There’s a phrase floating around the more grounded corners of public discourse lately: “Trans will cool off in 5 years.” Not out of malice. Not from hatred. But from a recognition of how trends—yes, even identity movements—rise, peak, and then lose steam. The prediction isn’t about erasing anyone’s humanity or dismissing the real struggles of a small percentage of people with gender dysphoria. It’s about cultural inflation finally getting a reality check.
Let’s unpack this.
Viral Identity: When Culture Becomes Contagion
We live in an era where identity is currency—and TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are the mint. For the past decade, especially post-2015, being transgender or aligning with one of the 72+ new gender labels has evolved from a rare and deeply personal journey to something you’re encouraged to try on like a pair of thrift shop Doc Martens.
We’ve seen this before. Dangerous social media trends regularly grip the youth like a plague of bad ideas:
- The Tide Pod Challenge (Darwin Award nomination)
- The Benadryl Challenge (yes, overdose for internet points)
- NyQuil Chicken aka Sleepy Chicken (FDA actually had to step in)
- The Choking/Blackout Game (literal self-harm as a rite of passage)
And while these trends are tragic, at least they die off fairly quickly when parents, schools, and news outlets start screaming about the dangers. But what happens when the trend is less obviously lethal and more ideologically armored?
Government-Funded Virality: The Real Engine Behind the Trend
Let’s get blunt: The explosion in transgender identification among Gen Z and Alpha isn’t simply organic. It’s fueled—financially and culturally—by institutions. The past decade has seen billions of taxpayer dollars funneled into DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), gender-identity programs, and LGBT marketing grants. Combine that with state-sponsored algorithmic preference on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, and what do you get? A manufactured sense of mass adoption and acceptance.
When Mark Zuckerberg admitted in Congressional testimony that Meta censored posts under pressure from the U.S. government and its agencies (CDC, DOJ, etc.), the alarm bells should have deafened the nation. This wasn't just about COVID or elections—it extended into gender identity and other hot-button topics.
Now enter: President Donald Trump (the remastered version).
With a vengeance and a red pen, his administration is poised to pull the plug on the federal funding lifeline propping up this hyper-accelerated gender movement. Gone are the days of DEI bureaucracies hiring TikTok influencers to lecture teens about pronouns and gender fluidity while cashing government checks. If the money dries up, so does the clout.
Influence Has a Price—and a Shelf Life
Here’s the reality: without paid influencers, state-sponsored promotion, and corporate DEI incentives, the buzz dies. Social media is powered by attention economics. If the trans narrative loses its algorithmic boost, you’ll start seeing fewer and fewer “coming out” videos in your feed. Not because anyone’s banned—but because the artificial signal-boosting stops.
Already, we're witnessing a backlash across major sectors:
- Women’s sports: Even the most apolitical suburban moms are throwing down over biological men in girls’ locker rooms.
- The military: Recruitment is plummeting, and pandering to pronouns isn't helping.
- The workplace: Employees are beginning to push back on endless HR re-education camps disguised as DEI training.
Even Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X) isn’t playing ball anymore. With legacy censorship protocols stripped away, counter-narratives are finally seeing the light of day. And surprise: when people aren’t shadowbanned, the trans trend loses some of its luster in open debate.
Regression to the Mean: From 20% to 4.5%
Let’s talk numbers. Gallup data once pegged the LGB population at around 4.5%, with the “T” group barely scraping 0.6% a few years ago. Then suddenly—boom—Generation Z exploded with over 20% identifying as something under the rainbow umbrella.
Now, either we just lived through the biggest collective coming-out event in human history…
Or we’re watching the consequence of cultural indoctrination, peer pressure, and algorithmic manipulation.
If we remove the institutional force-feeding and let things settle naturally, there’s every reason to believe we’ll regress to the mean. That’s not a hate crime. It’s sociology. Trends inflate—and then deflate. Remember emo culture? Crumping? Planking? Even CrossFit had its moment.
A Cultural Detox is Coming
To say “Trans will cool off in five years” isn’t about pushing people back into the closet. It’s about society regaining its sanity. The pendulum swung far. Too far. And now it’s swinging back—not with a sledgehammer, but with exhaustion.
Parents are tired. Kids are confused. Doctors are getting sued. Lawsuits over rushed gender transitions are piling up. And once the financial incentives disappear, so too will many of the opportunistic grifters who jumped on the movement for clicks, fame, or woke clout.
The conversation will shift from “affirm at all costs” to “wait, why didn’t anyone ask questions?” And when that happens, the public's patience for the fringe elements of the trans movement will run out.
Conclusion: Five Years from Now
Call it a hunch. Call it punk rock prophecy. But I’m betting that in five years, the rainbow revolution will look more like a cautionary tale than a moral triumph. The truly transgender will remain—as they should, with dignity and autonomy—but the cultural hysteria will fade. The mass trend will cool. The influencer class will pivot. The hashtags will die.
And what’s left? Hopefully, a more honest, less coerced society—one where identity isn’t dictated by trending sounds on TikTok or funded by federal tax dollars, but discovered through personal experience, family, and maybe a little bit of rebellion the old-fashioned way.
I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am.
Written by Ryan Thompson – The Punk Rock Libertarian at Disruptarian.com
Spun Web Technology SMART SEO
