Mental Health Professionals Write a Letter in Support of Lisa Littman’s Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria Research

NEWS

Several clinicians have stated in a letter to editor to Archives of Sexual Behavior they are observing rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD). This is a term used by Lisa Littman, a physician and researcher who published a ROGD study (Littman, 2018).

Lisa Littman’s study was removed by Brown University because trans actvists didn’t like some of the implications of the study. These were that there were large increases of females identifying as trans, that social contagion may be a factor, and they were coming out in statistically unheard of clusters. PlosOne, who published the study, also re-reviewed the paper due to activist pressure.

The letter to the editor is called “In Support of Research Into Rapid‑Onset Gender Dysphoria”:

As clinicians used to working in the field of child and adolescent gender identity development, dealing directly with the very significant distress caused by gender dysphoria, and considering deeply its multifactorial and heterogeneous etiology, we note the current debate arising from Littman’s (2018) description of a phenomenon she described as Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. Littman’s paper on the subject was methodologically critiqued in this journal recently (Restar, 2019). While some of us have informally tended toward describing the phenomenon we witness as “adolescent-onset” gender dysphoria, that is, without any notable symptom history prior to or during the early stages of puberty (certainly nothing of clinical significance), Littman’s description resonates with our clinical experiences from within the consulting room.

REFERENCE:

Hutchinson, A., Midgen, M., Spiliadis, A. (2019, June 12). In Support ofResearch Into Rapid‑Onset Gender Dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior. doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01517-9

Klinghoffer, D. (2018, September 5). Suppressing Science at Brown University. Evolution News. Retrieved from https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/suppressing-science-at-brown-university/

Littman, L. (2018). Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports. PLOS ONE, 13(8). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0202330