"rapid-onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD)
Lisa Littman
Littman, a physician-researcher formerly at Brown University, published the seminal 2018 PLOS One paper on ROGD, surveying parents (recruited from sites skeptical of youth transitions) who reported their teens—mostly adolescent girls—suddenly declaring transgender identities amid friend groups, social media, and prior mental health issues.
The paper was corrected in 2019 over methodology critiques (e.g., biased sampling), but Littman defends it as exploratory, not anti-trans, and notes ROGD isn't a formal diagnosis or claim that no one benefits from transition.
She's faced doxxing, job loss threats, and activist backlash labeling her work "transphobic," yet continues research, including collaborations on larger parent surveys.
J. Michael Bailey
Bailey, a Northwestern University psychology professor, has decades of polarizing work on sex/gender, including his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen, which argued some male-to-female transitions stem from autogynephilia (sexual arousal at the idea of being female); this led to protests, IRB probes (cleared), and death threats.
Bailey co-authored a 2023 Archives of Sexual Behavior paper with parent Suzanna Diaz on 1,655 ROGD cases, retracted later for consent issues (data from non-academic sources), which he calls ideological censorship despite disclosed flaws.
He promotes ROGD as explaining post-2010 surges in teen gender dysphoria referrals (especially females), tied to social contagion, and rejects activist demands to suppress "unwanted" findings.
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