this paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324768316_Sex_Ratio...

"Social contagion" is social science terminology. It's meant as an analogy not a pejorative.

[pseudalopex]

> "Social contagion" is social science terminology. It's meant as an analogy not a pejorative.

Some social scientists say the analogy is misleading, the term is poorly defined, and contagion has a pejorative connotation irrespective of intent. They are correct.

[defrost]

Well documented should imply multiple papers across multiple countries and across multiple time periods.

If that's the one and only paper you have, then it's a single UK paper that covers seven years of GIDS referrals from numbers that are near zero in 2009 to 1800 referrals in 2016.

Statistically, looking at the last graphic in the paper, it's less a case of "becoming so heavily skewed" and likely more a case of "taking several years to reveal the pattern and weights".

There's scarce numbers to begin with to make a strong claim as to the "natural balance" of referrals being evident at the start and this "being skewed toward" the later clearer pattern.

[nuggets]

There are other papers showing the same sort of pattern elsewhere. For example, you can see one cited in that paper within the introductory paragraphs.

As the commenter upthread noted, the adult demographic is more weighted towards men who want to be women. Why would childhood referrals have become shifted in the opposite direction, much more towards girls who want to be boys?