‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)’

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‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)’
(07 May 2021)
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An article about a study called ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’ (ROGD) is making the rounds again.  I wrote a brief comment about ROGD at the ‘Trans and Transition’ page.  I shall elaborate more about ROGD here in this essay.

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ROGD claims that the Trans person makes a sudden decision to Transition, has placed no thought or consideration about their Transition.

ROGD is a fraud, a false concept.

ROGD truly reflects upon the way a family is entirely oblivious to their Trans child growing up.

ROGD is an excuse for the Trans person’s family who refused to acknowledge and embrace their Trans child many years earlier; ‘rapid’ recognition for only the family, clearly not ‘rapid’ for the Trans child or Trans adult who had been experiencing it for their lifetime.

ROGD research are extremely flawed in many ways. They exemplify poor studies that gain media attention by reinforcing the CisHet narrative as the norm.  It is more comfortable for the Trans person’s family to believe in their ignorance than it is for them to examine their own internal prejudice.

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Allow me to share my experience about ROGD.

In my Trans experience, I was out many times – my entire lifetime, in fact.  My out Trans child presence was right in front of them – I was wearing my sister’s clothes, I was painting my fingernails, I was using my teen cousins’ make-up, I insisted that I grow my hair long – these events occurred from my earliest childhood through to my teenage years living at home with my father, my mother, my sister Kathy, my paternal grandmother, my paternal grand aunt, playing with my teen cousins Gail and Carole – all who observed my Trans behaviours in one manner or another.  How much more could I have been out!

My being out, my Feminine Protesting was precisely the reason why my father beat me.  Yet my family failed to actually hear what I was saying, failed to see what I was doing.

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I was out as a M-F Transsexual child at least from age 3 (1959).  My parents and my extended family called me a ‘cute little girl’.  My sister and I played house, played Barbie, painted each other’s fingernails.  I played with my teen cousins’ make-up when our family visited their family.

That environment would eventually change.  My parents divorced and our father obtained full custody of my sister and me by the time I was age 7 (1963).  My father began to beat me because of my Trans behaviour.  That continued throughout my childhood, my teen years, my years living at home as a dependent adult attending college.

Skip to age 18 (1974), the time when I count beginning my adult Transition.  My family did not want to hear anything about it, but they certainly took pleasure making their own gossip about me.

My father repeatedly demanded that I ‘talk to a priest’ that year when we lived at New Mexico, when I was age 21 (1977). Yeh?  His priest, our Catholic parish Pastor, was hard core anti-Trans.  The fact that my father made his demands documents that he was quite well aware of my Transition and sought to disrupt it, to stop it.

Christmas 1979 was strained. That year had been the most momentous of my Transition to that time.  I attended to several health care appointments to finally begin the medical portion of my Transition, my Team Sharon approved my Estrogen hormones:  I took my first taste of Estrogen in February, I took Norinyl birth control pills through Summer, I began my prescription Diethylstilbestrol by September.  My body started changing the way I wanted it to change since my earliest expectations.  Summer vacation to New Jersey with my growing chest showing under my T-shirt.  But my father sat me down and commanded me to keep my mouth shut with the family gathering for Christmas dinner – I was not going to test his ‘or else’ warning that day.

I had my first two surgeries at age 26 (1982, 1983). I was left to exclude my family from these events because my physician offered no counseling about my eventual Intersex diagnosis.  I had no idea how to explain my being Intersex to them when my medical team barely explained it to me; I would spend years doing my own research.  Sharing my diagnosis without any explanation was probably a ‘no win’ situation anyway.  My father snooped through my box of medical papers, presumed my first surgery to be something different (BA), and spread more false gossip.

After my departure from the Forest Service, I spent about two weeks with my father trying to get him to stop for a moment and finally listen to me (May 1985).  He refused to grant time for me to speak, he interrupted me to change the subject.

I finally began full-time at age 28 (June 1985).  My father invited me to a birthday dinner (July 1985).  What better way, better time, to present my true self to my father after all those years of strain!  What did my father say?

– ‘Why didn’t you ever say anything?  Why didn’t you talk to me?  Why didn’t you talk to the priest?’

My father reacted as if I woke up that morning and decided to put on a dress, nice as it was.

– He ignored my entire childhood and teen years of Feminine Protesting and suffering.

– He ignored all his abuse and all his beatings throughout my childhood, teens, young adult years.

– He ignored all the postal mail that came to our home addressed to me Sharon, particularly my correspondence with Stanford University Medical Center’s ‘Gender Dysphoria Program’.

– He ignored my name change at Social Security that drew his ire (1978).

– He ignored my changing body, my loss of facial and body hair.

– He ignored my Transition wardrobe that devolved into unisex female attire.

That’s my point from my experience.  Twenty-eight years and Dear Ol’ Dad still claimed to have no idea.

That’s why ROGD is not the Trans person, but the family and friends in their midst who deliberately chose to ignore the lifetime of events of the Trans person.

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Dear Reader:

Thank you for visiting this post today.

Please return for the next episode.

Please take note of the specific and the random memes and screen print images that may be attached to this article, that I present throughout this web-site.  They add to the essence of this post.

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Additional Resources:

I included a brief summary about ROGD in this article here at this web-site:

‘Practical Issues Of Trans and Transition’
(23 Dec 2019)

That same article is also available as a two-part post at Facebook, published around December 2019.  You’d need to dig deep for it at my Facebook page.

(https://slimandme.wordpress.com/practical-issues-of-trans-and-transition/)

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These references came from recent comments in social media:

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(https://juliaserano.medium.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-1940b8afdeba)

This is so skewed it’s disinformation. Among other things, its portrayal of the ROGD thing is complete BS. I’d refer your friend to Julia Serano’s article on ROGD and point out that if the article treats ROGD as if it’s legitimate or has any empirical basis then the rest of it isn’t trustworthy either.

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(https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/forget-the-moral-panic-early-treatment-for-trans-children-could-be-life-saving)

This is an answer published on the same page

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(https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-states-stop-interfering-health-care-transgender-children)

The American Medical Association and other major medical groups in our country state that affirming gender identity and providing care for trans kids is necessary for their physical and mental health.

This article, while focusing on the recent anti-trans state laws, mentions those trans-affirming policies.

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1.

(https://www.florenceashley.com/uploads/1/2/4/4/124439164/ashley_a_critical_commentary_on_rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria.pdf)

‘A Critical Commentary on ‘Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria’ (Florence Paré)

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A less academic discourse.

(https://psychcentral.com/lib/there-is-no-evidence-that-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-exists)

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(http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2019/02/origins-of-social-contagion-and-rapid.html)

‘Whipping Girl: Origins of ‘Social Contagion’ and ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’. (Julia Serano)

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The CPATH position statement (includes a fairly extensive reference list).

(https://cpath.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CPATH_ROGD.pdf)

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Arjee Restar is a Trans graduate student in the same department of the same graduate school whose faculty member published the original article.

(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1453-2)

‘Methodological Critique of Littman’s Parental-Respondents Accounts’ (Arjee Restar)

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An article published in the ‘Journal of LGBT Youth’.

(https://www.academia.edu/44057945/Deferral_The_Sociology_of_Young_Trans_Peoples_Epiphanies_and_Coming_Out)

‘Deferral: The Sociology of Young Trans People’s Epiphanies and Coming Out’ (Natacha Kennedy)

Pulls ROGD apart using empirical evidence from young trans people directly.

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