Let me set the record straight

I received the following comment:

Retraction of scientific articles is associated with well-deserved shame: plagiarism, making up data, or grave concerns about the scientific integrity of a study. But my article was not retracted for any shameful reason. It was retracted because it provided evidence for an idea that activists hate.

There is ample evidence that in progressive communities, multiple girls from the same peer group are announcing they are trans almost simultaneously. There has been a sharp increase in this phenomenon across the industrialized West. A recent review from the UK, which keeps better records than America, showed a greater than tenfold increase in referrals of adolescent girls during just the past decade.

But there have been virtually no scientific data or studies on the subject.

In part that is because researchers who have touched this topic have been punished for their curiosity. Just ask Lisa Littman. Ultimately, her paper on the subject resulted in an unnecessary “correction” by the journal that published it, and the loss of Littman’s academic affiliation with Brown University, which prioritized activist outrage over Littman’s academic freedom.

 

I happen to know a whole lot about the issue concerning Lisa Littman. I am on the faculty of the school of public health with which she was affiliated when she first published the article, and we discussed the incident in a faculty meeting at considerable length. I am also an academic editor of the publication in which it appeared, although I had nothing to do with the specific paper, so I received correspondence about it.

 

Dr. Littman was not "punished for her curiosity," nor was her academic freedom compromised in any way, nor did PLOS ONE publish an "unnecessary correction."  What happened is that she interviewed people who participate in an on-line support group for parents who do not accept their children's representation that they are trans-gender, and specifically who perceived their trans-gendering as "sudden onset," and accepted what the respondents told her at face value. She did not interview any of the children, or their clinicians, or anyone who is transgender, which simply means that her conclusions about the reality of this phenomenon are dubious. The parents may have failed to perceive their children's feelings until the children announced them; the parents had difficulty accepting this; and they therefore concluded, erroneously, that some external influence may have made the children say this when it had no antecedent in their actual experience.

In other words, the article made an unsupported inference. Many people wrote to the editors to point this out, whereupon they conducted a review of the article with both senior editorial staff and outside consultants. They then asked the author to respond to the concerns raised in this process, which she did by revising the article, which they then republished. The Editors' conclusions, which you may read here (with considerable additional discussion), were:

This study of parent observations and interpretations serves to develop the hypotheses that rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a phenomenon and that social influences, parent-child conflict, and maladaptive coping mechanisms may be contributing factors for some individuals. Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is not a formal mental health diagnosis at this time. This report did not collect data from the adolescents and young adults (AYAs) or clinicians and therefore does not validate the phenomenon. Additional research that includes AYAs, along with consensus among experts in the field, will be needed to determine if what is described here as rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) will become a formal diagnosis. Furthermore, the use of the term, rapid-onset gender dysphoria should be used cautiously by clinicians and parents to describe youth who appear to fall into this category. The term should not be used in a way to imply that it explains the experiences of all gender dysphoric youth nor should it be used to stigmatize vulnerable individuals. This article has been revised to better reflect that these parent reports provide information that can be used to develop hypotheses about factors that may contribute to the onset and/or expression of gender dysphoria among this demographic group.

 

It is common in scholarly publication for initial reviews to fail to catch problems with a paper. Journals commonly -- as in several times every day, actually -- either publish corrections, as in this case, or retract articles that are fatally flawed. There is nothing in the least unusual about this incident and it was not based on "activist outrage" but on sound scientific method and reasoning.

Littman was a non-tenure track research professor on a time-limited contract. Perhaps unfortunately, it is common for people in that situation not to have their contracts renewed. There are many factors involved -- for one thing, people in that situation are responsible for bringing in funding to support their position. I do not know why Littman is no longer on the faculty, or whether this specific incident had anything to do with it. To my understanding her mentors viewed this as a mistake by an inexperienced investigator and treated her supportively. Certainly in the faculty meeting people were sympathetic. The real fault here lies with the initial peer reviewers, who should have given her appropriate feedback and allowed her to revise the paper before it was published. The subsequent correction was entirely necessary and appropriate.