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An international alliance promoting a non-medicalised approach to sex & gender. We support Stats For Gender, Beyond Trans & the Gender Dysphoria Support Network

Aug 16, 2021, 10 tweets

A thread for #RogdAwarenessDay:
1. Three years ago today, August 16, 2018, a scientific journal published Lisa Littman’s study of 256 parental reports of adolescents experiencing a phenomenon described by Littman as 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’
journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

2.Littman coined the term ROGD to describe the phenomenon of adolescents who having previously had no feelings of gender dysphoria suddenly felt extremely dysphoric and wished to transition.

3.Littman noted that ROGD could perhaps be a maladaptive social coping mechanism for other challenges, and often came about after extensive time spent online. Social contagion also seemed to be a factor

4.Littman’s paper attracted huge hostility from activists who denied the existence of ROGD & cried ‘transphobia’. Two weeks later, PLOS One announced a post-publication review; on the same day, Brown University retracted its promotion of the study retractionwatch.com/2018/08/29/rea…

5.The controversy grew until March 2019 when PLOS One concluded its review and concluded that: ‘Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article.’ journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

6.Following the re-publication of this paper, Dr Littman issued a gracious statement: gdworkinggroup.org/2019/03/19/lit…

7.In June 2020, @AbigailShrier released her book Irreversible Damage based on Littman’s ROGD study. Shrier's book compassionately describes the challenges facing ROGD kids & their families. This too was attacked by activists. Again the truth prevailed

8.Littman's work was a descriptive study and, as Littman noted in her study, ROGD is "not a formal mental health diagnosis at this time". Nonetheless there have been further scurrilous attempts to undermine Littman's and Shrier's work sexologytoday.org/2021/08/caaps-…

9.Since the initial publication, the number of gender-distressed teens has continued to escalate. Organisations who purport to help people with gender-related distress continue to ignore Littman’s study, while teenagers and their families continue to suffer

10.Thousands of @Genspect parents describe how their children match the description of ROGD and yet their voices remain unheard. And so we at Genspect call on CAAPS, WPATH, AAP and others to listen to these loving parents, who just want the best treatment possible for their kids

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