The number of young people identifying as transgender, nonbinary, queer, or anything but straight has dropped off dramatically in the several years since “peak woke” (around 2021 to 2023). Jonathon Van Maren writes that this accords with the observation that transgenderism is a social contagion, following boom and bust cycles. He concludes, “Trans identification will continue to collapse. The only question is how far, and how much damage this social contagion will leave in its wake.”

For further reading: Richard Corradi, a former professor of psychiatry, wrote in “Transgender Delusion” (October 2015) that the then-nascent trans phenomenon would follow the pattern of other mass manias like the Dutch tulip bubble of the 1630s and the Satanic panic of the 1980s. The essay charts the rise of the trans mania, which Corradi was by all appearances correct in viewing as the inflationary stage of a bubble that would eventually pop.

Junior fellow Jillian Parks makes her First Things debut with a piece about the type of Catholic colleges growing during a national decline in collegiate interest and enrollment: “Newman Guide–recommended colleges are seeing record enrollment numbers and steadily growing student bodies. And the administrators say their Catholic identity is an integral part of that growth.” 

For further reading: Joshua Katz, suspended at the time from his professorship at Princeton, found the kind of collegiate atmosphere he missed from his early Ivy League days at a brunch at the University of Dallas. He wrote in “Finding Refuge at the University of Dallas” (2022) that the school reflected the way things used to be in academia before the arrival of wokeness and over-regulation. 

From the November issue: In the minds of many Americans, religion is “obsolete.” Christian Smith uses this term that typically conjures images of rotary phones or horse-drawn buggies in his book Why Religion Went Obsolete, which Aaron Renn reviewed for the print magazine. Renn writes, “The implications of Smith’s book are challenging for conservative American Christians whose strategies for the future have ­t­ended to involve doubling down on the very elements—the ‘fossilized forms’—of traditional religion that are now obsolete: rootedness, stability, family-centeredness, thick community, institutions, and historic practices and distinctives.”

For further reading: Renn says that Smith’s diagnostic timeline tracks with his essay “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism” (February 2022), in which he traced the cooling attitude of the world toward Christianity.

Listen: Louise Perry joined Rusty Reno on The Editor’s Desk podcast to discuss her recent essay “Indigenous London,” which traces the decline and replacement of the Cockney working class.

Upcoming Events

• January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.

Until next time,

VIRGINIA AABRAM

Newsletter Editor