GII - The Conveyor Belt of Suggestibility
- Administrator
- Nov 30, 2025
- 4 min read
Evidence that puberty blockers harm children is already prevalent…but how to stop the conveyor belt of suggestion that leads towards their use?
Wes Streeting has given the go-ahead to progress a puberty blockers trial on children which raises major ethical and moral concerns. Many individuals and groups, including ScotPAG, have sounded the alarm regarding the clear harms to children and teenagers that this trial is likely to cause. It is clear that much more thought and consideration should be given to the data and evidence already available and that such a trial should be avoided to retain ethical and moral integrity. ScotPAG, along with many other organisations, has written to Streeting, urging him to think again.
But at the same time, further consideration is also required in order to identify exactly what caused children and teenagers (and sometimes parents) to seek out such harmful ‘treatment’ in the first place.
The issue of suggestive power has not, as far as this author can ascertain, been considered in any real depth to date. The concept of suggestion and its psychological effects, refers to the phenomenon where external cues, words, or influences, shape an individual’s perceptions, memories, and behaviours.
Considerable awareness has been raised by ScotPAG and others about the impact on children and teenagers by gender identity ideology via social contagion. There are certainly clear links between social contagion and the power of suggestion. Social contagion is a phenomenon where ideas and beliefs are unconsciously spread and reinforced between individuals and groups. But the concept of suggestion differs in its intent, in that it is driven by an agent seeking a specific outcome; in the case of gender identity ideology, to groom, indoctrinate, and convince children that they were born in the wrong body and need to change their sex.
Children’s cognitive faculties are immature and constantly developing, and so the power of suggestion is amplified for them. At its core, the psychology of suggestion hinges on the brain’s susceptibility to the external influences that guide perception and action. Psychologists describe suggestion as a process where one individual directs another’s mental state, often leading to altered beliefs or behaviours.
It is quite something, for example, for our Scottish Government to have provided teaching resources and schools guidance in which the false concepts of gender identity ideology have been embedded throughout. This is a clear form of political indoctrination deliberately implanted by our Scottish Government. There is also evidence, that such 'product placement' of a false and counterfactual ideology, has impinged on the unconscious motivations of school staff and some parents who have, either wittingly or unwittingly, pushed children into dangerous territory.
Often used for the purposes of advertising, research demonstrates that deliberate suggestion can enhance memory performance, shift preferences for products, and even modify physical responses, such as pain perception or immune function. This occurs because suggestions exploit cognitive biases: the mind fills in gaps with implied information, creating a reality aligned with the cue. For instance, subtle priming can expose individuals to words or images and can unconsciously steer thoughts and decision making.
Children’s brains exhibit high plasticity, making them more susceptible to internalising suggestions from authority figures like parents, teachers, social worker health staff, in effect, from any adult in authority. This vulnerability not only affects the child’s emotional and psychological well-being but also poses significant risks to child safeguarding protocols.
From a developmental perspective, children under the age of 12 are particularly prone to suggestibility due to immature prefrontal cortices, which govern critical thinking and memory consolidation. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development highlights that pre-operational children (ages 2-7) often confuse fantasy with reality, while concrete operational children (7-11) may accept adult assertions without scrutiny.
Studies in developmental psychology, such as those by Elizabeth Loftus on false memories, demonstrate how leading questions can implant fabricated recollections. For instance, if a child is repeatedly asked, “Did the man touch you there?” even innocuously, they might “remember” an event that never occurred to align with the interrogator’s expectations.
This isn’t deliberate lying but a genuine alteration of memory, driven by the desire to please adults or resolve cognitive dissonance. Which brings us to back to the embedded nature of gender identity ideology in our schools, social work and health services. Where gender identity ideology has been embedded in the systems and processes of any public service, the child is particularly susceptible to the unconscious absorption and retention of the ideological message. It may also encourage some children to lie deliberately in certain circumstances for a variety of reasons; this may be for such scenarios as gaining adult attention etc. Children are not adults and their developing brains mean that they do not have the cognitive capacity to understand many situations and contexts fully. Their statements and communications about situations, feelings etc will often exhibit lesser understanding compared with adult comprehension.
ScotPAG has written at length about the embedded nature of gender identity
ideology,
In our schools:
In our social work services:
In our regulatory services:
In our health services:
And in our media:
There is little doubt that the promotion by activists of gender identity ideology into all our public services and, in particular, into our schools, is significantly responsible for producing children who think that they are ‘trans’. Activists have influenced educationalists to embed gender identity ideology into the curriculum and education’s systems and procedures.
This ‘product placement’ has without doubt, encouraged children, especially those who are vulnerable, for a variety reasons, to be placed on a conveyor belt leading straight to being treated with puberty blockers and the rest of gender affirming 'care'. So, not only must the proposed puberty blockers trial be stopped, the entire conveyor belt of indoctrination needs to be arrested at source.
Carolyn Brown (retired psychologist and ScotPAG Convenor)
Comments