The thing about the Brighton school is that most of the news reports are in right wing media, who purvey their own brand of transphobia, and mockery of gender variance. It's quite depressing, but I guess this is the way things are in the media. On the other hand, we can celebrate those areas which are very LGBT friendly, Hebden Bridge, take a bow.
I do apologize. Next time, I'll make sure to visit all the local schools and do a headcount of LGBT kids, with specific reference to T. I may be gone some time.
I can't find any figures more recent than 2012, but at that time, secondary school sizes in the UK (link)
On January 2012 there were 3,268 state-funded mainstream secondary schools in England, of which:
317 had between 1 and 500 pupils
1,405 had between 501 and 1,000 pupils
1,226 had between 1,001 and 1,500 pupils
320 had 1,501 or more pupils
So the majority of schools had 500 and 1500 pupils. There was an article in one of the red tops about a school in Brighton with 17 transgender students. GIRES (pdf) estimated in 2011, an early figure as public understanding about transgender became more common.
The implications of the above figures are that organisations should assume that 1% of their employees and service users may be experiencing some degree of gender variance. At some stage, about 0.2% may undergo transition.
That 1% would suggest in a normal secondary school there will be 5 to 15 students experiencing some degree of gender variance.
The other fact from that GIRES research was that the average of transition was 42.
I do apologize. Next time, I'll make sure to visit all the local schools and do a headcount of LGBT kids, with specific reference to T. I may be gone some time.
O perhaps a very brief time. The reason I raised it is that there is almost no data available here - even from a transgender association I looked at a year or so ago - which led me to think that the numbers are very low.
I have not been following this thread at all, but I hope it's okay if I join in at this point, if only for a while.
Since before Christmas, one of my sons has been reading me Eddie Izzard's autobiography at about a chapter a week. as you can appreciate, this is very kind of him and he has a good voice for such a reading.
He picked it up as something to read on holiday last year but only read a short way. However, during that first part of the book, he was particularly interested to find out that he is only a few months older than Eddie and that they were both born in the same hospital, ;i.e. the BP Refinery hospital in Little Aden. In fact, when he was born, I happened to be the only person in the European ward, so I had undivided attention!
I knew Eddie's mother quite well and another woman who knew her better and I were good friends until the latter's death a few years ago.
We are about half-way through the book at the moment. We both like the way there is no pretentiousness, and the whole thing is thoughtful, completely straightforward and honest and I certainly woulde recommend it as a good read for anyone.
I hope there might be a comment or two here?
Izzard often defines himself as transgender, but I have also seen him conflate this with transvestite. He also talks about girl mode and boy mode, well, he is sui generis really, which I suppose represents a gender ideal. He has been heavily criticized by some feminists, who complain about female space being invaded by men.
Izzard often defines himself as transgender, but I have also seen him conflate this with transvestite. He also talks about girl mode and boy mode, well, he is sui generis really, which I suppose represents a gender ideal. He has been heavily criticized by some feminists, who complain about female space being invaded by men.
Thank you for the comment. The part that I was listening to today was about his different interpretations of the various terms.It sounds as if he has a completely fair attitude to all.
The other fact from that GIRES research was that the average of transition was 42.
Interestingly, that's a stat from 2011 (I think you meant "average age"?). I would guess, offhand, that the average age of transition has been dropping dramatically in the last ten years, as transgender becomes less stigmatized and better understood. Which may be why we are seeing what now seem to be surprising numbers of people transitioning in adolescence. It's not just that more people are transitioning, but also that more people are transitioning at the same (relatively early) stage in their lives. When the dust settles a bit more on these issues these numbers may not seem as surprising as they do now.
Well, one school in Brighton reported 76 pupils with gender variance. The right wing press seized on it as showing brainwashing, contagion, bad teaching, over-indulgent parents, take your pick. I think this is unusual.
You must mean the numbers, because it is certainly not unusual for the right-wing media to attack people different from their patrons.
I'm repeating myself, but the notion of ROGD was a political judgment, not a clinical assessment..
No, that's not true, and saying so reduces the credibility of your argument. It wasn't a political judgement, it was from an exploratory study done as a survey of parents because of observations from reading 2 internet forums. It suggested it might be thing, and probably drew too much conclusion from such data, but suggested that there something worthy of additional investigation. It was definitely used as a political weapon by people with agendas on both ends. Link to article where it was proposed, again.
I read this. It is a written by someone who appears to be trained in law. There are no data cited, rather position papers and clinical guidelines derived from those positions.
I get that the pursuit of questions about transgender hurt some people. Which doesn't have anything to do with whether people researching things are correct or incorrect. I lived through the "false memory syndrome" controversy (not over, but more settled) and see some parallels.
That's pretty disingenuous. The internet forums, from which parents were recruited, were well-known transphobic ones, and of course she didn't bother to interview the kids, and didn't assess alternative explanations. And on that basis we establish a new clinical phenomenon?
Well, late onset dysphoria has been discussed in the literature, I think it's cited in DSM 5, and by the APA. I had to laugh at the idea that all these trans youth are on Tumblr, wow, so unusual.
So the title of the article I shared may overstate the case. Instead of "There is no evidence that ROGD exists," perhaps the title should have been "The only evidence that ROGD exists comes from a poorly constructed anonymous survey of people recruited from two notorious anti-trans forums."
The latter, though, doesn't really work as a headline.
So the title of the article I shared may overstate the case. Instead of "There is no evidence that ROGD exists," perhaps the title should have been "The only evidence that ROGD exists comes from a poorly constructed anonymous survey of people recruited from two notorious anti-trans forums."
"The only evidence that ROGD exists comes from a poorly constructed anonymous survey of people recruited from two notorious anti-trans forums published in a journal¹ that leaves it to the scientific community to ascertain importance, post publication, through debate and comment."
According to the journal, papers are not to be excluded on the basis of lack of perceived importance or adherence to a scientific field.
and
PLOS One is built on several conceptually different ideas compared to traditional peer-reviewed scientific publishing in that it does not use the perceived importance of a paper as a criterion for acceptance or rejection. The idea is that, instead, PLOS One only verifies whether experiments and data analysis were conducted rigorously, and leaves it to the scientific community to ascertain importance, post publication, through debate and comment.
It will be interesting to see if ROGD is further examined by gender research workers, so far the omens don't look good, partly because it's not a new phenomenon. Julia Serano has an essay online, "Everything you need to know about ROGD". Plus the already cited Zinnia Jones papers.
Quote from Serano, "It provides reluctant parents with an excuse to disbelieve and disaffirm their child's gender identity". Of course, this is dangerous.
Is the assumption that parents are awful and terrible people, when they suddenly learn of their child's wish to change genders, ask questions, are sceptical, and don't immediately validate their child's statement? Are they to be defined as anti-trans and to not love their children?
Is the assumption that parents are awful and terrible people, when they suddenly learn of their child's wish to change genders, ask questions, are sceptical, and don't immediately validate their child's statement? Are they to be defined as anti-trans and to not love their children?
Plenty of straw men there. Who has said that they don't love their children or that they are awful people?
That's pretty disingenuous. The internet forums, from which parents were recruited, were well-known transphobic ones, and of course she didn't bother to interview the kids, and didn't assess alternative explanations. And on that basis we establish a new clinical phenomenon?
Plenty of straw men there. Who has said that they don't love their children or that they are awful people?
That's the clear implication of all of it isn't it? That child expresses transgender wish, and parent is supposed to take a supportive stance re it. Where is the support for parents who love their children dearly, know their growth and development well, find the trans comes out of the blue? They flounder and are squeezed between people who say they must affirm and those of are directly hostile, labelled transphobic. What are they supposed to do? Other than be pushed into one polar opposite camp.
They are even not supposed to be told that at school their children are exploring/expressing transgender. Obvious implications aren't there? Otherwise why do that?
That's the clear implication of all of it isn't it? That child expresses transgender wish, and parent is supposed to take a supportive stance re it. Where is the support for parents who love their children dearly, know their growth and development well, find the trans comes out of the blue? They flounder and are squeezed between people who say they must affirm and those of are directly hostile, labelled transphobic. What are they supposed to do? Other than be pushed into one polar opposite camp.
The evidence is suggesting that parents who are more open to transgender tend to have their children talking to them when they are exploring ideas. Parents who are transphobic/homophobic tend to have children keeping their concerns quiet until they are certain, when it seems to come out of the blue to the parents. Children are very good at detecting the stance of their parents and not saying things that might cause parents to become critical of them.
They are even not supposed to be told that at school their children are exploring/expressing transgender. Obvious implications aren't there? Otherwise why do that?
Can you show anywhere this is happening? because when I went and looked I couldn't find anything showing that schools were not talking to parents. It's in the Mermaid support materials, but I am not sure that schools are adopting Mermaid support materials uncritically, particularly when those materials clash with policies already in place.
I'm repeating myself, but the notion of ROGD was a political judgment, not a clinical assessment..
No, that's not true, and saying so reduces the credibility of your argument. It wasn't a political judgement, it was from an exploratory study done as a survey of parents because of observations from reading 2 internet forums. It suggested it might be thing, and probably drew too much conclusion from such data, but suggested that there something worthy of additional investigation.
Doesn't that make it exactly as political as supposedly scientific studies done by the Tobacco Institute or various climate change denialist organizations?
Is the assumption that parents are awful and terrible people, when they suddenly learn of their child's wish to change genders, ask questions, are sceptical, and don't immediately validate their child's statement? Are they to be defined as anti-trans and to not love their children?
No, the problematic assumption is that if a kid isn't everything their parents want them to be, it must be the fault of an external influence. As you described in an earlier post, parents apply this excuse to everything from grades to clothing to vocabulary to sexuality and gender.
If a kid is depressed or anorexic or using drugs, it must be because their friends are. It can't possibly be due to how their parents treat them ... my dad's nickname for me as a teenager was 'bumper' but that couldn't possibly be the reason I ended up living on crackers, cheese and oranges and running until I pulverized my knees and weighed 98 pounds. It must have been all those pro-ana sites and my anorexic friends... oh wait .... there was no social media back then and I had no anorexic friends. Hmm ...where could I have gotten the idea that I was fat? Why do I still think I'm fat every time I look at myself? Maybe it's because I subscribe to Vogue.
And once more with feeling: trans and non-binary people are not "changing" gender, they are affirming and living their true gender identity.
It is certainly being used politically. Lots of tupenny right wing and evangelical websites extol ROGD, basically meaning that trans is a delusion, caused by social media and faddishness. Let's hope it is not damaging kids.
It is certainly being used politically. Lots of tupenny right wing and evangelical websites extol ROGD, basically meaning that trans is a delusion, caused by social media and faddishness. Let's hope it is not damaging kids.
I'm afraid it almost certainly will. The real headbangers would otherwise have put it down to demons or something...
They are even not supposed to be told that at school their children are exploring/expressing transgender. Obvious implications aren't there? Otherwise why do that?
Can you show anywhere this is happening? because when I went and looked I couldn't find anything showing that schools were not talking to parents. It's in the Mermaid support materials, but I am not sure that schools are adopting Mermaid support materials uncritically, particularly when those materials clash with policies already in place.
I was wrong about schools not telling re transgender specifically. The governments of the provinces and Alberta and Ontario consider legislation to stop schools from telling parents that their children had joined GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliance clubs).
Again, re rapid onset. Some parents have observed this with their children, including within my extended family. We have traced the influence to an initial love relationship where a controlling person pressured the adolescent re gender change. It's a form of abuse I think. The parents as parents will do, pursue any resources to help their child, and find only confirmatory and support for the transition, and unwillingness to listen to any of the young person's history. Hormone related medications on offer in a second medical appointment, all it takes is an appointment with the right doc. I get that in the vast diversity of human experience that anything can happen once, but we have at least suggestion from other families that this happens more frequently. If 10% of the Littman study wherein ROGD was proposed are in a minority where social influence is an issue and the rest of the parents were totally transphobic, that's more than 20 people, if one person, between 2 and 3 of them.
I was wrong about schools not telling re transgender specifically. The governments of the provinces and Alberta and Ontario consider legislation to stop schools from telling parents that their children had joined GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliance clubs).
So you're picking up on a debate, that there is a consideration that parents are not automatically told their child has joined a GSA club and making that into "parents cannot be told that their child is living as transgender at school". That's quite some conflation.
My understanding is that membership of gay-straight alliance clubs says nothing about the child's sexuality or gender? So it's like a social club that is supporting fluidity in gender and sexuality in society? and attends Gay Pride? I can see why that could be considered as not something that needs reporting to parents as anything concerning, partly because it might cause a homophobic/transphobic parent to react badly without any reason.
Again, re rapid onset. Some parents have observed this with their children, including within my extended family.
There is a known and recognised mechanism for this. The young person knows the family is transphobic: when they feel that they are the wrong gender, their first comments have been slapped down as nugatory with replies like don't be silly. So the child stops saying anything at home and explores their concerns with peers and online groups. When they are certain and have to tell their parents, this comes out of the blue to the parents, who react badly.
We have traced the influence to an initial love relationship where a controlling person pressured the adolescent re gender change. It's a form of abuse I think.
QED
The parents as parents will do, pursue any resources to help their child, and find only confirmatory and support for the transition, and unwillingness to listen to any of the young person's history. Hormone related medications on offer in a second medical appointment, all it takes is an appointment with the right doc.
And we've been through this, this sounds as if it is local experience because that's certainly not the procedure in the UK NHS. Private clinics may be doing other things, but they cost money.
I get that in the vast diversity of human experience that anything can happen once, but we have at least suggestion from other families that this happens more frequently. If 10% of the Littman study wherein ROGD was proposed are in a minority where social influence is an issue and the rest of the parents were totally transphobic, that's more than 20 people, if one person, between 2 and 3 of them.
We've been through the problems with the Littman study:
the biased sample,
the lack of balance with other views (parents only, not doctors, not patient),
the choice of publication journal,
the rebuttals in other peer reviewed journals
It's really not a paper that should be given any weight and the fact that you continue to do so makes me wonder about confirmation bias .
No Prophet: it sounds like the extended family is experiencing shock, confusion, and grief over the person's transition. This is pain, and pain deserves sympathy. It seems you have chosen your role in this to attend to the extended family's pain (rather than pain experienced by the person in the centre of this, the transitioning person, but I digress).
Clinging to the idea of ROGD is a dysfunctional response to the family's pain. It won't make things better for the family if they continue to cling to it; it will only drive them further into denial and probably anger. It will probably make things worse for the transitioning person. This is why so many people are advising you against this approach.
It sounds like the young person is transitioning. That ship has sailed. The family can cope graciously and supportively, or stew around in confusion, or be hostile and alienate the young person.
Good points, Leaf. It baffles me how ROGD leads to any practical solutions. Your child is complaining about gender problems, and you suggest that it's a fad. And then what? You make it all go away? I don't get it. So much of it reminds me of "gay contagion".
I belive that Zinnia Jones has written about the depersonalization experienced by some trans people, before treatment, considerably improved by treatment. It may be in the papers already cited, will check.
Everybody knows that being transphobic, homophobic, racist, sexist, etc. is a Bad Thing to Be, so no one wants to cop to that label. This usually takes the form of the following statement: "I'm not racist, but [insert racist belief here]."
Probably the family would not want to identify itself as transphobic, because that's a Bad Thing to Be. But comments you have made on this thread have reflected transphobic beliefs, from the very beginning of this thread:
I'm also not finding myself agreeing that gender and biological sex are fully different
to the support for the idea of ROGD. Decide for yourself if the shoe fits. The great thing is, beliefs can be changed, and the toxic beliefs can go away and then the label is no longer applicable.
There's a trope making fun of the confused, timid question posed by ignorant relatives when someone identifies as lesbian or gay: "Have you tried not being homosexual?" A person to whom that question is posed may have the patience to sort out the homophobic ignorance from the well-meaning intention. Or they may not have that patience, and no fault to them, because it's taxing and exasperating having to confront and correct toxic homophobic ignorance over and over with each person.
Maintaining a belief in ROGD is not kind or wise or helpful to anyone involved: not the transitioning person and not their family. It is lose-lose. Even if - an infinitesimally small possibility, but let's grant it - if the transitioning person somehow incorrectly identified their gender and later, with greater clarity, corrected that and was comfortable with another identification - you will already have identified yourself as a person who would not listen and would not trust. The smugness of having been "right" is a small cold comfort to the loss of relationship.
No Prophet: it sounds like the extended family is experiencing shock, confusion, and grief over the person's transition. This is pain, and pain deserves sympathy. It seems you have chosen your role in this to attend to the extended family's pain (rather than pain experienced by the person in the centre of this, the transitioning person, but I digress).
No that's not it at all. There's no sailing. This person isn't transitioning at the present. They may, or may not in the future. No one objects to this except if it isn't of the young person's free will and choice. Uncertain and no-one is pressuring about it from the family side. This young person says they are finally sorting out sexual orientation, which might I think move in the direction of gender transition in the future. I am not privy to the confidential therapy which has been paid for privately at a distance with neutral mental health people. I've nothing to do except fund it, ensure that the confidentiality is respected, and try to keep the parents on level ground, preventing them from influencing the objectivity of it - which isn''t actually required anymore. They settled down when the race to transition and distance was acquired from what I can only call advocacy from true believers. The parents have been prepared to accept any form of sexual and gender identity with their child, if the past social, developmental and psychiatric issues are part of the consideration about such a serious thing. When the trans program specifically discounts the previous history, this is a problem.
It is quite clear that protocols are much more developed and followed elsewhere. Since the early 1990s we saw the public de-insuring of community mental health in our western provinces, where its MDs and emergency room consultant psychiatrists providing most the mental health care, and doing as much as they can without training and resources. Good care is privately paid for. So we don't get what we really need unless someone comes up with thousands of dollars.
Clinging to the idea of ROGD is a dysfunctional response to the family's pain. It won't make things better for the family if they continue to cling to it; it will only drive them further into denial and probably anger. It will probably make things worse for the transitioning person. This is why so many people are advising you against this approach.
Because there is no other current term available, this ROGD has been the one we're using. Discussion's been had that we will stop using it to describe this situation. It's more social influence and manipulation in the context of a first love relationship with this young person who has felt quite low for most of school years and not accepted. The first major acceptance and love resulted in being convinced of something not of their own free choice. So far as we can tell. It's not rapid onset of gender issues, it's long term adjustment, social and developmental problems, labelled and pressed into a gender mould.
It is very difficult on an internet forum to capture the nuances of a specific situation. Almost all of what I've been debating here has not been discussed or broached even in our actual navigation through these issues.
There is a longitudinal study of trans youth, being run by Prof. Kristina Olson, at University of Washington, called the TransYouth project, intended to run for 20 years. And a concurrent study of non-conforming youth. I expect them to publish intermittent findings, but Olson has bits and pieces around the internet. I'm not sure if this is the first long term study, looking at outcomes, but there aren't many. I think she has another study on gender essentialism in young children.
I notice that listed under nonconforming, as they are seeking recruits, are tomboys, and also "princess boys". That's a new one on me, but I realized there is a well-known book with that title, boys in sparkly dresses, and so on.
There's a trope making fun of the confused, timid question posed by ignorant relatives when someone identifies as lesbian or gay: "Have you tried not being homosexual?" A person to whom that question is posed may have the patience to sort out the homophobic ignorance from the well-meaning intention. Or they may not have that patience, and no fault to them, because it's taxing and exasperating having to confront and correct toxic homophobic ignorance over and over with each person.
The transgender person I knew best, when their grandmother was introduced to the idea she asked "Have you tried not being transgender?", and their mother interceded with "Well, he's tried dying!"
There is a longitudinal study of trans youth, being run by Prof. Kristina Olson, at University of Washington, called the TransYouth project, intended to run for 20 years. And a concurrent study of non-conforming youth. I expect them to publish intermittent findings, but Olson has bits and pieces around the internet. I'm not sure if this is the first long term study, looking at outcomes, but there aren't many. I think she has another study on gender essentialism in young children.
The Atlantic just published an article on Olsen's work here:
Comments
I do apologize. Next time, I'll make sure to visit all the local schools and do a headcount of LGBT kids, with specific reference to T. I may be gone some time.
So the majority of schools had 500 and 1500 pupils. There was an article in one of the red tops about a school in Brighton with 17 transgender students. GIRES (pdf) estimated in 2011, an early figure as public understanding about transgender became more common. That 1% would suggest in a normal secondary school there will be 5 to 15 students experiencing some degree of gender variance.
The other fact from that GIRES research was that the average of transition was 42.
O perhaps a very brief time. The reason I raised it is that there is almost no data available here - even from a transgender association I looked at a year or so ago - which led me to think that the numbers are very low.
Since before Christmas, one of my sons has been reading me Eddie Izzard's autobiography at about a chapter a week. as you can appreciate, this is very kind of him and he has a good voice for such a reading.
He picked it up as something to read on holiday last year but only read a short way. However, during that first part of the book, he was particularly interested to find out that he is only a few months older than Eddie and that they were both born in the same hospital, ;i.e. the BP Refinery hospital in Little Aden. In fact, when he was born, I happened to be the only person in the European ward, so I had undivided attention!
I knew Eddie's mother quite well and another woman who knew her better and I were good friends until the latter's death a few years ago.
We are about half-way through the book at the moment. We both like the way there is no pretentiousness, and the whole thing is thoughtful, completely straightforward and honest and I certainly woulde recommend it as a good read for anyone.
I hope there might be a comment or two here?
Interestingly, that's a stat from 2011 (I think you meant "average age"?). I would guess, offhand, that the average age of transition has been dropping dramatically in the last ten years, as transgender becomes less stigmatized and better understood. Which may be why we are seeing what now seem to be surprising numbers of people transitioning in adolescence. It's not just that more people are transitioning, but also that more people are transitioning at the same (relatively early) stage in their lives. When the dust settles a bit more on these issues these numbers may not seem as surprising as they do now.
You must mean the numbers, because it is certainly not unusual for the right-wing media to attack people different from their patrons.
I read this. It is a written by someone who appears to be trained in law. There are no data cited, rather position papers and clinical guidelines derived from those positions.
I get that the pursuit of questions about transgender hurt some people. Which doesn't have anything to do with whether people researching things are correct or incorrect. I lived through the "false memory syndrome" controversy (not over, but more settled) and see some parallels.
The latter, though, doesn't really work as a headline.
And, to be fair, it means the same thing.
"The only evidence that ROGD exists comes from a poorly constructed anonymous survey of people recruited from two notorious anti-trans forums published in a journal¹ that leaves it to the scientific community to ascertain importance, post publication, through debate and comment."
¹: - PLOS One, where and Link
Quote from Serano, "It provides reluctant parents with an excuse to disbelieve and disaffirm their child's gender identity". Of course, this is dangerous.
Plenty of straw men there. Who has said that they don't love their children or that they are awful people?
That's the clear implication of all of it isn't it? That child expresses transgender wish, and parent is supposed to take a supportive stance re it. Where is the support for parents who love their children dearly, know their growth and development well, find the trans comes out of the blue? They flounder and are squeezed between people who say they must affirm and those of are directly hostile, labelled transphobic. What are they supposed to do? Other than be pushed into one polar opposite camp.
They are even not supposed to be told that at school their children are exploring/expressing transgender. Obvious implications aren't there? Otherwise why do that?
Can you show anywhere this is happening? because when I went and looked I couldn't find anything showing that schools were not talking to parents. It's in the Mermaid support materials, but I am not sure that schools are adopting Mermaid support materials uncritically, particularly when those materials clash with policies already in place.
Doesn't that make it exactly as political as supposedly scientific studies done by the Tobacco Institute or various climate change denialist organizations?
No, the problematic assumption is that if a kid isn't everything their parents want them to be, it must be the fault of an external influence. As you described in an earlier post, parents apply this excuse to everything from grades to clothing to vocabulary to sexuality and gender.
If a kid is depressed or anorexic or using drugs, it must be because their friends are. It can't possibly be due to how their parents treat them ... my dad's nickname for me as a teenager was 'bumper' but that couldn't possibly be the reason I ended up living on crackers, cheese and oranges and running until I pulverized my knees and weighed 98 pounds. It must have been all those pro-ana sites and my anorexic friends... oh wait .... there was no social media back then and I had no anorexic friends. Hmm ...where could I have gotten the idea that I was fat? Why do I still think I'm fat every time I look at myself? Maybe it's because I subscribe to Vogue.
And once more with feeling: trans and non-binary people are not "changing" gender, they are affirming and living their true gender identity.
I'm afraid it almost certainly will. The real headbangers would otherwise have put it down to demons or something...
I was wrong about schools not telling re transgender specifically. The governments of the provinces and Alberta and Ontario consider legislation to stop schools from telling parents that their children had joined GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliance clubs).
Again, re rapid onset. Some parents have observed this with their children, including within my extended family. We have traced the influence to an initial love relationship where a controlling person pressured the adolescent re gender change. It's a form of abuse I think. The parents as parents will do, pursue any resources to help their child, and find only confirmatory and support for the transition, and unwillingness to listen to any of the young person's history. Hormone related medications on offer in a second medical appointment, all it takes is an appointment with the right doc. I get that in the vast diversity of human experience that anything can happen once, but we have at least suggestion from other families that this happens more frequently. If 10% of the Littman study wherein ROGD was proposed are in a minority where social influence is an issue and the rest of the parents were totally transphobic, that's more than 20 people, if one person, between 2 and 3 of them.
It's not anything remotely close to a study.
My understanding is that membership of gay-straight alliance clubs says nothing about the child's sexuality or gender? So it's like a social club that is supporting fluidity in gender and sexuality in society? and attends Gay Pride? I can see why that could be considered as not something that needs reporting to parents as anything concerning, partly because it might cause a homophobic/transphobic parent to react badly without any reason.
There is a known and recognised mechanism for this. The young person knows the family is transphobic: when they feel that they are the wrong gender, their first comments have been slapped down as nugatory with replies like don't be silly. So the child stops saying anything at home and explores their concerns with peers and online groups. When they are certain and have to tell their parents, this comes out of the blue to the parents, who react badly.
QED
And we've been through this, this sounds as if it is local experience because that's certainly not the procedure in the UK NHS. Private clinics may be doing other things, but they cost money.
We've been through the problems with the Littman study:
- the biased sample,
- the lack of balance with other views (parents only, not doctors, not patient),
- the choice of publication journal,
- the rebuttals in other peer reviewed journals
It's really not a paper that should be given any weight and the fact that you continue to do so makes me wonder about confirmation bias .Clinging to the idea of ROGD is a dysfunctional response to the family's pain. It won't make things better for the family if they continue to cling to it; it will only drive them further into denial and probably anger. It will probably make things worse for the transitioning person. This is why so many people are advising you against this approach.
It sounds like the young person is transitioning. That ship has sailed. The family can cope graciously and supportively, or stew around in confusion, or be hostile and alienate the young person.
Everybody knows that being transphobic, homophobic, racist, sexist, etc. is a Bad Thing to Be, so no one wants to cop to that label. This usually takes the form of the following statement: "I'm not racist, but [insert racist belief here]."
Probably the family would not want to identify itself as transphobic, because that's a Bad Thing to Be. But comments you have made on this thread have reflected transphobic beliefs, from the very beginning of this thread: to the support for the idea of ROGD. Decide for yourself if the shoe fits. The great thing is, beliefs can be changed, and the toxic beliefs can go away and then the label is no longer applicable.
There's a trope making fun of the confused, timid question posed by ignorant relatives when someone identifies as lesbian or gay: "Have you tried not being homosexual?" A person to whom that question is posed may have the patience to sort out the homophobic ignorance from the well-meaning intention. Or they may not have that patience, and no fault to them, because it's taxing and exasperating having to confront and correct toxic homophobic ignorance over and over with each person.
Maintaining a belief in ROGD is not kind or wise or helpful to anyone involved: not the transitioning person and not their family. It is lose-lose. Even if - an infinitesimally small possibility, but let's grant it - if the transitioning person somehow incorrectly identified their gender and later, with greater clarity, corrected that and was comfortable with another identification - you will already have identified yourself as a person who would not listen and would not trust. The smugness of having been "right" is a small cold comfort to the loss of relationship.
It is quite clear that protocols are much more developed and followed elsewhere. Since the early 1990s we saw the public de-insuring of community mental health in our western provinces, where its MDs and emergency room consultant psychiatrists providing most the mental health care, and doing as much as they can without training and resources. Good care is privately paid for. So we don't get what we really need unless someone comes up with thousands of dollars.
Because there is no other current term available, this ROGD has been the one we're using. Discussion's been had that we will stop using it to describe this situation. It's more social influence and manipulation in the context of a first love relationship with this young person who has felt quite low for most of school years and not accepted. The first major acceptance and love resulted in being convinced of something not of their own free choice. So far as we can tell. It's not rapid onset of gender issues, it's long term adjustment, social and developmental problems, labelled and pressed into a gender mould.
It is very difficult on an internet forum to capture the nuances of a specific situation. Almost all of what I've been debating here has not been discussed or broached even in our actual navigation through these issues.
The Atlantic just published an article on Olsen's work here:
Article.