There was a Gallup poll not too long ago that declared 20% of Gen Z now identify as LGBTQ+. Furthermore, according to the CDC, an alarming 25% of high school students (Gen Alpha) now identify as LGBTQ+. This dramatic increase from previous generations underscores that perhaps more people are identifying as LGBTQ+ because it is trendy, rebellious, and perhaps the next frontier in the fight for “civil rights.” Another factor that accounts for the growth in “gender identity” numbers is the growth in manufactured gender identity variants — “furries,” pansexuals, or demisexuals — as Mark Alexander noted last week.

Gender cultists are so convinced that this exponential growth in LGBTQ+ identifications is because of “acceptance” that they are actively suppressing the social contagion theory put forth by Dr. Lisa Littman in 2018. This theory posits that people are identifying as LGBTQ+ either because their friends are doing it or because they were successfully groomed by their woke teachers or because it is an easy way to garner social credit in the victim hierarchy the Left has created in our culture. Other studies since then across various countries also show empirically that these LGBTQ+ identifications are most likely the result of social contagion.

Interestingly enough, Duke University recently published a study that also points to this social contagion theory being accurate. It found that many in the LGBTQ+ community changed their sexual orientation back to heterosexual after six years. The study writers call this “sexual identity fluidity,” but, more likely, it is the wearing off of the gender ideology social contagion.

According to the study, the majority of people who switched back to heterosexual first identified as “Other” (69.6%). Presumably, this category includes everyone who is not straight, homosexual, or bisexual. Bisexual-identifying individuals “switched back” at a rate of 49%. Those identifying as gay or lesbian switched back to straight at a much lower rate (8.6%) by comparison.

What the researchers in the Duke study described as “sexual identity mobility” is another clue that perhaps the pushing of the rainbow agenda is giving a false positive in the younger generation’s LGBTQ+ identification. In other words, they were probably influenced by social pressure and not because they were actually LGBTQ+.

If you apply the logical findings of this study to what kids and young adults are facing here in the U.S. — that almost 70% of the TQ+ tend to change their identity back to straight — there is not a good justification for the U.S. pushing gender ideology on kids, particularly when that ideology leads to gender mutilation and death.

Transgenderism is the perfect example of progressivism at its worst. First, kids identify as the opposite gender, and schools transition them and call them their new name. That’s not transgressive enough, so next, kids get on puberty blockers and hormones, whose long-term side effects are devastating. That is still ultimately not enough for some who go on to mutilate their body surgically. This last desperate bid to maintain their delusion is the saddest of all because, in essence, they have signed themselves over to be lifelong medical patients. One study in the UK and Holland found that 20% of people who undergo gender mutilation surgery regret it.

That study is missing a key element, though. Just how many of these depressed, delusional, and gender-confused people are happy long term with their choice to be transgender? The Heritage Foundation has an extremely sad answer.

According to a study that tracked transgender youth over the course of 21 years, there has been a startling increase in suicidality. The study states: “By 2020, there are about 1.6 more suicides per 100,000 people ages 12 to 23 in states that have a policy allowing minors to access health care without parental consent than in states without such a policy. The average state suicide rate in this age group between 1999 and 2020 was 11.1, making an additional 1.6 suicides per 100,000 an increase of 14 percent in the suicide rate.”

Overall, the Duke study is heartening on so many fronts. First, it provides evidence for the social contagion theory. Second, it demonstrates that the CDC and Gallup polls are probably grossly exaggerated.