If a person’s five-year-old daughter tells you she’s a unicorn, you may say “Aww, that’s cute.” It’s red-alert time, however, if she’s making the claim at 14. (Believing you’re an animal is a real phenomenon, associated with “species dysphoria.”) It would be even more alarming, too, if her parents boasted about how they “support” the girl and her intention to have horn-emplacement surgery. Strikingly, though, something analogous is common today in Hollywood — and no one calls the men in white coats.
That is, Tinseltown celebrities have a striking number of MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “gender nonconforming”) children. They fall all over themselves publicly emphasizing how they support this “expression,” too. My, a cynic could almost believe it’s performative.
This, not to mention that an inordinate number of celebrities themselves claim MUSS orientations. Former Olympian Bruce Jenner, who now goes by the name “Caitlyn,” comes to mind.
Keeping up With the Joneses’ (Lunacy)
Writing about this Tuesday, American Thinker (AT) calls what’s going on a “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon. Hollywood certainly isn’t short on narcissism, and its denizens are quite status-oriented. (Late comic Jackie Mason addressed this hilariously on the Tonight Show in 1988.) Yet this isn’t just confined to material things.
AT informs that, startlingly, at least 70 stars have declared “transition” to a MUSS identity. Even more significantly, celebrities don’t just want you to know they have MUSS children (legion in Hollywood). They also want it known that they’re over the moon supporting them. AT states that it has started to seem like a “contest.” And while we don’t know who’s winning (the Devil?), we know who’s losing: the kids.
(This is what happens when you exalt and stigmatize the wrong things.)
Now, realize here that so-called gender dysphoria is a real phenomenon, an actual psychological problem. For the record, “gender dysphoria” is a euphemistic label; it should be called sexual-identity disorder (SID). And whatever you call it, the condition is this: a feeling of distress that can occur when a person feels strongly that he was born in the body of the wrong sex. Also realize something else, however:
Actual SID is vanishingly rare.
In fact, it had a 1970s prevalence of 0.001–0.005 percent (1-5 per 100,000 people) among adults seeking treatment. And today?
It ranges from 0.005-0.014 percent — a 5-14-fold increase.
SID incidence is now even higher among youth, ranging from 0.04-0.08 percent. This is a 40-80-fold jump relative to earlier times.
The Straight Dope
Yet it gets even worse. Approximately 0.5-1.3 percent of adults and about 3.3 percent of youth 13-17 claim the MUSS identity “transgender.” This means that adult “trans” identifiers are ~36-260 times more numerous than those diagnosed with SID. Youth “trans” identifiers are ~16.5-33 times more numerous than those diagnosed with SID. Overall, the identifiers are 27-150 times more numerous, even though SID is already clearly over-diagnosed.
Then there are more numbers to consider. A recent survey found that “self-reported transgender or nonbinary identification declined from roughly 6.8% in 2023 to about 3.8% in 2025,” reports Newshill. In other words, MUSS identification exploded like a volcano, up into the stratosphere over a few decades. Next, it went into a bit of a free fall, back down to the clouds — in two years. What’s going on? Is human biology fluctuating like weather?
Hardly. AT points to a Pediatrics study, published in 2022, that found the obvious. Most MUSS claims are attributable to “social contagion,” as opposed to SID or even actual identification. In fact, MUSS individuals appear to occupy four categories, listed below in my perceived order of prevalence:
- The extremely rare SID sufferers.
- Autogynephiliacs — men who derive excitement from dressing as women and doing things they do.
- Children and youth who have various psychological problems, but are wrongly diagnosed as having SID by money-hungry “gender clinics.”
- People, mainly youth, embracing the identity for social reasons (e.g., seeming cool, getting attention and preferential treatment).
The Female Factor
Another dead giveaway is that the explosion in MUSS identification was largely driven by adolescent girls. Decades ago, however, such people were mainly male.
This is significant because men are the more biologically anomalous sex. There are, for example, more very tall and very short individuals among men than women. There are many more male than female geniuses, prodigies, psychopaths, and hemophiliacs. Thus, it makes sense that most bona fide SID sufferers would be male. When this reverses and females suddenly begin constituting most MUSS claimants, however, it strongly indicates a social phenomenon. This is because women, and teen girls in particular, are highly social and greatly influenced by group fashions.
Hollywood Child Abuse
And the social contagion is nowhere more virulent than in entertainment. As to a short list, it’s well known that Cher has a daughter, Chaz Bono, who claims to be male. So do Ally Sheedy, and the pair of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty. Charlize Theron has a boy who claims to be a girl. “[H]e looked at me when she [sic] was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’” Theron explained in a 2019 interview. “So there you go!” Yeah, well, if a three-year-old says it, it must be true. Comedian Colin Mochrie also has a boy claiming girlhood.
Some other stars with MUSS kids are Cynthia Nixon, Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union-Wade, Heather Dubrow, Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Sade, Sigourney Weaver, Sting and Trudie Styler, Michelle Visage, Marlon Wayans, Jennifer Lopez, Robert De Niro and Toukie Smith, and Rosie O’Donnell.
Then there’s actress Marcia Gay Harden. She has “not one but three queer and trans kids,” wrote Them in March. “My eldest child is nonbinary. My son is gay. My youngest is fluid,” Harden related. Coincidence, I’m sure.
Reality
This said, not every Tinseltown denizen is on board with this. As AT relates, quoting Sylvester Stallone’s wife, Jennifer Flavin, commenting on the MUSS issue:
During an appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast,“ [sic] Flavin said, “I just think Hollywood is, you know, it’s all about expression. So, you know, however you want to express yourself. If you feel like a cat today, you’re a cat. And it’s so loosey-goosey.”
Flavin then added a comment that should cause Hollywood’s trans parents a moment of self-reflection. She said, “I don’t think that we’re really understanding that these kids are not our accessories. They’re little human beings that need structure. And structure is really important for them because it helps their brain organize everything.”
Flavin is perhaps too kind, however. Another interpretation is that narcissists, common in Hollywood, will view children as accessories — and as value-signaling props.
Flavin is correct, though, about structure. As I’ve written in the past, you impose human-specific norms on a boy because he’s a human, not a ferret. And you impose sex-specific norms on him because he’s a boy, not a girl.
Also consider that, research shows, 85-90 percent of MUSS kids will outgrow their confusion — if left alone. Of course, they’re not being left alone when subject to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.
So the lesson here is simple: Don’t put that horn on the would-be wee unicorn. Phases and fads always fade, but certain things pursued in their name may never be undone.
