If you put together the whole corpus (or maybe I should say “corpse”) of mainstream medical literature, together with all published works and studies on psychology and sociology, I’m pretty sure you’d have the largest collection of fake science in the world.
Literature is how you establish credibility. The sheer weight of what you’re writing and bloviating about carries the day.
After that, you need FUNDING. That’s the big one.
If you secure a major continuing stream of $$$, you’re in. You can then pretend to know ANYTHING.
Transgenderism is on that road. Workshops, seminars, conferences, instruction for kids in early grades, and now whole departments of “transgender studies” in colleges. Plus relentless activism. The funding is flowing.
You can find burgeoning numbers of published medical studies on castration, double mastectomies, gender busting hormones and puberty blockers. The whole enchilada.
On top of that, you have “learned works” analyzing the social and cultural factors involved in gender identity, the history of suppression of gender-switch, the victimization of people who are “on the cutting edge” of choosing how they identify.
The literature is becoming massive.
So NOW the main trick can be performed: