AP Tells Lies about ROGD

An AP article appearing in Wednesday's Metro contains some misinformation. I wrote the editor about it.

I am infuriated at the ideologically motivated distortion of science in your article ""How many transgender and intersex people live in the US?"

It says, "[C]onversations about gender-affirming care bans were at times clouded by a discredited 2018 study that claimed kids might experience gender dysphoria because of peer influence. This led to erroneous suggestions that the number of trans people was inflated."

The article deviously fails to name the allegedly discredited study, making it difficult for readers to check the facts for themselves. Fortunately I'd heard of the paper and read an interview with the author, Lisa Littman, in the magazine Quillette. The study was never discredited. The journal PLOS One did a re-review in response to criticism, but as stated in the Notice of Republication, “Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article."

Not only was peer influence not discredited as a factor in the recent rise in the number of adolescents and young adults presenting with gender dysphoria -- and the sudden shift toward more female-to-male, rather than male-to-female, transitioners -- but as Littman noted in the interview, "One amazing outcome [of the controversy] is that four young women who experienced gender dysphoria in their teens and then de-transitioned or desisted [pictured above] found each other and created The Pique Resilience Project, a video series they use  to share their experiences. All of them now speak openly about having experienced ROGD [rapid onset gender dysphoria]."

Blanket age restrictions or parental vetoes on young people's bodily autonomy would not be justified. But where irreversible procedures that destroy people's reproductive potential are concerned, this principle needs to be balanced with the ethical responsibility of professionals to thoroughly explore someone's gender dysphoria and other emotional issues to rule out other, non-trans causes before referring them for medical or surgical treatments.