Professor Michael Bailey along with Suzanna Diaz (pseudonym) have published a new paper.
This article is a reproduction of a Twitter thread by Professor Bailey.
We have also produced an ‘Accessible Synopsis’ of the paper here.
Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases
Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases – Archives of Sexual Behavior
It is one of the few empirical studies examining the controversial phenomenon, Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). ROGD is an unofficial diagnosis first proposed by Lisa Littman in 2018 to explain the recent epidemic of gender dysphoria among adolescents and young adults.
ROGD occurs among youth without a childhood history of gender issues and appears to be socially contagious. ROGD appears to be especially common among natal (biological) females.
The new study is much larger than any other study of ROGD to date. It consists of parent reports from an online survey conducted on the website ParentsofROGDKids.
Gender dysphoric youths were disproportionately natal (biological) females: 75% females versus 25% natal males.
They had a high rate of mental health issues–42% had a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Parents reported that mental health issues preceded the onset of gender dysphoria by nearly 4 years, on average.
Youths with more mental health issues were more likely to have socially or medically transitioned. 64% of youths with a formal psychiatric diagnosis had social transitioned compared with 51% without a diagnosis. For hormonal treatment, the respective numbers were 9% versus 6%.
An especially important predictor of transition was whether a family had received a referral for a gender specialist. Of those who had received a referral, 73% of the youths had socially transitioned, compared with 49% who had not received a referral.
The respective numbers for medical transition were 11% versus 5%. Among the families who received a gender specialist referral, 51% of parents said they felt pressured by the specialist/clinic to allow their child to transition genders.
After social transition, youths became much worse off in terms of both their psychological functioning and their relationships with parents.
Natal males’ gender dysphoria began nearly 2 years later compared with natal females (15.8 years versus 14 years, respectively). Natal females (61%) were more likely than natal males (39%) to have had friends come out as transgender around the same time as they did.
Natal males were much less likely to have taken steps to social transition compared with natal females: 66% versus 29%, respectively. But natal males were slightly more likely to have begun hormonal treatments: 8% versus 6%, respectively.
Males were less likely than females to have come out as nonbinary: 6% versus 18%, respectively. One theory is that ROGD doesn’t often apply to natal males, and that male gender dysphoria that begins during adolescence is caused by something else (autogynephilia).
The primary limitation of the study concerns the way participants were recruited: using a website for parents concerned their children have ROGD.
Parents with other beliefs–that their children do not have ROGD, and that gender transition is best for them, for example–probably did not participate in our study.
Studies focusing on pro-transition families are also biased, because they are unlikely to recruit the kinds of families our study included. Studies of pro-transition families have not received the degree of criticism that Dr. Littman’s did, or that ours likely will.
It is unclear to us, however, why parents would be motivated to exaggerate their children’s problems. Furthermore, our most important findings come from comparisons among families within our study, and so cannot be attributed to parental biases.
For example, the finding that youths with mental health issues were especially likely to have taken social and medical transition steps relies on the comparison of reports on youth with and without mental health issues. Neither reporting bias nor selection bias can explain that.
Broader Context
Recently a mental health professional from the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center wrote an essay expressing her concerns that clinical practices there have been “morally and medically appalling.”
These concerns included inadequate caution at recommending transition for gender dysphoric children, an increasing number of whom are teenage girls without a history of gender dysphoria suddenly declaring transgender identity. Our study is entirely consistent with that essay.
Google “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” and you will find Dr. Littman’s important study and news articles about it. But most links are to criticisms of ROGD, often asserting that it has been debunked. Our study shows that for many families, ROGD is a troubling reality.
