The Stigma-Contamination Mindset
and how it drives the transgender “social contagion” and “grooming” myths
Earlier this year, I published Prejudice and the Unmarked/Marked Mindset, which examined an unconscious pattern of thinking that drives many forms of prejudice, including many anti-trans/LGBTQ+ sentiments.
I just released a brand-new video entitled Transgender “Social Contagion,” “Grooming,” & the Stigma-Contamination Mindset. It highlights yet another unconscious pattern of thinking that leads people to (mis)perceive marginalized groups as both “contagious” and “excessively sexual.” Along the way, I make the case that this mindset drives two of the most pernicious anti-trans/LGBTQ+ myths: that transgender identities are being spread via “social contagion” and that trans and LGBTQ+ people are “sexual predators” who are preying on women and children. You can watch it right here:
The YouTube show notes include time stamps so that you can skip ahead to sections that interest you if you wish—here they are:
0:00 Introduction
7:30 Unpacking the Concept of “Social Contagion”
15:30 The Invention of “Transgender Social Contagion” and “ROGD”
21:55 Portraying “Young Girls” as the “Victims” of “Transgender Social Contagion”
28:20 The Gender-Critical Grand Unified Theory of Transness (and why it’s unhinged)
33:30 What Is Sexualization?
35:25 The Attraction/Objectification Model of Sexualization
38:00 The Stigma Model of Sexualization (aka the Stigma-Contamination mindset)
41:00 Women Are “Sex” and Sex Is Stigmatized
42:25 Sex as a Stigma-Contamination Event
44:25 Stigmatized Groups Are Viewed as “Excessively Sexual” & as “Sexual Predators”
45:50 “Protecting Women and Children” (but not all of them, just those of the dominant/majority group)
47:30 Conclusion (& how the Stigma-Contamination mindset drives “gender-critical”/TERFs & the far-right)
Essentially, this video synthesizes a decade of my research and writings into why women and minority groups are routinely sexualized and why this has a delegitimizing or degrading effect on them (as chronicled in my 2022 book Sexed Up), as well as my chronicling and debunking the pseudoscientific concepts of “transgender social contagion” and its doppelgänger “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” So please give it a watch (as well as a “like”) and share widely so more people see it!
For those of you who prefer the written word, here is an excerpt from the video in which I introduce the Stigma-Contamination mindset (starting around 38 minutes into the video):
Since the “attraction/objectification model” of sexualization [read: the model favored by many cis feminists] doesn’t adequately explain these latter facets of sexualization, in Chapter 6 of Sexed Up, I proposed a non-mutually exclusive “stigma model of sexualization.” In my subsequent writings, I have called this the Stigma-Contamination mindset, as it often drives prejudice in instances that do not involve sexualization. Here is a brief overview:
Stigma occurs when a trait (such as transness or queerness) is viewed negatively, so much so, that it seems to “discredit” or “spoil” the entire individual. Not only are stigmas treated as if they “contaminate” every aspect of the person in question (their motives, opinions, disposition, trustworthiness), but they can also quote “spread from the stigmatized individual to their close connections”— sociologist Erving Goffman called this “courtesy stigma”; others have called this “stigma by association.” It is this fear of “spreading” that leads people to keep their distance from stigmatized individuals and groups, or to socially exclude them entirely.
In Sexed Up, I review research carried out by psychologists Paul Rozin, Carol Nemeroff, and colleagues—and this is research that I can’t believe hasn’t filtered out into more fields, especially queer and trans studies. Anyway, their research demonstrates that stigma is closely associated in people’s minds with “contagion.”
Contagion is a form of “magical thinking” that’s been described across cultures and which leads people to believe that even a brief encounter with a taboo or stigmatized object or person will “contaminate” them permanently.
That research also shows that stigma and contagion are closely associated with feelings of disgust. I tried to capture some of these dynamics in this slide, which depicts someone who is fully accepted in society (such as an “upstanding” member of the dominant/majority group who is imagined to be untainted by stigma), and someone who is stigmatized (and imagined to be “contaminating”).
The fact that people are likely to view our stigma as “contagious” explains a lot of bizarre yet commonplace reactions that trans and queer people often experience, such as straight people who fear that if they get too close to us (if they find us attractive or become intimate with us) that it might somehow “make them gay” or “compromise” their own genders in some way.
It also seems to be driving these baseless fears of “transgender social contagion.” Since the stigma-contamination mindset is a recurring pattern of thinking that all humans are susceptible to, it is likely the reason why “transgender social contagion” continues to resonate with people even when they are presented with all the counterevidence. Or to put it another way (as I put it in this slide), the contagion in “transgender social contagion” is actually anti-trans/LGBTQ+ stigma.
So what does this have to do with sexualization? Well, in our culture, sex and stigma are tightly intertwined—this is why the topic of sex itself is considered by many to be “dirty,” “disgusting,” and shameful. And this stigma is built into the “Predator/Prey” framework that shapes how we interpret sex.
I will stop there, but please check out the video to hear more!
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