A friend of mine is pastoral lead at a fairly prestigious girl’s school near London. We were talking about this the other week.
- It’s socially contagious - you get clusters in each year group.
- She’s noticed the incidence of anorexia has dropped LOADS since the transgender thing has taken off.
It’s her opinion (and I think this too) that one has replaced the other as a self abuse outlet. She used to spend a lot of time coaxing girls away from sites like these.
I think that this specific mental illness is in fact one manifestation of a broader group of issues related to weak/fragile sense of self. How it actually plays out is dependent on the zeitgeist. So twenty years ago anorexia was the go to. Then self harm for a while in late 90s/2000s. Now we have being trans. That’s also socially contagious - here’s a school in the Uk (not the one she works at) where 17 kids identify as trans
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...er-teacher-makes-shocking-claim-autistic.html
Archive link:
http://archive.li/sgfOe
The same tumblr culture exists - grooming, isolation from sane viewpoints and sabotage of those trying to leave. The difference of course is that wider society is horrified about pro ana websites but cheers on kids who are trans :/