Finding an audience

I think that it makes sense that the argument for turning transgender people into pathological deviants originated in the 1980's. After all, there was a turn towards traditional "family values" with groups like the Moral Majority and the new conservatism of Ronald Reagan was perhaps a way of burning off what was seen as the hedonism of the 1960's and 70's. It was a decade where the receptiveness for a transgender identity as mental illness was going to find a friendlier audience. Additionally, people were still living largely in secret so real information was sparse hence opening the door to bad faith actors.

I've already poked enough holes into Blanchard repeatedly in my writing so I won't do it again here. My point is more about how social tolerance can oscillate over time and there are cycles where quack theories are more apt to be absorbed than during others.

Turns out however that, irrespective of era, bad science ages poorly.