An elementary school teacher near St. Louis emailed the Washington University Transgender Center at the nearby children’s hospital with a problem: After a fifth-grade student had decided she was trans, a number of her friends decided the same. The teacher didn’t want to “discourage” the children, but suspected there might be “other reasons” the friend group all expressed an interest in switching gender.

The clinic worker was happy to help, emails uncovered by the Daily Mail reveal. It didn’t matter what the teacher’s well-founded suspicions were; she should affirm the choices of all these 10- and 11-year-old children.

Furthermore, anyone who suggested that peer pressure or “contagion” might be an issue in the increase in transgende …