Origins of "Social Contagion" and "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria"

This post inadvertently grew out of research that I've been doing for another essay, which I will link to once it is published. Basically, while the concept of "social contagion" is quite old, the notion that it somehow causes children and teenagers to adopt transgender identities is rather recent. So I was curious to know where this assertion first arose. To this end, I carried out a series of internet searches, and was surprised (although perhaps I shouldn't have been) to find out that it seems to have originated on the same three websites (4thwavenow.com, transgendertrend.com, and youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org) that Lisa Littman surveyed for her study on the (scientifically unsubstantiated) concept of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). I was also rather stunned to learn that virtually all of this – the founding of two of those three websites, the first ever claims that social contagion causes kids to become transgender, the coining of "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria," and Littman's recruiting parents for her survey – happened within an extremely short period of time (roughly half a year).

After doing a little more detective work, I put together the following timeline detailing the recent history of these concepts and the websites that gave rise to them. This is a lengthy post (for the sake of thoroughness), but there are two main take-home points: First, the notion that "transgender is caused by social contagion" seems to have been invented by a reluctant parent of a trans child in February 2016. It was then reiterated by other parents and posters on these websites, and then was subsequently picked up and parroted by conservative media outlets and gender-disaffirming practitioners as though it were an actual condition rather than mere hearsay. Second, there was a lot of overlap and coordination between these three websites, and eventually with gender-disaffirming practitioners as well, in creating, popularizing, and disseminating these ideas – in other words, this was an activist campaign. There is nothing inherently wrong with activism, as we are all activists to some degree. But what I chronicle here challenges the typical framing (favored by mainstream journalists and pundits) that pits "concerned parents" and "objective scientists" against "biased out-of-control transgender activists." The reality is that both sides have agendas, in that we are both fighting for what we think is best for trans & gender non-conforming (GNC) children. (Although I believe that the existing evidence better supports the gender-affirmative model.)

The timeline is below. But first, two brief preliminary sections (which can be skipped over if you are already intimately familiar with these matters). There will be a brief summary at the end.
[& if you are looking for a "TL;DR" version, some of the major highlights from the timeline are covered in this Twitter thread.]

Note added October 2019: several more entries have since been added to the timeline – they are denoted by an asterisk just before the date. Perhaps the most significant changes are the PLoS One apology and correction of the Littman paper (see entry 3-19-19), a peer-reviewed critique of the Littman paper (see entry 4-22-19), and additional healthcare groups penning position statements refuting the concepts of ROGD and "transgender social contagion" (e.g., entries 8-21-19; 9-12-19; & 9-30-19).

Trans health professionals consider gender-reparative therapies to be unethical

This is not a post so much as it is a citation to be referenced in my (and perhaps other people's) future writings on this topic. 

Gender-reparative therapies (sometimes called gender-conversion therapies) typically involve the use of positive and negative reinforcement strategies—e.g., having parents discourage or withhold gender non-conforming expression, toys, play partners, etc., while encouraging gender-normative behaviors—in an attempt to convert transgender or gender non-conforming children into cisgender and gender-normative ones. 

While the practice used to be more common, and while a few researchers (such as Ken Zucker) still advocate for such approaches, the field of trans health as a whole now considers such practices to be both unsuccessful (as it merely coerces children to temporarily hide or repress their gender identities and expressions, which they may assert again at a later age) and unethical (as it often results in a host of negative psychological outcomes, as reviewed in Temple Newhook et al., 2018).

Autogynephilia: a theory that ignores lived experiences and basic mathematics

I have probably written more about Ray Blanchard’s autogynephilia (AG) theory than all but a small handful of people. I have done so for multiple reasons: 1) as a scientist, I am appalled by the theory’s lack of scientific rigor, 2) it denies many trans people’s lived experiences, 3) it makes far too many unnecessary (and incorrect) assumptions (i.e., it ignores Occam’s razor), 4) it is not scientifically falsifiable, as exceptions to the theory are routinely dismissed as being due to  “lying” or “misreporting” by trans subjects, 5) it needlessly sexualizes and stigmatizes people on the trans female/feminine spectrum, and 6) it does not even attempt to account for people on the trans male/masculine spectrum.

In this brief post, I will highlight several of my more thorough analyses of autogynephilia theory. Other writings related to this topic may be found on my Trans Psychology webpage.

The Case Against Autogynephilia [PDF link]
This is a peer-reviewed article that appeared in the International Journal of Transgenderism in 2010. It summarizes Blanchard's theory and the overwhelming evidence against it. I also propose simpler non-pathological alternative explanations that would explain Blanchard’s original findings better than his own theory.

Making Sense of Autogynephilia Debates
My 2019 essay in which I briefly summarize the evidence against autogynephilia theory, then explain the main reasons why many trans women so strongly object to it (besides the fact that it is incorrect), and the numerous rationales and ideologies that lead some people to continue to support and promote the theory despite its lack of scientific validity.

The real “autogynephilia deniers”
A blogpost I wrote in 2015 in response to James Cantor (one of the few proponents of AG theory who is still actively practicing sexology) wherein I list all of the major research and review articles  that together demonstrate that AG theory is incorrect. I also highlight numerous instances where anti-transgender individuals and organizations have cited AG theory in their attempts to invalidate, stigmatize, and slut-shame trans women.

Reconceptualizing “Autogynephilia” as Female/Feminine Embodiment Fantasies (FEFs)
A blogpost I wrote in 2015, and which was later updated for my latest book Outspoken (you can freely download that chapter here). This extends upon what I wrote in my 2007 book Whipping Girl, offering non-pathologizing explanations for why “autogyephilic fantasies” (what I call FEFs) exist, and why they are more prevalent in some trans subpopulations than others.

Psychology, Sexualization and Trans-Invalidations [PDF link]
A speech that I gave in 2009; an updated version of the essay now appears in both my latest book Outspoken and on Academia.edu.  An accessible analysis of why there is so much focus on trans female/feminine people’s (real or presumed) sexualities in the lay public, media, and in the fields of psychology/sexology, while their trans male/masculine counterparts remain under-theorized in these regards. I discuss Blanchard’s AG theory in the context of these more foundational stereotypes and biases.

Like I said, many other writings related to, or addressing, AG theory can be found on my Trans Psychology webpage and in my books Whipping Girl and Outspoken...

[note: If you appreciate my writings and want to see more, please consider supporting me on Patreon]

my Jesse Singal story

Many people know of Jesse Singal as a senior/science editor at New York Magazine. Within transgender communities, Singal has garnered a reputation (particularly over the last two years) for repeatedly promoting ideas that are in opposition to, or which flat-out undermine, trans people’s perspectives on issues that impact our lives. He has done this in the form of seemingly serious-minded articles, but also in more flippant or provocative exchanges from his Twitter account (which he recently shut down).

As a trans author and activist who disagrees with many of Singal’s positions, I have gone on the record (in my own articles and Twitter threads) to challenge some of those ideas and his framing of them. But in this post, I want to talk about my personal experiences with Singal, because they are rather out of the ordinary. While I’ve long found these incidents to be frustrating and baffling, I never thought to compile them all in one place before. That changed last Friday, when Katelyn Burns (who is also a trans woman writer) shared her personal exchanges with Singal in this Twitter thread. [btw, Burns was forced to lock her account for reasons explained here, but the thread has since been archived here and here.] While she had far more interactions with him than I’ve had, some of what she recounts very much resonated with my own experiences. So I figured that I’d share my story here (I will explain more about my reasons for doing so at the end of this piece).

new talk: Debunking Anti-Transgender Myths and Tropes

I regularly give talks at colleges and conferences on the subjects of gender & sexuality, feminism & LGBTQ+ issues, and activism more generally. I have just added a new talk to my booking page that some of you may be interested in:

Debunking Anti-Transgender Myths and Tropes
Attempts to deny or delegitimize transgender identities often invoke “biological sex,” make overly simplistic claims about gender socialization and privilege, and/or raise the specter of cisgender people (particularly children) being “turned transgender.” Drawing on her popular essays Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths, Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments, and Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates, plus her background as a biologist, Julia debunks these common myths and tropes, and instead forwards a more holistic understanding of sex, gender, and transgender experiences. An alternate version of this presentation, called “Biological Sex” and the Pathologization of Transgender People, specifically addresses how these same myths have shaped medical/psychological discourses and diagnoses.

A few other talks you will find on my booking page include:

• A Social Justice Activist’s Perspective on Call-Out Culture, Identity Politics, and Political Correctness
• Outspoken: Transgender Oral History & Spoken Word Poetry
• Sexuality, Sexualization, and Self-Examining Desire
• Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive
• Putting the Feminine Back Into Feminism
• Understanding Trans-Misogyny and Trans Feminism
• Activism, Language, and Differences of Opinion

So if you are affiliated with a college or conference, and potentially interested in bringing me out to speak, all the info you will need can be found on that booking page!

why my piece won’t be appearing in The Stranger

On Wednesday, June 28th, the Seattle news outlet The Stranger published an article called The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't. Amongst its numerous flaws, it gave credence to the notion that there is a “social contagion” to become transgender, and that this is a cause behind why some people eventually decide to detransition.

Back in 2016, I detailed both the biased thinking behind, and the potential harm caused by, this notion, in my lengthy and nuanced essay Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates (and in this follow up). Herzog reached out to interview me for her The Stranger article, saying she had read my essay. I was open to it at first, until it became clear to me that she was planning to legitimize that “social contagion” theory in her piece. When Herzog's article came out last week, I penned a blogpost called Stop pitting detransitioners against happily transitioned people, in which I pointed out the skewed framing and several (albeit not all) of the misconceptions that Herzog's article forwarded.

trans women are women! plus free book chapters & a NY Times interview

Yesterday I sent out my latest email update - you can read it via the link and/or sign up for my email list here. Here are some of the highlights:

I was interviewed in the New York Times as part of their Pride 2017 coverage - the article is called Julia Serano, Transfeminist Thinker, Talks Trans-Misogyny. You can read it via that link; if it's behind a paywall, here is a PDF version.

I wrote a new Medium essay called Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments. If you like the piece, please click the "heart" icon at the bottom of the article - that way more people on Medium will see it!

I recently made three chapters from my latest book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism freely available for download - all of them challenge psychological theories and diagnoses that needlessly pathologize transgender people (which is why I wanted to make them readily accessible). Find out how to download them (btw, the linked post also includes excerpts from my novel-in-progress).

I am able to make these book chapters and the Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments piece freely available thanks to my Patreon supporters. If you support me there (for as little as $1 per month) you'll have access to behind-the-scenes updates & polls, and unpublished writings & recordings. If you pledge at higher levels, you may be eligible for rewards such as free e-books, signed copies of any of my previous books, and/or choosing the topic of a future blogpost. So if you appreciate my work, please consider supporting me there!

Outspoken is a Lambda Literary Award finalist!

Earlier this week I learned that my latest book, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism, is a Lambda Literary Award finalist in the category of Transgender Nonfiction! It is the first time one of my books has become a Lambda finalist, so I am excited by this news, and extend my congrats to all the other finalists!

For those who haven't seen the book yet, Outspoken compiles 48 of my trans-themed pieces from over the last decade-plus, including many of my early slam poems, essays and manifestos written contemporaneously with Whipping Girl and Excluded (including chapters originally intended for those books), articles challenging DSM diagnoses and the psychopathologization of trans people & gender variance, plus some of my recent writings addressing differences within trans communities and approaches to activism.

Outspoken is available (in paperback & e-book) at Amazon & other online outlets (a complete list can be found here), and bookstores & libraries can purchase it through Ingram. If you belong to, or write for, a media outlet (print, webzine, blog, etc.) and you are interested in reviewing or publishing excerpts from the book, please contact me and I can provide you copies.

In the coming months, I plan to publish blogposts covering each section of the book (including sneak-peaks & excerpts). But in the meantime, here are some Outspoken-related pages you can explore:

• my Outspoken webpage includes reviews of the book, an excerpt of the Introduction, and a look at the Table of Contents.
• I created a free online trans-, gender-, sexuality-, activism-themed glossary for Outspoken.
• watch videos of me performing some of the transgender-themed slam poems that are included in Outspoken (more will be uploaded soon!).
• Outspoken includes two chapters originally intended for Whipping Girl, but which were not included in the final book. One of these was made available to my Patreon supporters (which you can read with a $2 pledge).

Finally, if you have read Outspoken and enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review of it on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites (this really helps with garnering attention for the book).

Thanks for listening! -j.

Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation (a follow up)

If you aren't aware of it already, last week I published an essay called Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates on Medium. It is a long-read, and my thorough response to recent mainstream op-eds and think-pieces coming out either for gender-reparative therapies and/or against gender-affirming approaches to transgender and gender non-conforming children. If you like the piece, be sure to recommend it (by clicking the "heart" logo at the bottom-left of the article) - the more recommends it gets, the more likely it will appear in other Medium readers' feeds!

In addition, German Lopez of Vox.com interviewed me about my Medium piece - you can read that in the article: The debate about transgender children and “detransitioning” is really about transphobia. (note: if you take issue with that title, I didn't write it - see Twitter thread at bottom of this post.)

I received a lot of positive feedback about the piece. And I can tell that it made some waves outside of the trans/LGBTQ+/activism bubble by the numerous vitriolic & blatantly anti-trans responses I have received - sadly, this is par for the course. However, there are two categories of responses I received that addressed aspects of the article that I perhaps could have explained better, so I want to reply to those here.

placing Ken Zucker's clinic in historical context

So an article by Jesse Singal called "How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired" recently appeared on NY Mag. I was interviewed for it, but none of what I said was included in the final piece. This is perfectly fine, of course - no one is obligated to use my quotes in their article. But I did feel that the most important point that I stressed (i.e., placing the current Zucker clinic debate in the historical context of the long history of gender reparative therapies) was not duly acknowledged in Singal's article.

Given this omission, I thought that it might be useful for me to share my responses to Jesse's interview questions below. I have removed Singal's actual questions (since I did not ask for permission to use them). But I did paraphrase them to give readers an idea of what I was responding to.

Reconceptualizing “Autogynephilia” as Female/Feminine Embodiment Fantasies (FEFs)

[note added November, 2016: This essay (with additional material!) now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. If you want to read that updated chapter, it can be downloaded here]

Note added 7-14-15: a follow up post (of sorts) detailing all of the recent scientific papers demonstrating that Blanchard's theory is incorrect can be found in The Real "Autogynephilia" Deniers.

In 2010, two review articles appeared in the peer-review literature: My article The Case Against Autogynephilia was published in The International Journal of Transgenderism, and Charles Moser's article Blanchard's Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique appeared in the Journal of Homosexuality. Both of our papers presented numerous lines of evidence that disprove the main underpinnings of autogynephilia theory, namely, the assertions that trans female/feminine-spectrum people can be readily divided into two clear-cut categories based upon sexual orientation and the presence or absence of “autogynephilia,” and that “autogynephilia” is the primary underlying cause of gender dysphoria and desire to transition in trans women who experience it. (Note: subsequent analyses by Talia Bettcher and Jaimie Veale have further demonstrated that autogynephilia theory is incorrect.)

Where our papers differ is that, while Moser continues to use the term “autogynephilia” to refer to sexual fantasies and patterns of arousal in which the “thought or image of oneself as a woman” plays a contributing role, I instead argue that we should no longer use this term for the following reasons:

Alice Dreger’s disingenuous campaign against transgender activism

an introduction added September, 2015:

This post started out as “Alice Dreger and making the evidence fit your thesis” (which can be found in its original form below). Dreger’s new book Galileo’s Middle Finger had just come out, and it contained her critical portrayal of the backlash against J. Michael Bailey’s trans-misogynistic book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Most people outside of certain transgender and/or sexology circles are probably unaware that this particular part of Dreger’s book first appeared in 2009 as an article in a research journal along with numerous peer commentaries—one of which was written by me, and most of which criticized Dreger for being highly selective with the evidence she presented and/or for blatantly misrepresenting trans activists’ concerns and motives in the process. So I initially penned this post to inform potential readers about those past critical reviews of Dreger’s depiction of this particular matter.

And I thought that would be it. I had no reason to believe that she had any kind of vendetta against transgender people or trans activism per se (although some trans activists certainly did think this). Frankly, my impression at the time was that she had a story that she wanted to tell about “activism gone awry and constituting a threat to scientific freedom,” and that her narrative would be easiest to sell if she played down the trans community’s legitimate concerns and played up a handful of incidents that seemed to bolster her case.

But now I believe that I was wrong. Not about Dreger’s disingenuous portrayal of the backlash against Bailey’s book—I stand by that assessment. Rather, now I do think that she has a vendetta against transgender activism, as she has since penned a series of articles wherein she repeatedly 1) criticizes ideas and policies that are forwarded by, and generally accepted amongst, transgender activists, 2) presents selective and/or distorted evidence (usually via “straw men” and false dichotomies) to bolster her argument, 3) points to instances where some trans activists have supposedly “gone too far” (in her mind, at least) in order to paint us as unreasonable and/or extremist, 4) ignores all reasonable and knowledgeable trans activists and advocates whose view points would illustrate that the topic is way more nuanced and complicated than she is presenting it, and 5) inevitably drops in a few comments to make it seem like she is “trans-positive,” or an “ally” or “advocate” of the trans community, when in reality the only trans people she seems to respect are those who buy into psychopathologizing theories about trans identities and sexualities.

crowdsourcing for instances where "autogynephilia" is used to sensationalize or invalidate trans identities - please help & share with others!

As many of you may know, over the years I have written a lot about Ray Blanchard's theory of autogynephilia, which wrongly argues that trans women are sexually-motivated in our transitions - I debunked the theory in the article provided in the link, and further discuss how it sexualizes and invalidates trans women here.  

I am currently working on a piece that (in part) compiles instances where people outside of science/psychology cite "autogynephilia" in their efforts to sensationalize trans people or to promote anti-transgender agendas and policies. 

I have a few examples of this in hand - most notably, from Sheila Jeffreys's recent book, one from an anti-trans Catholic organization, that horrible Rolling Stone article about Lana Wachowski published before she came out as trans, and of course, last year's New Yorker article in which Michelle Goldberg used the theory to slut-shame me. 

I have seen many more examples than this, but I have found them to be especially difficult to track down online, as the bajillion webpages and posts discussing and debating the theory itself overwhelm any and all search engine queries I have attempted.

So that's where you come in (hopefully!). Perhaps you know of articles, news items, or stories along this line? If so, please pass along a link, a description, or a few key words so that I can search for it myself. You can do so by:

1) leaving a comment below
2) Tweet it to me @juliaserano
3) email it to me - my address can be found here: http://www.juliaserano.com/contact.html

Thanks in advance! -julia

update on debunking psychiatric theories/diagnoses on trans people

So I *finally* got around to updating my webpage Debunking Psychological Diagnoses and Theories about Transsexual and Transgender People today. It includes PDF links to my article The Case Against Autogynephilia, a recently published article on the DSM expansion of Transvestic Disorder, and two still-somewhat-newish pieces about how the "Fetish Concept" hurts both trans folks and our partners.

You can check out the updated page here: http://www.juliaserano.com/TSetiology.html

In Defense of Partners

[note added January, 2017: This essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

This last weekend, I finally got around to reading Janet Mock’s recent essay How Society Shames Men DatingTrans Women & How This Affects Our Lives (note: there is also an excellent interview that includes her and Laverne Cox on HuffPost Live discussing the same issue). Mock wrote the piece in response to the media coverage and public backlash against DJ Mister Cee (a cisgender male hip-hop artist and radio personality) for his attempt to solicit sex from someone who he thought was a trans woman. Mock’s piece rightfully points out how the public’s shaming of men who are attracted to trans women—e.g., by insulting their manhood, or presuming that they are closeted gay men—undermines our identities too, as the underlying assumption is that we must be “fake women” or “really men.”

Follow up on DSM-still-considers-trans-folks-"disordered" post

First, thanks to everyone re-tweeted, re-posted, shared links, and commented on my Trans people still “disordered” according to latest DSM blogpost yesterday. The response has been overwhelming, and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to respond to people's comments and questions...

As I alluded to in that post, I was disappointed that the DSM's Transvestic Disorder diagnosis received so little attention at the time. But this latest interest/outrage encourages me that we may be able to work toward completely removing this diagnosis from the next revision of the DSM (DSM-VI?).

There are a few things that I want to add here as a postscript:

Trans people still “disordered” according to latest DSM

[This essay has recently been revamped (with additional material!) as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

This morning, I woke up and found my Twitter feed full of article links celebrating that transgender people are no longer “disordered” according to the DSM (that is, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - often referred to as the "psychiatric Bible" because it contains all of the official psychiatric diagnoses). The DSM gets revised every 10-20 years or so, and diagnoses sometimes get modified, expanded, or completely removed. The change that people are now celebrating is the fact that the previous diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) has now been changed to Gender Dysphoria.

Admittedly, the new Gender Dysphoria diagnosis is an improvement over GID for a number of reasons - Kelly Winter of GIDreform.org describes some of these improvements, as well as many of the lingering problems with the new diagnosis. Despite the remaining drawbacks (for instance, that gender variance is still formally pathologized in the DSM), many people seem excited that transgender people are no longer described as being "disordered" in the DSM. But the problem is that this is patently untrue.

Thoughts on the election and “Romnesia”

So it probably won’t surprise too many people that I will be voting for Obama in this year’s election. Like a lot of progressives, there are certainly a number of things the Obama administration has done (or not done) in the last four years that have disappointed me. He is certainly more politically moderate than I would like, but then again, I am registered as Green, so basically any president who gets elected will inevitably be to the political right of me.

My adventures in sexology (plus a Call for Submissions!)

My life has taken a number of interesting turns over the last ten years. And I am not talking about my transition here - if you would have told me 20 years ago that I would eventually transition to female, I would not have been especially surprised. However, if you would have told me back then that I would someday spend a great deal of my free time writing about feminism, and that some of those writings would be taught in gender studies classes, I never would have believed you in a million years.

The same holds true with regards to me being taken seriously in (some) sexology circles. I first became interested in the field as I was beginning to work on Whipping Girl (WG). Specifically, I saw a connection between how trans women and others on the trans female/feminine spectrum were sexualized in the media and how we were similarly sexualized in certain sexology & psychology theories. So, I did a lot of research on those theories and critiqued them in WG (specifically in Chapters 7, 14 & 17). At that point, I felt like I said what needed to be said, and I was ready to move on.

But after WG came out, I had a Michael Corleone-like moment: “Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.”

Why feminists should be concerned with the impending revision of the DSM

Originally posted on LJ 5-6-09

FYI, I just posted a piece called Why feminists should be concerned with the impending revision of the DSM over at Feministing.com. It's mostly about Ray Blanchard's suggestions to revise the Paraphilia section. Feel free to check it out if you're interested... j.