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The number of young people being treated for gender dysphoria is decreasing in Sweden.
The Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that Swedish social authorities have released new statistics showing that the number of patients under the age of 15 being treated for gender dysphoria has decreased by 37 percent between 2021 and 2023. And the figures for the first ten months of 2024 show that the trend is continuing. 22 children under the age of 15 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria at that time, which is the lowest figure for the corresponding period in the last ten years.
The reason why the decline should be noted is that Sweden previously saw a sharp increase in the number of cases gender dysphoria. And no one knows exactly what caused the increase. But now it has apparently slowed down and we have instead seen a decrease. Most people seem to think this is good news.
As we know, Western progressive thinking has been radicalized in the last twenty years. The tradition-critical women’s movement that questioned traditional gender roles previously worked mainly for women’s rights. In recent decades, this has developed into a structure- and norm-dissolving movement where all traditional categorizations are to be questioned, including those concerning the difference between men and women.
Do we have the right to “gender” people? How should we define the concept of “woman”? When does a person become a woman? Is it enough for the individual to define themselves as a woman for him or her (or something else…) to have the right to be considered as such by our authorities?
It is obvious that left-wing radicalism has gone so far that it has begun to question some of the most fundamental distinctions we make in human existence. One such distinction is that between animals and humans. And another is precisely that between men and women.
What seems to bother left-wing radical thinkers and activists with these fundamental distinctions is that – according to the left – they imply hierarchies. There is not only a qualitative difference between a man and a woman, but the difference also involves a difference in value where the masculine has traditionally been seen as more valuable than the feminine. And the left believes that conservatives who want to maintain traditional differences between, for example, humans and animals or between men and women want to do so because they themselves believe they have something to gain from doing so. It is the victors of the hierarchies who want to preserve the systems.
To be progressive and radical left-wing then means always questioning hierarchies, but also categories and norms. And it doesn’t matter that most people are secure in their gender identity. You should always think about those who are not, who don’t fit into the system, who are victims of the system. And you should always question the norms because they involve power relations.
It was around 2013 that the number of children and young people seeking Swedish care for gender-correcting treatments – or at least investigations – suddenly increased significantly. The peak was reached in 2020 when 145 patients under the age of 15 were treated for gender dysphoria.
It was soon noted that a significant proportion of the new patients were biological girls who usually also had other diagnoses. Often, they had some form of autism, or they were diagnosed with depression. Usually, they had both.
Here, suspicion gradually arose both among healthcare professionals and among journalists who were interested in the issue that young people who were feeling unwell had now been told in various forums on the internet that they probably suffered from gender dysphoria. It is a well-known fact that autistic youth spend a lot of time on the internet because they find real interaction with other people so difficult.
And when it became possible to evaluate the medical and psychological results of the treatments, it turned out that the young patients who had already been depressed and perhaps isolated before the gender correction did not feel any better afterwards. The young patients were just as depressed as before the treatment and those who suffered from neuropsychiatric disorders had obviously not gotten rid of them. And when the Swedish responsible authority, the National Board of Health and Welfare, was to produce new guidelines in 2022 for medical treatments of gender dysphoria, the skepticism had become so strong that there was a stop to medical treatments for children under 15 years of age.
Psychiatry professor Mikael Landén is interviewed in Dagens Nyheter’s article and he says that he was initially skeptical of gender reassignment treatments for such young people. And he says that prior to the decision in 2022, there had been some results from both treatments and research. Now it was possible to establish two things.
Firstly, there was no convincing evidence that the young people who had requested gender reassignment treatment on the grounds that they felt bad about being in the wrong body in any way felt better after the treatment. All the autistic and depressed young girls who had undergone hormone treatments and sometimes also surgical procedures had not received any significantly increased quality of life after their treatment. And secondly, there was still too little knowledge about possible future side effects of hormone treatments for it to be justified to expose such young people to the risks that the treatments entailed.
At the same time, a critical perspective also gained traction in the public debate. Swedish state television published some notable reports in which people who had undergone treatment when they were young but who had later regretted it were allowed to come forward and tell about their suffering. Among other things, they described how psychologists, counselors and doctors had sometimes almost pushed the treatments or at least avoided asking critical and truly probing questions.
What is unpleasant today is that a number of young people may have had their lives ruined because trans lobbyists and healthcare professionals encouraged these early gender changes. Swedish healthcare has allowed children under the age of 15 who suffered from neuropsychiatric disorders to undergo irreversible gender changes. And left-wing politicians have of course cheered on this. As have some left-wing journalists and opinion leaders.
The overarching goal of activism was to do away with traditional norms. Every time a young person changed their gender identity, left-wing radicalism won a victory over tradition and norms. The left-wing radicals probably also thought they won a victory over nature. Because conservatives usually say that nature is also part of human reality.
Despite what parts of the academic left say, human dependence on nature is not a cultural invention. Our connection to nature – and thus to biological sex – is an undeniable fact. It is also part of the natural human reality that there are individuals who feel that they have been born in the wrong body. But these individuals constitute a very small part of the population. They should be treated with respect in our modern societies, and they should also be able to be offered help for a better life.
But when interest groups, political parties and even activist healthcare professionals urge young vulnerable people to change gender before they turn fifteen, then something is wrong in society.
What has happened in Sweden, and in other Western countries, must now be examined in retrospect. How many young people who underwent gender reassignment have regretted it? How many have come to feel better? And who was it that drove and encouraged this madness? We need to know.