In April 2007, millions of Americans tuned in to ABC’s 20/20 as Barbara Walters introduced the world to psychiatry’s most devastating creation: the “transgender child.” In a segment titled “My Secret Self,” Walters profiled three children—including a young Jazz Jennings—being raised as the opposite sex, explaining that they had been diagnosed with “gender identity disorder.”
The episode marks the moment the Western world lost its grip on reality. A brand-new type of human being had been conjured into existence through the collision of psychiatry, endocrinology, and political activism. Yet while the concept defied everything known about childhood development and identity formation, large swathes of society—almost overnight—began believing the unbelievable: that a child could be born in the wrong body.