When the rare mental illness known as gender identity disorder became “gender dysphoria” under the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2013, it set in motion a chain of events that have led to the “transgender” craze. This relatively small name change effectively morphed a well-documented mental illness that had always presented in young boys into a more generalized feeling of discomfort with one’s own body that’s become much more prevalent in adolescent girls.

“Dysphoria” means being uneasy or dissatisfied with life. In essence, the APA name change expanded something serious to make it more codable by the medical system, but in actuality it helped start to foster the monster that would later be dubbed by Dr. Lisa Littman as Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

In the early 2010s, renowned Finnish psychiatrist Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala was asked to head Finland’s first gender youth clinic and help pioneer the Dutch Protocol model knows more colloquially as “gender-affirming care.”

It was shortly after these two factors came into effect that a phenomenon started appearing in this particular field of mental disorders. There was a slow-building explosion of girls and young women who were presenting with the newly minted “gender dysphoria” label. Dr. Kaltiala wrote: “The ones who came were nothing like what was described by the Dutch. We expected a small number of boys who had persistently declared they were girls. Instead, 90 percent of our patients were girls, mainly 15 to 17 years old, and instead of being high-functioning, the vast majority presented with severe psychiatric conditions.”

What scientists like Dr. Kaltiala, Dr. Littman, Dr. Miriam Grossman, and so many others noticed is that these girls were saying they felt uncomfortable in their own bodies, but also that there were other more severe psychiatric symptoms going on underneath that surface-level dysphoria. They also noticed that before claiming gender dysphoria, these girls had no history of having any discomfort in their bodies or having talked about being the opposite gender. In 2018, Dr. Littman named the phenomenon ROGD because the girls’ dysphoria was kind of out of the blue. Besides being rapid in nature, many of these girls also had an autism diagnosis and many “came out” as part of a larger trend among their peers. In other words, it seemed to be a social contagion. This was quickly smeared and politicized by transgender activists.

However, gender dysphoria as a social contagion is a theory that is becoming more true with each passing year. Honest scientists and investigative journalists are coming out of the woodwork to sound the alarm on ROGD mainly because of the other caveat in this case: so-called gender-affirming care.

“Gender affirmation,” or the Dutch Protocol, is a model of treatment that instructs caregivers to unreservedly provide any medical service available to affirm a person’s psychological desire to become the opposite gender. This generally starts with puberty blockers, which have been falsely marketed as reversible and harmless. Then cross-sex hormones are introduced. For girls, that means testosterone. Next are surgeries: Remove healthy breasts here, create a fake penis there — in other words, gender mutilation in the name of caregiving. None of these treatments is harmless or fully reversible.

ROGD victims are pulled into the rabbit hole of medical transition quickly and all too easily. Some ROGD girls have even reported that they may have been manipulated into it even though they initially weren’t willing to go that far. The other tragic aspect of the medical financial hole that these suffering girls are stumbling into is that with each treatment, the initial euphoria isn’t sustainable. The dysphoria comes back and the girls find they need to go further down the transgender track in their desperate bid to become the other sex.

The truth is they will never become the other sex, and they will never feel at home in their own bodies because their bodies aren’t the problem. It’s their minds that are sick and need attending to by the physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists overseeing their care.

“Gender-affirming care” and ROGD victims have the surface ability to draw women and men into the trap of “being compassionate.” They demand to know, Is it compassionate to allow a girl to suffer and “remain a girl” if she claims she feels like she should be a boy? This false “compassion” presented by transgender activists and gender-affirmation advocates appeals to the constituents of the party that is guided by their feelings and not their brains (i.e., Democrat voters). It’s not a coincidence that transgenderism is a battleground issue for the Biden administration, as it plays well with Democrats’ main voting bloc: women.

Using the “gender-affirming care” model to sweep ROGD under the LGBTQ rug is not compassion. Compassion is suffering with someone. If one is truly compassionate toward these girls presenting with ROGD, then one would strive to get to the real root of their distress. Gender dysphoria is a way of dissociating; it’s not the main underlying issue for these girls. Some use gender dysphoria as a way to protect themselves from past sexual violence or as a way to cover for another, more severe mental illness that is treatable with medicine and therapy.

Dr. Kaltiala has adjusted the requirements for girls who have shown up at her clinic in Finland. She has instructed her coworkers to treat the most severe mental issues first before addressing the “gender dysphoria.” This has worked not only to help these girls who are evidently in distress but also to cut down on the actual number of patients suffering from gender identity disorder. If others were treated in similar compassionate ways, the ROGD diagnosis would drop by as much as 90%.

Dr. Kaltiala and others have tried to warn the U.S. and Europe that “gender affirmation” is a disaster and is destroying girls’ bodies and minds, their families, and their communities through social contagion and the bully tactics of the LGBTQ activists seeking to take advantage. Many European countries are taking heed.

These warnings have fallen on deaf ears in the U.S. This medical/psychiatric issue is now a political issue — and one that keeps putting Democrats in office. They aren’t going to back down until the devastation is so obvious that future generations will look back at this time and think what idiots these ideologues were.