The APA, WPATH and 60 other medical professional organizations have called for its elimination from clinical settings due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept, major methodological issues in existing research, and its stigmatization of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
[3][4][6][7] The paper initially proposing the concept was based on surveys of parents of transgender youth recruited from three anti-trans websites;[3][4] following its publication, it was re-reviewed and a correction was issued highlighting that ROGD is not a clinically validated phenomenon.
[12] Lisa Littman, who had not previously studied transgender health care or gender dysphoria, noticed a few teenagers in the same friend group who started identifying as trans, and decided to survey parents.
[3] The term first appeared in a July 2016 notice that was posted to a gender-critical blog asking parents to respond to a research survey if their child showed "a sudden or rapid development of gender dysphoria".
[16][19] The same year, American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard and American psychologist J. Michael Bailey, whose work has been criticized for suggesting non-heterosexual transgender women transition due to sexual arousal, wrote for the website 4thWaveNow to promote the concept of "rapid-onset gender dysphoria".
[2] In the journal's blog, PLOS One editor Joerg Heber apologized "to the trans and gender variant community" for the previous review and publication, saying "the study, including its goals, methodology, and conclusions, were not adequately framed in the published version, and that these needed to be corrected.
In a notice of correction prefacing her updated version of the study, Littman stated: [T]he post-publication review identified issues that needed to be addressed to ensure the article meets PLOS ONE's publication criteria.
"[10] She wrote: This study of parent observations and interpretations serves to develop the hypotheses that rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a phenomenon and that social influences, parent-child conflict, and maladaptive coping mechanisms may be contributing factors for some individuals.
[10]PLOS One's editor wrote that "the corrected article now provides a better context of the work, as a report of parental observations, but not a clinically validated phenomenon or a diagnostic guideline".
[9] On behalf of the journal, Heber wrote: "Correcting the scientific record in this manner and in such circumstances is a sign of responsible publishing", where further scrutiny was called for to "clarify whether the conclusions presented are indeed backed up by the analysis and data of that original study".
[7][35] WPATH concluded by warning against the use of any term intended to cause fear about an adolescent's possible transgender status with the goal of avoiding or deterring them from accessing the appropriate treatment, in line with the standards of care appropriate for the situation.
[7][36] The Gender Dysphoria Affirmative Working Group (GDA) of 44 professionals in transgender health wrote an open letter to Psychology Today citing previously published criticism of the study, stating it had multiple biases and flaws in methodology, as it drew its subjects from "websites openly hostile to transgender youth" and based its conclusions on the beliefs of parents who presupposed the existence of ROGD.
[6] In 2022, the eighth edition of WPATH's Standards of Care (SOC-8)—a publication providing clinical guidance for healthcare professionals working with transgender and gender diverse individuals—criticized the study due to its methodological flaws.
In a 2020 paper published in The Sociological Review, bioethicist Florence Ashley described the study as an attempt to circumvent existing research supporting gender-affirming care.
[27][43] In a letter to the editor, Littman responded that her methodologies were consistent with those that had been used, without controversy, in widely cited studies supporting gender identity affirmation health care.
[44][non-primary source needed] The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies describes ROGD as "an anti-trans theory" that "violates principles of research methods by using a pathologizing framework and language",[45]: 39 using terminology that compares gender dysphoria and transgender identification to a contagious disease, in opposition to organizations such as WPATH, the American Psychiatric Association, and the World Health Organization who state that being trans is not a mental disorder.
[45]: 40 According to MIT Technology Review, "while theories and rumors about something like ROGD had quietly percolated online before the paper was published, Littman's descriptive study gave legitimacy to the concept. ...
[50] The Southern Poverty Law Center has described these organizations as involved in producing anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience and stated "many of the groups' members have made numerous misleading, false and conspiratorial claims.
[25] In December 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center published an analysis of citations used in anti-LGBT expert reports, declarations, and legal complaints in 4 high-profile ongoing cases regarding gender-affirming care.
You may see opponents of trans people specifically use junk science by Lisa Littman at Brown University to falsely claim that access to social media and the internet has created a 'contagion' that causes many youth to mistakenly identify as transgender.
"[54] Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union said the paper "laundered what had previously been the rantings of online conspiracy theorists and gave it the resemblance of serious scientific study" and "It is astonishing that such a blatantly bad-faith effort has been taken so seriously".
[1] Conservative media outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Breitbart, and Quillette heavily publicized the article and criticized Brown recalling its initial press release concerning the paper.
[62][63][64] Some clinicians state that an increasing prevalence of trans youth first presenting in early adolescence, as described in Littman's research, is consistent with their patient population, though they are uncertain as to causes or implications for clinical treatment.
[65][66][67] In a 2020 commentary in Pediatrics, citing Littman's paper among others, Annelou de Vries wrote that gender identity development was diverse and called for more research into this demographic cohort.
[68] A November 2021 study by Bauer et al. published in the Journal of Pediatrics examined data on a cohort of 173 trans adolescents from Canada to assess whether there was evidence for a rapid-onset pathway for gender dysphoria.
[70][71] Ferrara et al. noted the controversy that rose around the possibility of a rapid-onset of gender dysphoria condition and the position of major medical associations not to recognize ROGD and to discourage its use, due to a lack of consistent scientific evidence for the concept.
[74] In 2023, Springer retracted a paper by Diaz and Bailey on the rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) hypothesis "due to concerns about lack of informed consent", which had been published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.