An elementary school teacher near St. Louis emailed the Washington University Transgender Center at the nearby children’s hospital with a problem: After a fifth-grade student had decided she was trans, a number of her friends decided the same. The teacher didn’t want to “discourage” the children, but suspected there might be “other reasons” the friend group all expressed an interest in switching gender.

The clinic worker was happy to help, emails uncovered by the Daily Mail reveal. It didn’t matter what the teacher’s well-founded suspicions were; she should affirm the choices of all these 10- and 11-year-old children.

Furthermore, anyone who suggested that peer pressure or “contagion” might be an issue in the increase in transgender kids wasn’t “affirming” and “in my personal and professional opinion, invalid.”

Invalid.

That’s become the language of a fringe, radical group of transgender activist who see any questioning of their beliefs, any discussion of momentous societal shifts, as out of bounds. You’re not allowed to even discuss it.

You see it in what’s happening to The New York Times, which had the temerity to publish the most innocuous, basic of articles about transgenderism.

Yet an open letter, addressed to Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards, and signed by 200 leftist activists, accuses the paper of “editorial bias” in its coverage of the trans population. Somehow The Times is not fair enough about the gender transition pushed on ever-younger children.

What’s preposterous about this letter is that the pieces in question are utterly benign and soft-pedal the issue of kids being pressured to make life-changing decisions about their bodies before they’re old enough to vote.

The Emily Bazelon article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” came years after Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage” first laid out how dangerous pediatric “gender care” had become. Bazelon mentions the book but makes sure to note activists “abhor” it. Bazelon also focuses on the right wing as opponents of children transitioning genders. It’s insane to imagine it’s only the “right wing” who care about permanent damage being done to children in the name of “fixing” their gender identity.

The other article the letter writers find problematic is “When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know.” Writer Katie J.M. Baker illustrates that parents are upset when their kids are transitioned at school, behind their backs. Well, yes. There’s absolutely nothing controversial about this.

For people who may have felt the issue of children being induced to declare themselves trans was overblown, letters like this expose that it is not.

The letter states, “This is not a cultural emergency.” But it is. In fact, the cultural emergency extends beyond even children being given hormones to affect their appearance, and the surgery that often follows, and beyond even keeping a child’s gender identity a secret from the parents. This letter is meant to pressure outlets to not report any of this. It’s forcing a conformity on the subject and a rigidity in talking or writing about it. The science, they demand, must now be settled.

The letter admits, “A tiny percentage of the population is trans.” While this is true, the youth “trans” population has doubled in the last five years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that while .05% of the adult population considers themselves trans, 1.4% of youth 13 to 17 do. And that number could be even higher. A June Pew Research study found, “Some 5.1% of adults younger than 30 are trans or nonbinary.”

This is not an accident. In fact, it’s specifically because kids are so susceptible to the power of suggestion and schools are encouraged to keep their transition from their parents who can help them work through their confusion that this is happening.

Anyone with eyes can see it is a social contagion, one that largely targets pre-teen and teen girls. Parents need to be a line of defense to stop it same as they would step in to stop their child falling prey to any other influence.

Rather than “affirming” the whims of every minor, therapists, unbiased specialists and, yes, parents need to be involved in the decision.

Trans activists are trying to silence not only all dissent, but all debate. It is abhorrent. I hope The Times and others will finally be brave enough to choose journalism. Children’s lives are at stake.

Karol Markowicz is co-author of the forthcoming “Stolen Youth.”