Scientific American: Evidence Undermines 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria' Claims [View all]

Last edited Mon Aug 28, 2023, 03:40 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-undermines-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-claims/

A recent study claiming to describe more than 1,600 possible cases of a “socially contagious syndrome” was retracted in June for failing to obtain ethics approval from an institutional review board. The survey examined “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” a proposed condition that attributes adolescent gender distress to exposure to transgender people through friends or social media. The existence of such a syndrome has been the subject of intense debate for the past several years and has fueled arguments against transgender rights reforms, despite being widely criticized by medical experts.

The American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providers’ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescents’ experiences and that “social contagion” is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.

“To even say it’s a hypothesis at this point, based on the paucity of research on this, I think is a real stretch,” says Eli Coleman, former president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Coleman helped create the organization’s most recent standards of care for trans people, which endorse and explain the evidence for forms of gender-affirming care.

So will Florida now ban Scientific American from school libraries?

on edit: Wonderful quote from article, "It is not rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” she says. “It’s rapid-onset parental discovery.”