Brown University pulls down study suggesting teens imitate peers by becoming trans

quote:

---

This week, Brown University pulled down a news story on a study conducted by a Brown University researcher. That study focused in on what it described as “rapid-onset gender dysphoria”: gender dysphoria that was not present in early youth, but that manifested within days or weeks in teens and young adults. The study author, Lisa Littman, assistant professor of the practice of behavioral and social sciences at Brown’s School of Public Health, stated, “This kind of descriptive study is important because it defines a group and raises questions for more research. One of the main conclusions is that more research needs to be done. Descriptive studies aren’t randomized controlled trials – you can’t tell cause and effect, and you can’t tell prevalence. It’s going to take more studies to bring in more information, but this is a start.”

---

quote:

---

Among the noteworthy patterns Littman found in the survey data: 21 percent of parents reported their child had one or more friends become transgender-identified at around the same time; 20 percent reported an increase in their child's social media use around the same time as experiencing gender dysphoria symptoms; and 45 percent reported both. … The pattern of clusters of teens in friend groups becoming transgender-identified, the group dynamics of these friend groups and the types of advice viewed online led her to the hypothesis that friends and online sources could spread certain beliefs. Examples include the belief that non-specific symptoms such as feeling uncomfortable in their own skins or feeling like they don't fit in -- which could be a part of normal puberty or associated with trauma -- should be perceived as gender dysphoria; the belief that the only path to happiness is transition; and the belief that anyone who disagrees with the teen is transphobic and should be cut out of their life.

"Of the parents who provided information about their child's friendship group, about a third responded that more than half of the kids in the friendship group became transgender-identified," Littman said. "A group with 50 percent of its members becoming transgender-identified represents a rate that is more 70 times the expected prevalence for young adults."

Additionally, 62 percent of parents reported their teen or young adult had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before the onset of gender dysphoria. Forty-eight percent reported that their child had experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria, including being bullied, sexually assaulted or having their parents get divorced

---

quote:

---

This suggests that the drive to transition expressed by these teens and young adults could be a harmful coping mechanism like drugs, alcohol or cutting, Littman said.

---

quote:

---

In any case, this Brown University study could not stand — any effort to actually research the environmental component of transgenderism is met with raucous calls for censorship. And Brown immediately caved. The University pulled down a news article about the study. Realistically, Brown and the journal in which the original comment was published, PLOS ONE, turned against the study because it offended politically correct sensibilities about transgenderism.

---

quote:

---

Raising questions about study methodology is normal. Pulling down articles about scientific studies thanks to public pressure isn’t. It’s simply an attempt to shut down discussion about a critical issue of public importance in order to avoid a narrative that the political Left doesn’t want: a narrative that suggests that the transgender movement might actually be having an impact on the behavior of people who don’t actually suffer from childhood gender dysphoria, associating costs with society’s radical embrace of a completely unscientific set of ideas regarding sex and gender.

---