The average age of people expressing “gender dysphoria” – the idea that one’s biological sex and subjective sense of gender identity don’t match – is plummeting according to new research published in the journal General Psychiatry. The research also claims the onset of gender dysphoria takes place at an earlier date for females than males.

The study takes into account data from 49 different health organisations over a five-year period from 2017 to 2022, comprising the medical records of 66 million people, 80 percent of whom live in America. Researchers took a subset of 42 million people aged between 4 and 65, and 66,078 people in this subset were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, equivalent to a rate of 155 people per 100,000.

The prevalence of gender dysphoria rose significantly between 2017 and 2022, while the average age of diagnosis fell by over 15 percent, from 31 to 26.

The increasing trend of diagnosis was significantly more rapid among females than males before the age of 22. Numbers rose sharply at age 11, peaked between 17 and 19, and then decreased below the figure for males at age 22.

For males, by contrast, the prevalence of gender dysphoria began to increase at age 13 and peak at 23, before gradually decreasing. The researchers believe the differences can be explained by reference to the timing of puberty, which generally happens earlier for girls than boys. It’s usually at puberty that children seek medical help with issues concerning their gender. Girls are also more likely to find reassurance from their peers at school, while boys in the same position are more likely to face bullying, the study claims.

The researchers also point to wider availability of clinics specializing in treatment, alongside greater acceptance of so-called gender fluidity, for the increase in gender dysphoria cases. What they don’t consider, however, is the possibility that darker forces may be at work.

A 2018 study in the journal PLoS One, for instance, showed that increased social media use and having friends who already express gender dysphoria are clear factors in the onset of new cases. This lends credence to the idea that gender dysphoria has obvious “social contagion,” similar to previous crazes like eating disorders, self-harm, and glue-sniffing. The rise of mental illness is also implicated. In a 2014 study, nearly 63 percent of sampled patients who requested gender reassignment surgery also had “at least one psychiatric comorbidity”, with a third suffering from depression.

Then there’s the potential role of exposure to environmental pollutants, and in particular a class of chemicals known for their hormone-disrupting properties (“endocrine disruptors”). In 2015, broadcaster Alex Jones was ridiculed for repeating the findings of a scientific study that showed the pesticide atrazine had feminizing effects on male frogs, with the implication that exposure to the chemical and others like it could have the same gender-bending effects in humans. Now, eight years later, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made the issue of environmental pollution, including its potential link to gender dysphoria, a critical part of his health-focused campaign. Kennedy discussed the issue in an appearance on Professor Jordan Peterson’s podcast. The episode was subsequently removed from YouTube for an unspecified violation of the platform’s terms of service.

Although there is little scientific research investigating the links between chemical exposure and gender dysphoria, there is a huge body of research substantiating the devastating reproductive effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, from lowered testosterone and genital abnormalities to miscarriages and cancers. The scale of our exposure to these chemicals is unprecedented, and would go a long way towards explaining not only why cases of dysphoria are on the rise, but why it’s children and teenagers, whose developing bodies are most at risk from such chemicals, who are suffering the most.

Raw Egg Nationalist is the star of the recent Tucker Carlson documentary The End of Men, and author of multiple books on health and fitness. He also publishes’s the ‘Man’s World’ magazine