ROGD, one mother's story

A barely believable account of medical malpractice

First of all, meet Jude. It is rare that parents who have been through what she’s been through are brave enough to speak on camera, and even though I have heard variations on this story many times, I was still taken aback by the reckless disregard shown to her and her daughter by medical professionals.

If you’re in a similar position to Jude, there are people who can help. Your first stop should be Genspect who are connecting and empowering parents of ROGD sufferers all over the world. The following is adapted from their thread that gives a history of the phenomenon.

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’

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.

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

Littman’s paper attracted huge hostility from activists who denied the existence of ROGD and cried ‘transphobia’. Two weeks later, PLOS One announced a post-publication review; on the same day, Brown University retracted its promotion of the study.

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.’

Following the re-publication of this paper, Dr Littman issued a gracious statement:

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

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. Link

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

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.