Psychology professor’s paper on ROGD was withdrawn under pressure

The Free Press published a piece today written by Northwestern University professor Michael Bailey. Bailey writes that he’s been a professor for 34 years and often delved into controversial topics including IQ, sexual orientation and transgenderism. Recently, he co-authored a paper on the topic of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria which was published in March. Essentially, ROGD is the idea that the sharp uptick in young people, especially teen girls, identifying as trans is partly the result of social contagion.

ROGD was first described in the literature in 2018 by the physician and researcher Lisa Littman. It is an explanation of the new phenomenon of adolescents, largely girls, with no history of gender dysphoria, suddenly declaring they want to transition to the opposite sex. It has been a highly contentious diagnosis, with some—and I am one—thinking it’s an important avenue for scientific inquiry, and others declaring it’s a false idea advocated by parents unable to accept they have a transgender child.

I believed that ROGD was a promising explanation of the explosion of gender dysphoria among adolescent girls because these young people do not have gender dysphoria as usually understood. Until recently, females treated for gender dysphoria were masculine-presenting girls who had hated being female since early childhood. By contrast, girls with ROGD are often conventionally feminine, but tend to have other social and emotional issues. The theory behind ROGD is that through social contagion from friends, social media, and even school, vulnerable girls are exposed to the idea that their normal adolescent angst is the result of an underlying transgender identity. These girls then suddenly declare that they are transgender. That is the rapid onset…

There is ample evidence that in progressive communities, multiple girls from the same peer group are announcing they are trans almost simultaneously. There has been a sharp increase in this phenomenon across the industrialized West. A recent review from the UK, which keeps better records than America, showed a greater than tenfold increase in referrals of adolescent girls during just the past decade.

The paper that Bailey put together was based on a survey of parents who believe their children are experiencing ROGD. This site contains stories of concerned parents like this one:

My daughter suddenly identified as trans over the summer at age 13 with zero childhood markers. I have since read all I can find on this topic, which is limited since it is such a new phenomenon.

In my daughter’s case, she is highly intelligent, artistic and has struggled with finding a peer group. She has been a typical girl but also has been involved in sports. At the age of ten, she started a new school and was bullied. Soon after, she hit early puberty very quickly and very noticeably. At this time, she developed an eating disorder and often complained about being “fat.” She certainly was not at all fat. However, she started to look like an athletic woman and compared to her “stick-thin” peers, she felt fat. She became body obsessed, refused to wear her “revealing” sport uniform and quit the sport she once loved.

Over the next year or so, she obsessed about her looks and image. She explored several styles of clothing and tried to fit in with certain groups with some success. Beginning junior high, she was determined to fit in with the popular kids. She approached this deliberately by watching videos, and shopping for the right clothes and make-up. She successfully achieved her goal until she decided the girls in this group were mean. In a dramatic fashion, she renounced the group, making an announcement during lunch by refusing to sit at their table…

Her best friend from preschool, a very girly girl, came out as trans. At first, my daughter said it was silly, a phase, and that she was doing it to fit in, but my daughter was exposed to the YouTube, Redditt trans propaganda—yes, that’s what I call it—and now she claims to be a boy. Her mental health has dramatically deteriorated and she is currently in a therapeutic residential treatment center with the idea that she needs to educate adults on the trans topic.

Before she left for treatment, she had invented a whole different childhood in order to confirm that she is truly trans and not a “transtrender.” She is well versed in all the lingo and catch phrases. She is also very articulate and convincing because she is very clever, yet has spent a lot of time online being brainwashed. I have since learned these are grooming sites and very cult-like.

In an effort to keep a good relationship, I went along with it. I bought her boy clothes, and took her to a barber, where she cut off her beautiful, long blonde hair and died it dark brown. She even managed to order a binder online. I told her she can try this out but that I am unable to call her another name or support a permanent change of any kind…

My husband and I are so angry, scared, defeated and crushed. We need to help our daughter. It is so clear to us that she is NOT trans. No one in our extended family believes she is male, even the most progressive family members. My very progressive mother-in -law is stunned that therapists are affirming and approving the transitioning of minors. It is insanity. Yet most professionals view us with suspicion, as if we are bigots and haters.

In all there were more than 1,600 reports like this submitted by parents. Under pressure, the paper about it was retracted just a few months after it was published.

Almost immediately these activists began to lobby both the publisher of Archives of Sexual Behavior (Springer Nature Group) and the organization affiliated with the journal (International Academy of Sex Research, or IASR) to retract the article and to punish the editor of Archives, psychologist Kenneth Zucker, because he had published our work.

On May 5, a group of 100 academic activists and gender clinicians published an online Open Letter expressing “ethical” and “editorial concerns” about the journal and “serious concerns over research ethics and intellectual integrity” of our article…

On May 23, we received an email from Springer informing us that they were retracting our article.

Bailey reports that despite the retraction the article has received an immense amount of attention, some of which has been favorable. He now says he’ll be focusing on a new long-term survey which will look at the behavior of trans children over five years. He believes that, eventually, the truth will come out, whatever that turns out to be. Long term, censorship of ideas just doesn’t work.