Two from Schroeter Neighborhood Park

 

Only last year did a Facebook post clue me in to the existence of Schroeter Neighborhood Park a couple of miles from home. This June 27th I went back there and took some more pictures, including the two shown here. Above are buds of the picturesquely named cow itch vine (Cissus trifoliata), and below is a dayflower (Commelina erecta). Apparently this is the first time I’ve ever showed you a cow itch vine picture.

 

 

  

 

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During the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in adolescents and young adults (AYA) complaining of gender dysphoria. One influential if controversial explanation is that the increase reflects a socially contagious syndrome: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). We report results from a survey of parents who contacted the website ParentsofROGDKids.com because they believed their AYA children had ROGD. Results focused on 1655 AYA children whose gender dysphoria reportedly began between ages 11 and 21 years, inclusive. These youths were disproportionately (75%) natal female. Natal males had later onset (by 1.9 years) than females, and they were much less likely to have taken steps toward social gender transition (65.7% for females versus 28.6% for males). Pre-existing mental health issues were common, and youths with these issues were more likely than those without them to have socially and medically transitioned. Parents reported that they had often felt pressured by clinicians to affirm their AYA child’s new gender and support their transition. According to the parents, AYA children’s mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition. We discuss potential biases of survey responses from this sample and conclude that there is presently no reason to believe that reports of parents who support gender transition are more accurate than those who oppose transition. To resolve controversies regarding ROGD, it is desirable that future research includes data provided by both pro- and anti-transition parents, as well as their gender dysphoric AYA children.

 

That’s the abstract of the article “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” written by Suzanna Diaz and J. Michael Bailey, and published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior in March of this year. Trans activists don’t want anyone even to investigate whether the phenomenon of rapid-onset gender dysphoria is legitimate, and they raised such a ruckus that the publisher of the Archives gave in and found a pretext to retract the article.

You can read more about this in a May 24th piece in unherd and another from May 25th in National Review. You may also be able to read J. Michael Bailey’s article about the cancellation, “My Research on Gender Dysphoria Was Censored. But I Won’t Be,” which appeared on July 10 in The Free Press, where I first heard about this latest cancellation.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman