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Fears of “social contagion,” used to support anti-transgender legislation, are not supported by science
A recent study claiming to describe more than 1,600 possible cases of a “socially contagious syndrome” was retracted in June for failing to obtain ethics approval from an institutional review board. The survey examined “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” a proposed condition that attributes adolescent gender distress to exposure to transgender people through friends or social media. The existence of such a syndrome has been the subject of intense debate for the past several years and has fueled arguments against transgender rights reforms, despite being widely criticized by medical experts.
The American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providers’ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescents’ experiences and that “social contagion” is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.
ROGD was proposed as a gender dysphoria subtype in a 2018 paper by psychologist Lisa Littman, then at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Littman’s survey asked parents of transgender adolescents—recruited predominantly from anti-transgender websites and forums—to describe their child’s “sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria” and to state if it coincided with increased social media usage or the child’s friends coming out as transgender.
Like the 2018 study that coined the term rapid-onset gender dysphoria, the recently retracted paper, which was published this March in Archives of Sexual Behavior, surveyed parents of transgender children about their children’s experiences.
The participants in both the 2018 and the retracted 2023 studies were recruited from online communities that were explicitly critical about many aspects of gender-affirming care for transgender kids.
Most experts cite the survey of parents rather than transgender children themselves as another major flaw in the methodology of both studies.
Diane Ehrensaft, director of mental health at the University of California, San Francisco, Child and Adolescent Gender Center, concurs. “To talk about what children are thinking, feeling and doing, particularly as they get old enough to have their own minds and narratives, you need to interview them,” she says.
“It is not rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” she says. “It’s rapid-onset parental discovery.”
A recent study claiming to describe more than 1,600 possible cases of a “socially contagious syndrome” was retracted in June for failing to obtain ethics approval from an institutional review board. The survey examined “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” a proposed condition that attributes adolescent gender distress to exposure to transgender people through friends or social media. The existence of such a syndrome has been the subject of intense debate for the past several years and has fueled arguments against transgender rights reforms, despite being widely criticized by medical experts.
The American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providers’ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescents’ experiences and that “social contagion” is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.
ROGD was proposed as a gender dysphoria subtype in a 2018 paper by psychologist Lisa Littman, then at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Littman’s survey asked parents of transgender adolescents—recruited predominantly from anti-transgender websites and forums—to describe their child’s “sudden or rapid onset of gender dysphoria” and to state if it coincided with increased social media usage or the child’s friends coming out as transgender.
Like the 2018 study that coined the term rapid-onset gender dysphoria, the recently retracted paper, which was published this March in Archives of Sexual Behavior, surveyed parents of transgender children about their children’s experiences.
The participants in both the 2018 and the retracted 2023 studies were recruited from online communities that were explicitly critical about many aspects of gender-affirming care for transgender kids.
Most experts cite the survey of parents rather than transgender children themselves as another major flaw in the methodology of both studies.
Diane Ehrensaft, director of mental health at the University of California, San Francisco, Child and Adolescent Gender Center, concurs. “To talk about what children are thinking, feeling and doing, particularly as they get old enough to have their own minds and narratives, you need to interview them,” she says.
“It is not rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” she says. “It’s rapid-onset parental discovery.”
