Point Counter Point

There is a hatchet job on us in Psychology Today that resurrected the Brown University survey, in the article the author writes about the bogus Rapid Onset of Gender Dysphoria. Of course the article stirred up backlash from our community and in response the wrote follow-up articles.

Teen Transgender Identity: A Response to Critics
Ideology or scientific rigor?
By Samuel Veissière Ph.D.
November 29, 2018

I have received numerous private comments from readers about my recent article on the rise of transgender identity among teens.

Many of those comments were supportive, others inquisitive, while others still were very hostile.  Many among those who wrote to me expressed surprise at my reporting on a “flawed study”.

Some readers pointed out that I did not mention the controversy and significant public backlash that ensued after the study was first published in August 2018. You may read about it here, here, here, and here.

So I pose a question; writing about something controversial in an article before and not references the controversy in the current article, is it proper? Or should you also mention it in the current or at the very least reference it in the current article?

The bulk of the critique of Prof Littman’s study has been directed at the methodology and population sample. Littman obtained her reports from websites where parents discussed their challenges in dealing with a trans teen. This was seen as biased by many. In other words, critics accuse Littman of cherry-picking her sample from a population that was already critical—by some account dismissive—of transgender identities.

Um… there is an omission here. Yes it was a “websites where parents discussed their challenges in dealing with a trans teen” but it was more than that, it was an anti-trans or at least a negative trans website, it definitely is not a supportive website.

He goes on to say,

In a recent survey of 250 families whose children developed symptoms of gender dysphoria during or right after puberty, Lisa Littman, a physician and professor of behavioral science at Brown University, found that over 80 percent of the youth in her sample were female at birth.

Should Dr. Veissière have mentioned that the website drew her subjects from was an anti-trans website and that the parents on the site rejected their child’s trans identity?

The rebuttal article went on to say,

Littman’s study passed the test of scientific review and was deemed worthy of publication in a reputable journal. The study has also remained in print after further scientific review was conducted after publication as a response the moral outrage.

Well actually from what I read it didn't pass “the test of scientific review and was deemed worthy of publication in a reputable journal” it was pulled from the university and publication websites.

In the third article he writes…

For those who are just discovering the controversy, the basic claim of those concerned with ROGD is that cultural shifts, novel social pressures, and new idioms of distress may underly the unprecedented numbers of young adolescents who now wish to identify as trans…

Well first off if you want a discussion then get rid of Rapid Onset of Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) because there is no such thing as that it is a made term by the anti-trans people.

Countless struggling parents, in turn, find in ROGD a reassuring explanation for their child’s unexpected (and from their perspective, very scary) behaviour, while trans activists find the parents unsupportive or hostile.

Second if you want to find out about gender dysphoria in children… ask the children not the parents.

When I came out to my brother for him it was out of the blue, he had no idea that I was struggling with gender dysphoria all my life. Of course it seems sudden with the parents and family but this something we have been struggling with until it reached a point where we have to come out of the closet.

Third, being trans is not contagious, in the first article he writes,

The plot thickens again: First, many of the youth in the survey had been directly exposed to one or more peers who had recently "come out" as trans. Next, 63.5 percent of the parents reported that in the time just before announcing they were trans, their child had exhibited a marked increase in Internet and social media consumption. Following popular YouTubers who discussed their transition thus emerged as a common factor in many of the cases. After the youth came out, an increase in distress, conflict with parents, and voiced antagonism toward heterosexual people and non-transgender people (known as “cis” or “cisgender”) was also frequently reported. This animosity was also described as extending to “males, white people, gay and lesbian (non-transgender) people.” The view adopted by trans youth, as summed up by one parent, seemed to be that:

“In general, cis-gendered people are considered evil and unsupportive, regardless of their actual views on the topic. To be heterosexual, comfortable with the gender you were assigned at birth, and non-minority places you in the ‘most evil’ of categories with this group of friends. Statement of opinions by the evil cis-gendered population are consider phobic and discriminatory and are generally discounted as unenlightened.”

It is only natural to reach out for help. I did, if you look at my internet usage there was a marked increase in searching about “trans” but you would find the same increase when I was diagnosed with Diabetes… I wanted to find out more about the disease and the same was true for my research into gender dysphoria.