Talk:Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy/Archive 1

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Conclusions of original and corrected study

Original: Rapid-onset gender dysphoria describes a phenomenon where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood. ROGD appears to represent an entity that is distinct in etiology from the gender dysphoria observed in individuals who have previously been described as transgender. It is plausible that ROGD represents an ego-syntonic maladaptive coping mechanism for some AYAs and that peer group and online influences may contribute to its development. It is unknown whether the gender dysphoria of rapid-onset gender dysphoria is temporary or likely to be long-term. The elevated number of friends per friendship group who became transgender-identified, the pattern of cluster outbreaks of transgender-identification in these friendship groups, the substantial percentage of friendship groups where the majority of the members became transgender-identified, and the peer group dynamics observed all serve to support the plausibility of social and peer contagion for ROGD. The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate teens from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand rapid-onset gender dysphoria, its implications, and scope.

Revised: Collecting data from parents in this descriptive exploratory study has provided valuable, detailed information that allows for the generation of hypotheses about potential factors contributing to the onset and expression of gender dysphoria among AYAs. Emerging hypotheses include the possibility of a potential new subcategory of gender dysphoria (referred to as rapid-onset gender dysphoria) that has not yet been clinically validated and the possibility of social influences and maladaptive coping mechanisms contributing to the development of gender dysphoria. Parent-child conflict may also contribute to the course of the dysphoria. More research that includes data collection from AYAs, parents, clinicians and third party informants is needed to further explore the roles of social influence, maladaptive coping mechanisms, parental approaches, and family dynamics in the development and duration of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults.

Safrolic (talk) 20:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

According to the editor, the original conclusion overreached. Hence why the reviewers required the almost complete rewrite of the discussion. [1] It's completely contrary to what the journal says to claim the conclusions were kept the same, asides from the methods almost all of the paper was rewriten to hedge the strength of its claims.Freepsbane (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

And of course the methods and "results" sections would be kept mostly the same, those just matter of factually state input and output. The problem according to plosone was overreach in interpretation and conclusion and as the discussion and abstract show, the paper's conclusions have been dramatically rewritten and scaled back.Freepsbane (talk) 22:27, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Topic

This article is for the phenomenon itself, not the publishing controversy. The term has been discussed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Slate, the National Review, the National Post, the Guardian, and many others. It should have it's own article on Wikipedia. Miserlou (talk) 03:32, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

If this is about a medical phenomenon then you need to follow the guidelines: Wikipedia:MEDRES. Reviews and Clinical studies, not National Review should be what informs the content of this article. Anything else doesn't keep to our guidelines and risks giving the public medically questionable advice.Freepsbane (talk) 04:10, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Interviews

More letters of note and an interview that could be used for primary sources, don't have time to integrate these right now: https://quillette.com/2019/03/19/an-interview-with-lisa-littman-who-coined-the-term-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/ https://quillette.com/2018/08/31/as-a-former-dean-of-harvard-medical-school-i-question-browns-failure-to-defend-lisa-littman/

We need to decide if this is a medical page or a page about politics. If it is a medical page as this is desinated, then we need sources up to WP:MEDRES Does Quillete have peer reviewed clinical studies or peer reviewed studies for that matter? If the answer is no, then we can't use for anything on the medical topic, perhaps as statements on the political section if we make it clear that it is politics not medical. Also overciting Quillete and National Review, even if just for stuff clearly set out as politics runs the risk of WP:Balance problems. Statements from Brown University's president[2] And PLOSone's editor[3] that seem to contradict quillete should be cited and are just as significant.Freepsbane (talk) 02:33, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Reverting edits in the Correction section

My language of "After the review, a corrected version of the paper was published in March 2019, reframing its goals, methodology, and conclusions." was removed, called "weasily implied"Sourced at [PLOS], "However, we have also determined that the study, including its goals, methodology, and conclusions, were not adequately framed in the published version, and that these needed to be corrected." and in the correction, also at [PLOS], the full quote that was cropped to replace my line in the article; "Given the nature of the issues in this case, the PLOS ONEEditors decided to republish the article, replacing the original version of record with a revised version in which the author has updated the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion sections, to address the concerns raised in the editorial reassessment. The Materials and methods section was updated to include new information and more detailed descriptions about recruitment sites and to remove two figures due to copyright restrictions. Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article." It's misleading and POV to only mention that the Results section was unchanged, without mentioning that every other section was changed. That a quote mentions the need for it later in the section does not satisfy WP:DUE.

Also, please don't assume negative things of other editors. The "anonymous editor with an agenda" you mention in your revision notes was |Freepsbane and his agenda, like nearly all Wikipedians, is to improve article quality and make sure articles comply with the various Wikipedia policies. He's not trying to "trash this page rather than improve it." No editors involved here are trolls.

Thank you, I promise that my driving motivation is to make the sourcing in this article as rigorous as possible. That is of the utmost importance since this article is classified as a medical one which means our sources need to meet WP:MedresFreepsbane (talk) 03:42, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm restoring the tags for unaddressed issues, as well as the edit removing my line above. Safrolic (talk) 01:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Per WP:MEDRES the National Review article should not be cited to make medical claims. I suggest removing it and replacing it with one compliant. Preferably a medical review but if those are not available a peer reviewed journal.Freepsbane (talk) 01:55, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. Why was the Journal of Adolescent Health medref tagged?Safrolic (talk) 01:59, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

• The Journal of Adolecent Health publication is an abstract, I beg you to confirm this. Poster and conference abstracts are NOT peer reviewed. I have several of them (from seemingly "reliable" places like ASM) and my data was barely assessed, ergo it doesn't meet WP:MEDRES (no peer review). Abstracts are for extremely preliminary dataFreepsbane (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

According to the link itself[4] it is a Poster Abstract those are not peer reviewed.Freepsbane (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Also the letter of correction mentions extensive changes to conclusion and discussion, important sections for a descriptive study. Results and methods matter very little with polling data, it is interpretation and the letter says the original misinterpreted and so the interpretation (discussion/conclusion) has been changed.Freepsbane (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Also to give more context, reviewers ordering a rewrite of everything but the data is one of the most serious steps they can take. Usually extensive rewrites are just for major concerns that would have otherwise lead to rejection of the paper.Freepsbane (talk) 03:42, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe you, but do you have a third-party source on the topic (how serious extensive rewriting is)? It actually sounds interesting. Safrolic (talk) 10:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Will probably need to find a more specific one but here is plos’ take on it [5] rewrites are usually caused by flaws that would lead to outright rejection.Freepsbane (talk) 17:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:MEDPOP problem with introduction

The current intro is almost exclusively composed of quotes from the popular press. Since this article is defined as a medical article we have to correct that. WP:MEDPOP Guidelines are very clear that the popular press (which includes National Review, Slate and other non journals) are highly unreliable and should not be used to make medical claims. Whatever can be sourced should be linked to a replaced source and what can’t should be deleted.Freepsbane (talk) 23:45, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Also I’m uncertain if Zucker is a reliable source: the AAP recently completed a review and statement where they criticized him and his associates studies for having “validity concerns” and “methodologic flaws”, WP:MEDORG says the position statements of major professional organizations hold significant weight and if the premier pediatrics group says his research is unreliable, then I doubt we can consider his claims mainstream or credible.[6] One thing is certain, the popular press sites like NR or slate are not allowed to be used to make claims about the material facts of this condition.Our guidelines say they are too unreliable.Freepsbane (talk) 00:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I did my best to rebuild the intro with medically acceptable sources we can cite. As the guidelines linked say, the poster is a very borderline case and shouldn't be used to make major claims. And if it is used we must emphasize that it isn't peer reviewed and very tentative.Freepsbane (talk) 01:59, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I still am unsure if this page can be saved, per WP:MEDDEF a single primary source, in particular one which is equivocal about the existence of this phenomenon is not enough for a medical page. We would need many primary or a good secondary (Review in a Scholarly journal) to have a viable topic.Freepsbane (talk) 02:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Fortunately, this article is not "defined as a medical article". It is an article relevant to multiple fields and to other WikiProjects – there is no exclusive WP:OWNERSHIP of this article by WikiProject Medicine.

Accordingly, for any particular sentence of this article that explicitly makes a medical claim, it will make sense to apply the standards of WikiProject Medicine, and your diligence in this is acknowledged. For the remainder of the article, the general rules of Wikipedia (such as WP:RS) are applicable. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 04:26, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

The article is describing a hypothesized medical condition. It's a medical article, regardless of how much relevance it might also have to other wikiprojects. If it were titled "ROGD controversy" you would have more of a point. Safrolic (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Precisely, not only was this article from its foundation said to cover the medical phenomenon(see founding comment) but it is titled on and focused on what plosone describes as a hypothetical subtype of a medical condition. Ergo it is medically focused and unless you would discard all medically related claims, anything that covers the phenomenon is subject to rules like WP:MEDPOP. As our guidelines say: many people use these pages as medical guides so it’s is imperative that we source any medically related claims (even if they are about hypothetical subtypes of known conditions) with the highest quality sources avalible. Popular culture press per rules is only suitable for non medical claims such as biographical background.Freepsbane (talk) 17:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

That said if this page were not covering the medical condition or we if merged it with plosone we would not be so compelled to follow medical guidelines. Freepsbane (talk) 17:54, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Redirect

Following the discussions at

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman
• Talk:Lisa Littman #Biography, or article about a controversy?
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine #New ROGD Page Claims to Describe Medical Condition but Lacks Adequate Sources

I redirected this page to PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy in line with the consensus that I perceived.

It was reverted by Miserlou with the edit summary, DO NOT BLANK PAGES WITHOUT DISCUSSION. What are you thinking. I don't believe that sentiment represents the consensus expressed in the discussions above, so I propose that the article Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria should redirect to PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy. --RexxS (talk) 17:11, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

• @RexxS: I agree with Miserlou. In those three wide-ranging discussions with numerous participants, I searched for the word "redirect", and it was barely mentioned. I saw nothing resembling a consensus that the article should be changed to a redirect. The idea was raised by you, and support was expressed by two or three others (including the editor who proposed the failed AfD and created the section under PLOS One). The dozens of other editors who participated in the 3 cited discussions had clearly expressed their opinions already; their silence did not imply support or "consensus" for the new idea of redirecting to PLOS One.

Also, this article and the Lisa Littman article had very recently survived the above-cited AfD, which expressly found no consensus. Blanking both articles is, on its face, contradictory to that finding and to the AfD's outcome. Respect for the process would be better shown by improving the existing articles. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC) (rev. 18:10, 26 March 2019 (UTC))

• @Lwarrenwiki: But just about none of them supported the idea of having an article on an imaginary, non-notable medical condition, which is what you seem to want to keep. I agree I originally argued to delete the two articles and write one about the controversy. Writing the content of that as a section of the PLOS One article seems equivalent to me. Now if you scan the AfD for other words, you find:

  2 straight "Keep"s; 3 straight "Delete"s; and a "Delete and merge anything useful into an article about the ROGD controversy" followed by 4 or 5 endorsements of that. All but the "Keep"s argued not to have an article entitled Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. If you're arguing that the AfD should be interpreted as consensus to delete Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, rather than the compromise of having a redirect, I'll happily start a new AfD now. --RexxS (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  The closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman was "The result was no consensus. I recommend that editors continue to explore merging Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and Lisa Littman; it seems to me from the discussion that there might be enough notability here for one article, but perhaps not for two." Editors have continued the exploration by creating PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy. If that section contains all of the significant content of these articles – as I maintain it does – then your position that redirecting is contradictory to the close becomes untenable. It's worth noting that redirecting is not blanking. Nobody has argued for or done that. --RexxS (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I think its important to note that the ADF which found no consensus still suggested consolidating or merging the pages. Both of them closely relate to PLOS and while they might lack notability to stand on their own (for a junior academic with a biography of one event; or a medical page without adequate sources), the controversy and all the sources centered over the publication are notable enough to justify a section in PLOS.Freepsbane (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Also, I think @Miserlou: and @Lwarrenwiki: would be in favor of this move if they looked through it’s advantages: If we keep a medical article on ROGD then any content making medical claims or claims about the study methodology is severely constrained by MEDRES. That means a lot of articles they would like to cite like Quillette are limited in what they can claim since medical claims and evaluating biomedical studies are outside what is permissible in a medical article. Merging with PLOS would give them more flexibility and opportunities.Freepsbane (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I missed the AfDs, but would add my vote in support of RexxS's redirect plan. WP:1EVENT would argue that this material is best covered as an event and that we should not have articles for Lisa Littman or (as per WP:MEDRS) Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. Bondegezou (talk) 19:19, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@RexxS: The Wikipedia policy at WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT describes the nature of your edits as a "blank-and-redirect", and it does specifically call the first step "blanking". That is why I view your removal of content to be "blanking" – because it's described as blanking in the relevant WP:POLICY.

In the case of a dispute over a blank-and-redirect – and I regret that this is in dispute! – the same policy section provides recommendations for resolving the dispute. One of those is "restoring the article" (which is what I did), followed by "nominating the article for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion". You could take that step, except for the fact that we've already had that nomination and discussion on AfD, and it was closed today. It was closed with no consensus to delete. To blank the content of two articles that survived AfD is a failure to respect the outcome of the AfD. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 19:40, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Lwarrenwiki, you've made your point about what's happened, how we got here. How about we look at what to do going forwards? If you want us to "respect the outcome of the AfD", then we have to follow the recommendation of the AfD. That was to move from two articles to one. Keeping both articles as they are is not respecting that AfD outcome. Please suggest how you think we should move forward, respecting that recommendation. RexxS has made one suggestion; I think everyone's happy to consider a different suggestion. But what is your alternative suggestion? Bondegezou (talk) 20:20, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lwarrenwiki: You have twice now asked me to respect a close of "no consensus". That is nonsensical. An AfD with a "no consensus" close has no outcome and there's nothing to respect. If there was arguably no consensus to delete, there certainly was no consensus to keep. In fact the article could be renominated again tomorrow to seek a decisive outcome, especially as the work has already been done to create a sensible alternative, covering all the significant aspects of the topic at PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy. You should instead be looking at improving what is there if you can, rather than trying to keep two articles that have clear consensus against their existence. --RexxS (talk) 23:16, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with RexxS's proposal, and if Lwarrenwiki and Miserlou keep trying to prevent what I think a significant majority of the people involved are getting behind, we should take it to Merge Request. Significant information is covered in the PLOS One page section. Wikipedia is not a place to push a fringe theory as credible, and "survived AfD" being read as "should proceed without merging" is nearly as hard a spin on that discussion as these articles are on their subjects. Not counting myself, I saw 3 people arguing to keep it, 5 saying to merge the pages and retitle them to the controversy (Also not counting myself, or Freepsbane), and 3 saying to delete both pages as per nom. It's easy to see how closer said there was no consensus on what, specifically, we should do, but there's still less than 30% support on keeping them both as is.

@Sandstein: since we're working with your close, can you give us any further direction or take another look? Safrolic (talk) 22:16, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Safrolic: To be accurate, the only two editors actually arguing for the articles to be kept at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman were Miserlou and Lwarrenwiki. Carl Frederick (CFCF) initially cast a !vote of "Speedy keep" on the grounds that the nomination was pointy. When pressed on the issues, his response was "Rexxs — Then we simply merge it to the theory, without needing to have a discussion about deletion. I agree your proposal makes sense, but this seems to be the wrong place to talk about it." I suggest that is a long way short of endorsing a keep for these articles. --RexxS (talk) 23:27, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

• @RexxS, Miserlou, CFCF, Flyer22 Reborn, Masem, and Sandstein: I think that several !votes at the AfD for merge are being mischaracterized by supporters of a double blank-and-redirect as support for their preferred option. But in most of those merge !votes, the supported merge target is Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. A merger to ROGD would at least allow for the possibility of improving the ROGD article. Supporting a merger to ROGD is not the same thing as support for blanking two existing articles and redirecting them both to a small and space-constrained section of PLOS One. There is no consensus for the proposition that these two existing articles don't merit at least one standalone article. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 01:21, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
  • My !vote in support of RexxS' involved zero blank-and-deletes; none of the content in both articles is so egregious to require deletion - to be clear on my stance. --Masem (t) 01:45, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

To be clearer, do you specifically support either merging them to a stand-alone article titled "ROGD controversy", or to the PLOS One section? Safrolic (talk) 05:24, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• • @Lwarrenwiki: I think it fair to point out there was broad agreement that the ROGD article was non viable, or at least an article covering a medical condition did not have adequate sources to support itself. And according to the amended Littman paper this IS a hypothetical subtype of a known medical condition. There is no way to get around it, if you are making a page on ROGD the (medical) phenomenon, you are subject to our guidelines regarding medical content. And there we have a problem: per WP:MEDPOP mass media articles are unreliable sources for medical facts and evaluating studies. Also, per WP:MEDREV, to have a viable article you should be sourcing your content from scholarly secondary sources and by “secondary sources” they only mean things like literature reviews in medical journals, not news. There are almost no sources to make claims here, the few borderline ones are tentative and the journal vacillates. You don’t want a ROGD article, that forces us to be subject to rules that keep the articles you like from being used.Freepsbane (talk) 04:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• @Freepsbane: It's been said before, many times, many ways... your position on the strict application of WP:MEDRES & WP:MEDPOP is much more restrictive than those policies actually require, in this case and elsewhere. If you won't hear it from me, please WP:LISTEN to fellow editors who generally seem to be on your side of many disputes, and who were trying to help you by writing Special:Diff/889582996 and Special:Diff/889449031. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 05:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

He's pointing out there was broad agreement that the ROGD article was non viable, or at least an article covering a medical condition did not have adequate sources to support itself. You completely ignored that statement, and the sizable number of people who agreed with Freepsbane on the broad strokes of the proper application of MEDRS/MEDPOP. The fact is that if you want ROGD to be an article about a medical condition, its sources need to be MEDRS compliant. If you want the article to be about the controversy and the activists and the censorship, so that popular media can be used as sources, then you need to allow it to be titled "ROGD Controversy". You can't have cake and eat it too. Safrolic (talk) 05:44, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Notice you quote out of context to omit that there is solid consensus about applying the rules and that they are very clear if you look at quote about the unreliablilty of the popular press? I know WhatamIdoing meant well but as a quick quote of WP:MEDREV & WP:MEDPOP showed her claims about news sources admissibility were verifiably wrong. It was claimed that popular press articles were reliable secondary sources for biomedical articles however our guidelines say reliable secondary sources for biomedical articles are limited to “literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations.” they explicitly disallow the popular press and claim they are unreliable for establishing facts and assessing studies. As for the second claim: the letter of correction which claims littmans paper did not meet publication standards and underwent extensive rewrites is part of her peer reviewed arryicle. If you truly think that PLOS is so tainted that we have to discard part of littman’s peer reviewed study then shouldn’t we discard all? You can’t pick and choose. The same goes for this article? You say this article is about a medical phenomenon? If so we are subject to our regulations on medical articles and we have no reason to give you a special exemption. You can’t pick and chose. If it is medical it is medical and you have to abide by higher standards.Freepsbane (talk) 08:49, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Instead of throwing shade at everyone who suggests an alternative to an untenable medical page -and there is solid consensus on that opinion- you should compromise and promote your interests through a page we could support with the sources on hand.Freepsbane (talk) 08:53, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I still like RexxS's approach. However, if that is not acceptable, my alternate suggestion would be to move this article to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy and merge Lisa Littman into it. That leaves one article, as the AfD proposed. It would better satisfy WP:1EVENT and WP:MEDRES. Bondegezou (talk) 09:54, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I've been going through the article doing formatting stuff and it's not an article about a putative condition. It is an article about a controversy. So a move to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy seems to me the right step, at least for now. Bondegezou (talk) 10:41, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, do you no longer prefer RexxS's original redirect to the PLOS One ROGD section? Or would that still be the preferable outcome for you? Safrolic (talk) 10:47, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I have a mild preference for RexxS's original redirect. If that cannot achieve a consensus, I support a move to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy, and merging Lisa Littman there.

However, I also think we can move to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy sooner while we're still discussing RexxS's proposal or what to do with Lisa Littman. Whether it is a stopgap or an ultimate solution, I suggest it is a useful way forward now. Bondegezou (talk) 11:12, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lwarrenwiki: as you can see there is overwhelming support for redirecting. Instead of engaging in a counter productive attempt to discredit every supporter of the merge by accusing them of bad faith or out of context quoting the editor who suggested redirection to claim they secretly don’t support a redirect, you would be much better served by engaging with the majority to find a way to preserve your interests while enacting the consensus.Freepsbane (talk) 17:40, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Freepsbane: Please read WP:PERSONAL carefully. Your remark about an "attempt to discredit every supporter of the merge by accusing them of bad faith" is unsupported and incorrect. It is personal and offensive, in violation of WP:PERSONAL. More than that, it is puzzling – I see no such "out of context quoting", and I have made no statement that remotely resembles "they secretly don't support a redirect". I will assume that you have made that error in good faith; perhaps you would be kind enough to take this matter over to my talk page to be worked out amicably. You might start by clarifying your accusation by quoting me (in context) to identify the edit in which I allegedly "claim they secretly don't support a redirect". If you are able to show me where I said that, I will gladly apologize, and I would ask the same from you if it turns out otherwise. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 18:16, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I think he is talking about "I think that several !votes at the AfD for merge are being mischaracterized by supporters of a double blank-and-redirect as support for their preferred option", among other things. You also said, "If you won't hear it from me, please WP:LISTEN to fellow editors who generally seem to be on your side of many disputes, and who were trying to help you" which implies that he isn't listening to you; he is, and he's disagreeing with you, and he's got a lot more support for his interpretation than you do. You also mischaracterize the results of the AfD and RfC, both of which show a strong majority against keeping this page in its current form, or keeping the Littman page at all, which you have refused to acknowledge or reconcile with in any way. Your behaviour is counterproductive, and you would be better served by supporting a page move to ROGD controversy, because otherwise they're probably both going to get redirected to PLOS One. FWIW though, you haven't outright accused anyone of bad faith that I remember, and Freepsbane may have confused you with Miserlou, who accused me of bad faith for the AfD nomination. Safrolic (talk) 20:35, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Safrolic: Thank you for that response. I appreciate your thoughts, and the measured tone in which you expressed them here. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 22:24, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

and for the record I support the original plan which was to merge with the section on PLOS. However, what nearly all can agree on is that a medical page is untenable so a remedy to that if it were something else I also support.Freepsbane (talk) 17:44, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Redirecting a page with twenty different citations to a single sub paragraph in article of the journal where was the concept was once written about is a terrible, deletionist idea. I am totally fine with moving this page to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy, as it seems there are only a very small handful of proper scholarly articles on the subject, as it is very new. If there are more peer-reviewed articles about this subject published in the future, then the page title can be changed later on. Until then, it seems like most of the public discussion (of which there is undoubtedly lots) is around a) the academic freedom/publishing controversy, b) the controversy about the methods of the paper and c) the controversy around the phenomenon itself. So, Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy seems appropriate. Furthermore, everybody keeps saying WP:MEDRES (which is just a random list of resources) but they surely mean WP:MEDRS (reliable sources guidelines), which I actually just bothered to read all of. I don't think there's anything in MEDRS which conflicts with what we've done with this page given what's available in terms of proper secondary sources now, as long as we continue to use good judgement and clearly distinguish medical information with social commentary.

Miserlou (talk) 04:35, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Categories

This article is currently in only one category, Category:Gender identity. Should it also be in Category:Medical controversies and/or Category:Medical controversies in the United States? What about Category:Transgender and medicine? (I suppose it should continue to not be in Category:Sexual and gender identity disorders as that category seems limited to real conditions(?).) -sche (talk) 05:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

That last cat seems to include Blanchard's transsexualism typology which is surely just as controversial. Miserlou (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

On Poster Abstracts

So for the record JAH is part of the Society for Adolescent Medicine[7] and stuff on their conferences is published as "poster abstracts", these of course have never been peer reviewed.[8], which is the norm for near all poster abstracts. WP:RSMED#Other_sources makes it clear that poster abstracts are borderline sources, should never be used to make controversial claims and if cited we must note they are not peer reviewed and preliminary. I hope people can refer to their submission guidelines along with another scholarly source explaining how poster abstracts work to verify that just like nearly all other posters these are not peer reviewed. If those sources are blanked and editors insert claims that a poster constitutes a peer reviewed source, then we are better of following WP:RSMED#Other_sources and deleting the poster making controversial claims and instead resourcing them to the PLOS paper which at least is peer reviewed.Freepsbane (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, deleting the poster when it is used to make controversial claims and resourcing to a synopsis of what the paper says might be the safest option here.Freepsbane (talk) 01:32, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Also please find more of their poster guidelines here, [9] [10], including the year/conference Littman submitted to, as you can see, peer review plays no part in the poster process.Freepsbane (talk) 01:36, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Peer review, if you were wondering is when journals appoint experts in the subject you are publishing to assess your paper and make suggestions for how to improve. The reason they don't use such a system for conference and a panel/or single person okays everything that seems plausible and relevant is because posters are for preliminary data, and also because posters are submitted a short time before the conference and apointing reviewers for each poster and carrying out the review process is neither sensible for preliminary data nor practical as something you can do on a very short time frame.Freepsbane (talk) 02:11, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Also sometimes they let you suggest the experts for review and some people suggest their friends... Which by the way is how the peer review process can be short circuited. Irrelevant for this topic but it's best we all get an idea of how this works.Freepsbane (talk) 02:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You say: ""poster abstracts", these of course have never been peer reviewed.[11]". First, that reference is from 1987, so hardly proof of what happens now. Secondly, that reference clearly says that abstracts are reviewed. You go on to say that no peer review "is the norm for near all poster abstracts." That's not true: most abstracts at most serious scientific conferences are peer reviewed.

You then offer some further poster guidelines. But the 2001 one says, "Members of the Program Committee will review all submissions", i.e. it explicitly says there is peer review. The others you offer don't support your argument either.

You are right that WP:MEDRS discourages citing abstracts, but can you stop saying that this or any other poster is not peer reviewed?

If we were writing an article about a condition, I would agree we should not cite a poster abstract. However, where we are writing about a controversy and how it has developed, I can see there may be merit in noting the poster abstract as the first airing of the work. Bondegezou (talk) 10:04, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Again this is original research on your part. Nowhere in the guidelines or process does it mention peer review or appointing reviewers. The problem is you have decided you know more on this topic than the journals and guidelines who note peer review is not involved in the poster process. If you think them liars you can verify [12] ask anyone, including myself who has published posters if they had reviewers work on our posters, they did not. Posters are for preliminary data. And given that this poster is used to make controversial medical claims over a medical condition, I think it best I follow WP:RSMED#Other_sources guidelines and retrench all controversial claims to the PLOS paper. According to our guidelines, we can't have people promoting preliminary data like posters to the status of peer reviewed studies. Too hazardous for the public.Freepsbane (talk) 22:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC) [13] again, more from grad school resources, and conferences [14] [15] [16] explaining that posters are not peer reviewed. If you want to promote that poster to a peer reviewed study, find a source. Barring that I plan to obey WP:RSMED#Other_sources.Freepsbane (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I am not disputing WP:MEDRS or its application here. Of course conference presentations in medical research are usually a lesser form of research output that carry much less weight. I merely contend that you are inaccurate in comments made above.

Most conferences I've presented at have had submissions for posters considered by peers to decide acceptance or rejection. Id est, peer review. (You offer some links about late-breaking result streams, but those are specific streams distinct from how most conference submissions are treated.) To quote one of the links you offered above about the conference series in question, "Members of the Program Committee will review all submissions". How is that not peer review? To remind you, here's a definition of peer review from Wikipedia: "Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competences as the producers of the work (peers). " Members of the Program Committee are peers; they reviewed submission. Peers reviewing. Peer review. Bondegezou (talk) 23:46, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

A journal appoints reviewers to examine the validity of the experiments and logic. You’re talking about a committee approving any plausible research without any investigation into its validity. There was no peer review to validate the science, and our guidelines say we must be explicit about abstracts being preliminary and unverified. And at any rate this article is well served by sourcing all controversial claims to sources appropriate to such. A poster never should have been quoted to make major claims in the first place.Freepsbane (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree though, CHE did a very poor job at compiling quotes. All they give us are short snippets with no context. “We let the original results stand” is very confusing, it seems the editor is talking about the “Results” section (the polling), although the lay journalist seems to have taken it to mean the conclusions are unchanged (something fundamentally contradicted by the Correction section on littman’s Paper). These fragmentary quotes add very little.Freepsbane (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Does MEDREF/MEDRS Still Apply Post Move?

Since this article is now just about the controversies around the topic rather than just the topic itself, do we want to lower the MEDREF/MEDRS standards? There is still the big banner at the top of the page. Obviously, we'll still need to first include up to date information about the topic to adequately describe the controversies.

I don't know if there's any precedent for this, but I think if we distinctly differentiate the medical/scientific controversy, the academic freedom controversy and the political controversy then we can hold the different sections to different standards about what constitutes an acceptable source.

Also, as an aside, thank you to everybody who participated in this discussion. It got a bit heated, myself included, but I think the result was a good compromise. I got hot because it feels disrespectful when you work to start a new page with balanced sources and lots of citations, only to have it wiped out without discussion. This has happened to me on a few topics now and it's making me want to participate less in Wikipedia, although I think I'm actually happy with how this one ended up.

Miserlou (talk) 15:18, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

There's no need to lower the standards for sourcing, or to have distinct sections. Anything used to support information about ROGD as a medical disorder (or medical anything) needs to adhere to MEDRS. Anything supporting information about the controversy over its publication needs to adhere to wikipedia's general standards. Please be sure that you fairly and accurately present both sides in your sourced material, though. The text I wrote for the PLOS One section might be a good starting point for that. Safrolic (talk) 15:30, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Miserlou: I don't think the article needs a {{Medref}} tag any longer. It has served its purpose in attracting more editors to the article. So I've removed it, and we'll see if others agree. You don't need to sectionalise the sourcing, because MEDRS applies to statements, so any claim of a biomedical nature requires MEDRS-standards (wherever those claims are placed), so if, for example, we were stating the existence of a condition (even if we described it as a hypothesised condition), we'd need MEDRS sources. The narrative of how the controversy unfolded is adequately documented in multiple sources and doesn't need to met the standards demanded by MEDRS, although we would naturally prefer to utilise the best quality sources where they exist in all cases.

As for the article, I'm just as happy with this outcome as I would have been if it had all been redirected to PLOS One. I understand an article author's attachment to their contributions, and I can perfectly well understand your preference for the article over the redirect. However, as usual on wiki, if the idea of the redirect had not been explored by doing it, we may have spent even longer debating what we preferred in an abstract discussion.

I should say I'd prefer that the lead gave prominence to the controversy, as that is the meat of the article. I think the publication, criticism, and re-writing of the paper are more pertinent to a summary of the article than the detail of what the paper contained, but I accept that not everybody will agree with me on that point. --RexxS (talk) 17:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree, the first paragraph needs a thorough re-write now. I'm at work and can't do it myself right now. I shouldn't even be here!Miserlou (talk) 17:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe that maintaining separate sections has one distinct advantage: it is the simplest way to avoid future conflicts among editors. (That would be huge, wouldn't it?) If a newly-added sentence is intended to make a statement of medical fact, that sentence belongs in the medical section, and must comply with MEDRES. If the newly-added sentence is not intended to make a statement of medical fact, it belongs outside of the medical section. And if there's disagreement over whether any particular sentence makes a medical claim or not, the preferred solutions would include (a) rewriting the sentence so it doesn't make the medical claim, or (b) finding a MEDRES source and moving it to the medical section; either of these would be favored over removing content added by another editor. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 19:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC) rev. 19:42, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. We're not divvying up ownership of specific parts of the article. If you want to avoid future conflicts, start making edits that conform to Wikipedia's policies. Don't make medical statements without citation to clinical literature. Don't make POV edits. Don't get upset if someone removes a POV statement or something with a bad source, instead of trying their level best to make unacceptable material acceptable. If conflict arises, it's going to be dealt with according to policy- not based on whose article territory it's in. Safrolic (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Safrolic: It sounds very much like you're referring to edits I've made here, or to content I've added here. And that's rather odd, since I haven't made a single edit to this article – not yet. Apart from reverting the blank-and-redirect, it's also been close to six months since I edited the Lisa Littman article. My goal, in good faith, is to help all of us avoid having conflicts and confrontations that are in fact easily avoidable. By simply clarifying where any medical statements belong, editors will know which standard to apply for their sourcing. That's it, and there's nothing territorial about that. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

We just need to remember that according to our biomedical study on PLOS, ROGD is a hypothetical sub type of a medical condition. Any medical claims or advice regarding the medical condition, or attempts at reviewing the methodology of the biomedical study should be backed by what MEDRES considers acceptable sources. And of course as you note, every other premise outside the scope of medicine or medical research is not so constrained.Freepsbane (talk) 22:14, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think it's useful for editors to become aware of when they are obliged to use sources that comply with MEDRS, and when it's merely best practice (after all, using the very best, recent, independent secondary sources is a goal to aim for in any context). I don't think it's difficult to realise when one is making a biomedical claim, so I don't see the need to segregate article sections by whether or not MEDRS sources are obligatory. In fact, I'd much rather editors were given the freedom to develop an article from the sources they have in whatever manner is most natural. Splitting up sources so that one has to go into this section, and another has to go into that section seems to me like an unnecessary constraint on how an article should develop. --RexxS (talk) 22:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• One thing is clear: our rules are unambiguous that the popular press is not a fit source for assessing the findings or results or methodology of biomedical studies. Per WP:MEDDEF“Sources about health in the general news media should, in general, not be used to source content about health in Wikipedia articles but may be useful for "society and culture" content. Please see Popular press below.”WP:MEDPOP “Articles in newspapers and popular magazines generally lack the context to judge experimental results... News articles also tend neither to report adequately on the scientific methodology and the experimental error, nor to express risk in meaningful terms.” Citing a popular press source to claim "“the primary findings in the paper remain unchanged” flies in the face of our guidelines that brand such sources as unreliable for such applications. We can still cite him for quoting academics, or popular culture analysis but he is not allowed to review studies. At least not biomedical studies.Freepsbane (talk) 21:38, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
• Also, some editors have in error assumed that news stories count as medically acceptable secondary resources and therefore have more precedence over peer reviewed primary studies. However, our guidelines very clearly define medically acceptable secondary sources as WP:MEDDEF:”A secondary source in medicine summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources, usually to provide an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies. Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations.” A news site meets none of those criteria for a reliable secondary source, and again WP:MEDPOP makes it clear that they are not acceptable for assessing medical studies or facts.Freepsbane (talk) 21:47, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

• The article now quotes, in full, CHE's report of what Heber said. It is a statement attributed to Heber. Heber said it. If Heber didn't say it, or if CHE mischaracterized or distorted Heber's statements, it's up to Heber to say so and correct the record. Heber has not disputed CHE's account of what he said in the interview. CHE reported what Heber told them, on the record, as editor of the journal. We all have accepted Heber as a reliable source on his journal's review of this study. He said what he said. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 05:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The interviewer stated Haber "affirmed" Littman's statement. That's not a MEDPOP analysis. It's attribution of the affirmation to Heber, as an affirmation direct from the source. It stands unless Heber says he was misrepresented (which he has certainly had time to do). Lwarrenwiki (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

In that case, where is the quote from the editor saying PLOS affirmed her conclusions? I see nothing of the sort. Just analysis from the MEDPOP source that claims the study is unchanged. Instead of quoting sources our guidelines clearly say are unreliable for analyzing biomedical studies and results it is better we directly cite what the paper says.Freepsbane (talk) 15:00, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Interviewers routinely summarize and paraphrase their subjects. Doing this accurately is essential to their job; it's basic journalism. A transcript of the interview subject's exact words is not a normal requirement. Freepsbane, I believe you mentioned ESL, so you may not fully appreciate the meaning of "affirmed", compared to other words that CHE could have used. An affirmation is a positive statement by the speaker. (See Wikt:Affirm.) It is a stronger word than "confirmed", for example. And when CHE writes that Heber "affirmed", the meaning of that word is that Heber himself made a positive, affirmative statement. If inference or analysis was involved, a journalist would not be able to say "Heber affirmed". Lwarrenwiki (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

• The "Correction" section is becoming ridiculously long, and padded with reviewer comments that add negligible value. The volume seems more likely to obscure the actual outcome of this review. This paper was corrected. The restated conclusion and other revisions met the editors' requirements, after all complaints had been considered. That is established fact; after all, if this version had not satisfied the editors, it wouldn't have been republished. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 05:58, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
• The correction is part of Littman’s paper, if we want to know what the journal thinks and information about what the reviewers think it is the most reliable source. Of course rewrites satisfied editors, but the question is how much was rewritten? It seems most of the discussion and conclusion, they added alternate hypothesis as explanations and downplay the original favored hypothesis. Does that seem like unchanged? Who knows, my opinion doesn’t count, so instead we can cite the journal and other medically acceptable sources on the biomedical study and let people read.Freepsbane (talk) 15:00, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

• @Freepsbane: You wrote "Of course rewrites satisfied editors, but the question is how much was rewritten?" And I agree with you: That is an important question, if not "the" question.

It can be answered with an objective (NPOV) answer. Here is a comparison of the two documents, the old version and the corrected version. The two documents are 87% identical, plus 3% "minor changes" (e.g., verb tense, like "have been reporting" to "have reported"). The objective numerical answer is that about 10% of the study is newly added or substantively rewritten. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 16:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The proportion of words changed isn't necessarily particularly illuminating here. The right words in the right section can have a big effect on what the paper is saying. Bondegezou (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Correct, the citations, methods, and results (as in polling data not redone) can easily put you over 50% conserved so raw total doesn’t say too much. And that said, post publication changes of over 10%, especially when they are concentrated in the conclusion and discussion are pretty serious, especially when we are talking about descriptive studies. That’s what lab I’m in would consider a major rewrite, especially if it’s post publication. That said @Lwarrenwiki: has a point, it is original research for me, her, anyone of us to try and dictate on how extensive the changes are, and per WP:MEDPOP the laypress is no more suited to review a paper and it’s results. Like I said, safest is to cite acceptable sources or quote PLOS.Freepsbane (talk) 17:24, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed we need to avoid WP:OR. Quoting PLOS seems the sensible approach. Bondegezou (talk) 20:38, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Moving forward

I would like us to move away from criticisms of each other's actions and for us to focus on making the article better. Within that context, Lwarrenwiki, it would be appreciated if you could say what you think the way forward should be. I understand you have objections to a number of other editors' suggestions, but I cannot make out what you think we should be doing instead. Bondegezou (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• In response to the message left on my talk page, I don't really have anything to add to my closure: I can't see a consensus in the AfD, but consider it possible that one can be found here. If not, renomination remains possible. Sandstein 22:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Could you re-open/relist the AfD and come back in a week, so that we could try to reach consensus there instead of here, and save all of us another duplicate conversation of mainly the same points later? The discussion is clearly ongoing. Safrolic (talk) 22:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• @Bondegezou: Yes, that's a good idea. I tried to clarify a way forward at Talk:Lisa Littman, where I wrote:

  I support keeping this article, for the reasons discussed in my statements at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman and Talk:Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. For clarity: I oppose a merge into a section of another article such as PLOS One. However, if a new AfD review results in a consensus to blank-and-redirect this article, I would not oppose a merge into Rapid-onset gender dysphoria.

As applied to the present page: I would not be opposed to incorporating content from Lisa Littman into this page, and redirecting it here. I believe that the resulting page should continue to exist as a standalone, not as a section of PLOS One.

I also believe that we could resolve tensions quite amicably, if the resulting page is divided into three distinct and separate sections:

1. a background section about Littman, citing only sources that fully comply with WP:BLP;
2. a medical section that discusses ROGD and the results of the study (original and corrected), citing only sources that fully comply with WP:MEDRES; and
3. a controversy section that discusses the reaction to the study, the review and correction process, and the surrounding issues (politicization, academic freedom, etc.), citing only sources that fully comply with WP:RS.

Lwarrenwiki (talk) 22:24, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I think your suggestion has a lot of merit. But what is wrong with the PLOS subsection? The editors who worked on it incorporated all the key sources regarding this controversy.Freepsbane (talk) 00:48, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I regret that we don't agree about "all the key sources" being covered. One of the benefits of a standalone article is that it provides sufficient room for editors to disagree – without removing one another's properly sourced content. All editors can work toward improving the article, using the type of reliable sources that are appropriate and relevant to a given section. That cannot easily happen in a section of PLOS One, for two reasons. First, enlarging the section risks giving the section WP:UNDUE weight in an article about PLOS One. Second, there are aspects of the controversy that are only indirectly related to PLOS One as a publication venue, and are more directly related to another involved entity (such as Brown, Littman, activists, etc.). Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:07, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Page retitled to controversy

I have BOLDly retitled the article with User:Miserlou's support. I have not blank-and-redirected Littman's page here yet. If Lwarrenwiki does not respond here, or do it themself, I'll do that in the morning, and leave it to them to move content over from the page's history as appropriate. Let's see what the article looks like at the end of this and worry about overall notability then. Safrolic (talk) 07:41, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Blanked and Redirected Lisa Littman article

I've gone ahead and done that after much more time than I said I'd give it. It looks like notable content about Littman has already been merged over here by User:Lwarrenwiki, so I don't think it's premature. Hopefully this is a resolution everyone can be, if not satisfied by, at least only quietly resentful of. Safrolic (talk) 01:40, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Recent unsupported claims in Lead

Some recent changes to the lead were not an improvement, and changed a neutrally worded summary into one with unsupported assumptions. Before it said that the report was "controversial", which is true and well-sourced, but this was changed to "controversially hypothesized" which is not true, because the report was made through normal channels in an uncontroversial manner (i.e, in a journal; peer-reviewed; and published). You cannot say, "it's a hypothesis" because the report didn't hypothesize; rather, it reported results of a parents survey, so it was a descriptive survey, not a hypothesis. You cannot say, the report "explained a phenomenon" in Wikipedia's Voice because that makes the claim that there is a phenomenon to explain, which is far from clear, and which many critics say is not true. (Previously it said, "explain surveyed parents' accounts" and that is exactly correct.) You cannot say, "a phenomenon perceived by parents" in Wikipedia's voice, because you don't know what parents perceived, only what they reported on their surveys. (Since the parents were recruited from non trans-friendly blogs, they may have reported the official line, rather than what they actually perceived in their children, thinking it a justifiable means to a positive end.) All you can say for sure, is what the parents reported, not what they perceived. This is a controversial article, and words matter. Please take care when choosing them, especially when altering the lead. Mathglot (talk) 08:30, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I think we may be talking past each other here when we both largely agree. The principal issue with the article right now in my view is improperly presenting one person's theory with no clinical evidence as something more solid. I'm on board with your repair- mine was just a drive-by fix anyways. Safrolic (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Thanks for your edit. I think your version is a significant improvement after the recent round of edits (including my own tweaks), and your analysis of the newly-introduced wording is on the mark. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:44, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@Safrolic:, I agree. I'm thinking about how to deal with that. Stay tuned. Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Notes for a possible Histmerge

I was going to plunk a {{Histmerge}} tag on the article, and I started gathering the data for it, but it's not a simple cut-and-paste case. The article here ended up looking very much like the Lisa Littman article just before it became a redirect, but with all the moves, redirects, and possibly unattributed edits individually copy-pasted from the other article as a result of a merge, it's not at all clear to me whether WP:HISTMERGE even applies. So, for the moment, I'll just leave the notes here, and we can figure out what to do about it (if anything) later.

This article was created as Rapid onset gender dysphoria at 03:31, March 19, 2019 and renamed to Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy at 07:36, March 28, 2019, where it stands now. It appears to be an unexplained content fork of Lisa Littman, created 10:33, August 19, 2018, which simply should have been directly renamed to "Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy", but that's not how it happened: instead we had two articles running in parallel for a while. The Lisa Littman article survived an Afd started March 19, 2019, and finally became a redirect to Rapid onset gender dysphoria at 01:37, April 7, 2019 (later retargeted to the current name). Note that this article was created the same day the Lisa Littman Afd was launched, which was noticed by the nominator who added ROGD to the Afd.

Somewhere, I've seen a policy about certain articles being not subjected to deletion (even if blanked) when another article has content from it (maybe CWW?) because retaining this history is important. Maybe this case is in that category and a Histmerge isn't needed, but instead the Lisa Littman redirect needs an undeletable tag or whatever it is, due to its role here. Mathglot (talk) 03:39, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe Histmerge is applicable, after all. CWW says, for example if a new article has developed at the source page on a subject with related title—the situation should be addressed at the Requests for history merge for administrator attention. ::Mathglot (talk) 04:05, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Added {{R from merge|Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy}} at Lisa Littman. Not sure if that obviates further action here or not. Mathglot (talk) 06:55, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

My impression is that you've done all that's reasonably required to preserve the history, at least for now. It seems unlikely that someone with permission to delete pages would try to delete the Lisa Littman redirect, in light of the Rcat that you've added. And those of us who still have it on our watchlists would, I expect, have enough of a warning to intervene. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe you're right; perhaps nothing as else is needed now. I'll go see if there's a template we can put on this page, mentioning it; because eventually, this discussion will get archived. Mathglot (talk) 03:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Notes

Organization of reactions

The way the reactions to the original paper are organized in the article seems a bit haphazard, and I'm thinking about how to improve that. Some better parallelization, some consolidation of similar material in one place, or new subsections; perhaps with some additional reactions and/or sources, but mostly through better sectioning and structure, I think. Mathglot (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Just to confirm, is the concluding section (currently titled Social and political commentary) the area that you're talking about improving? If so, I agree with your criticism of the current version. It's definitely "a bit haphazard" and in need of improvement. Its content maintains NPOV, more or less, but it only skims the surface of the reactions. In the final paragraph, the cited examples are pretty well-chosen when looked at individually. However, the whole thing seems rambling and incoherent because contrasting examples are poorly paired with one another. (For example, in the sentences that are structured as "X, while Y", there isn't any theme that ties X and Y together; i.e., they are not opposite positions on the same issue. They're "opposite positions" that have nothing to do with each other.) And that's why I am completely on board with the approach you've suggested. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 04:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Reading over the section, one idea that stands out that would seem to help address Lwarrenwiki's point about odd pairing is: instead of 'pairing' "politicization of science by social conservatives" to the (kinda vacuous) "particularly concerning" quote, pair it to the "Orwellian correction" quote, which would have a theme of 'political pressure on science'. (The first "pairing", between 'a lie to discredit' or 'an explanation for experiences', seems to have an at least sort-of discernible / tolerable level of common thread of 'what is it / what is the purpose of it'.) I in no way want to discourage more drastic improvements, to the structure or the selection of quotes, I just like to suggest "minimally invasive" changes that could be done "in the meantime" because I recognize we're all busy volunteer editors. -sche (talk) 04:39, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

There are several ideas, not fully coalesced yet, but the most solid one is more parallel structure; I'm seeing an H2 section (not yet in existence) called, "Commentary" or "Reactions" or some such, with a brief intro (a sentence or two) and with the current "Correction" section renamed to "Criticism" or similar and moved as an H3 under Commentary/Reactions; then, a new H3 subsection, called, "Support" or similar, and grabbing the supporting commentary from WSJ, NR, and other sources, so they have parallel structure and opposing names, instead of having bits and pieces of reaction all over the article, with differing kind of section heirarchy that makes it hard to see what amounts to the "two opposing camps". I mean the "Commentary" section to be mostly non-professional stuff, so maybe it would be, "Public commentary" or similar; the scientific stuff should get its own H2, as all the trade and professional publications and commentary is a different kettle of fish, at least, in my view. There are some other thoughts, but that outlines what I thnk of as the main one. And yes, "Social and political commentary" would either be subsumed into that, or get renamed to it, and reorganized. Mathglot (talk) 05:00, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Would you consider starting work on the Commentary/Reactions section while (at least for now) keeping the Correction section mostly intact where it is? I do agree with you about its first paragraph, which should be moved into Commentary/Reactions. But leaving the rest of Correction under its existing heading would preserve and clarify a useful distinction: the reactions of the journal itself, and Littman's responses to the journal, are in a very different category from third party commentary and reactions. PLOS One and Littman are the movers/actors in the publication of the study, while opinionated third parties are merely observers or influencers. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 14:59, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Lwarrenwiki: Yes, sure, these were all just preliminary ideas on my part, and I hadn't really thought it all through yet. As you say, no need to remove the whole Correction section, and what you say makes sense. Mathglot (talk) 17:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Thematic vs. chrono

So, I've started a "Reactions" section, per above. Feel free to refactor, undo, move stuff around, whatever; although be aware that it's in an intermediate state, so there will be some choppy segues where stuff was moved, possibly some duplication, and other rough edges for a while. One of the things I'm noticing, is that while I think the thematic organization is needed and will be helpful, it's hard to put that in context without a sense of the chronology as well. I think that's one of the things that was troubling me with the previous structure, which was generally more chronological, that you needed the thematic approach; but if it's all thematic and no chronology, that doesn't work either. So, I think you need both, but without too much duplication.

I'm thinking about how to do that, but I think maybe a brief chronology section, maybe a bulleted timeline or something. Doesn't have to list every time some pundit said something, but just the general flow: publication should probably be the first bullet, whatever the intial responses were as bullet 2, the Brown website removal number 3 (I think), then four: kicking off the academic freedom controversy, and then maybe a bullet mentioning the culture war opinions on all sides, then the PLOS republication, and finally reaction to that. Or however it breaks down, as a sort of quick, chronological overview, to put the detailed information in the rest of the article in better context. What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 19:22, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Hm, I've just noticed what I think is a problem in the article, where it's confusing about the sequence of events. Both the lead and the "Correction" section seem to imply that the term first came about in 2018 at publication, and that the first significant reaction post-pub, was criticism by transgender activists. The first is definitely not true (the three blogs were using it in 2016) and I'm not sure if the second is true, although I'm still trying to figure out the sequence. I started to look at the chronology a bit in sources, and by the time of Serano's comment on Medium (22 Aug) there were already numerous op-eds posted about it (according to her; e.g. The Globe and Mail, National Post, and National Review). So Serano's comments six days post-pub, actually follows those. Still trying to figure out if other transgender activists reacted to publication before those editorials. Mathglot (talk) 20:38, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Littman first used the term ROGD publicly around 2016, in the headline of her posts soliciting parents for the survey. (That's mentioned in the cited interview, and the posting itself is cited and linked in the PLOS One section on ROGD.) People who saw it on those websites picked up the term and started to use it, and it began spreading from there, even before Littman had published the abstract for the study. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 03:31, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I've learned. The article is unclear about that; starting a Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy/Archive 1#Terminology section, and moving parts of the article that refer to coinage there, and will add some new material eventually to clarify the point. Near as I can tell so far, it started out as s descriptive term for what her survey was investigating, i.e., "rapid onset of gender dysphoria" which was used on those websites, as you point out (and her 2017 JAdoHealth article still calls it that way) and then somewhere in 2017-18 it became "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria", without of, which makes it sound more like a disorder of some sort. It's a subtle change, and I don't think there's been any RS commentary about dropping the "of" so we can't put it in the article, but it's interesting background. Mathglot (talk) 01:58, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

"the term from the point of view of parents is not new"

Mathglot, thanks for your good work adding professional reactions. I think the following clause is a little garbled, though: bias based on the fact [...] that the term "rapid onset" from the point of view of parents is not new because teens often delay coming out. Is this intended to say something like [...] that the term "rapid onset" is only from the point of view of parents that the dysphoria is new, but teens often delay coming out or [...] that the term "rapid onset" is not accurate because teens often delay coming out? -sche (talk) 09:28, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, editing past my bedtime. Can you help fix the wording? And maybe shorten it, if it seems worthwhile? Yes, it's the perception of the parents, because the kids are basically fearful to tell them, but may have been thinking about it for a long time. Not so dissimilar in this analysis as when a gay youth comes out to their folks; big bombshell for the folks, but the child has probably been ruminating about it for some time. Can you fix it for me? It's supposed to be paraphrasing the list given in the source, towards the bottom. There was also something in the source about the hesitation among the teens to tell them being quite justifiable, given that their folks were browsing transphobic websites, but that seemed too much or not necessary for the article. Mathglot (talk) 10:51, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Section 'Status of ROGD'

Littman's opinion in section #Status of ROGD should not be the only opinion about whether such a diagnosis/condition/syndrome exists or not. Pretty sure I've seen at least a couple of other opinions about its existence by medical sources; I'll go look, and add them. If Littman's assessment of its status is mentioned at all, it shouldn't be the first one listed, imho. Mathglot (talk) 07:22, 3 June 2019 (UTC) This isn't the one I was thinking of, but it's a start. Not medical source, though. Mathglot (talk) 10:53, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Mathglot: #Status of ROGD isn't an opinion or commentary section, and Littman's statement isn't quoted as "the only opinion". It is the author's statement published in PLOS One with the corrected study, and it's quoted because there is no controversy about the factual nature of what it says. I'm not aware of a source that contradicts the quoted statement. I'm aware of opinion pieces that make similar points much more forcefully, but it would be redundant (at best) to cite vehement opinions by third parties on a point where there is no actual dispute between Littman and the study's critics. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 19:22, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I do, however, want to move the paragraph quoting Angelo Brandelli Costa back where it was, directly under Littman's statement. This is because Costa was writing for PLOS One as one of the journal's formal reviewers. His comment was published alongside Littman's corrected version (not as a response at a later date), which I believe makes it part of PLOS One's post-publication review, rather than an uninvolved third party's reaction or commentary. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 20:07, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I moved it back, but it wasn't clear (to me, at least) that he was writing for the journal formally; it only calls him a "reviewer", which I assumed could've been anybody. That's why I moved it away in the frist place. Can you alter the wording to make this clearer?

Also, still not crazy about the section title; maybe "status of the diagnosis" or "..hypothesis" or "..results", or something would be better. I think what I don't like about it, is the use of 'ROGD' in the section title, in Wikipedia's voice, implying it's a thing, whereas the entire content of the section is pointing out that it's not a thing; at least, not yet. So, a mismatch between the header, and what it says. Even, "Lack of status of ROGD" would be better (I'm not proposing that!). But you see what I mean. Mathglot (talk) 20:27, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the move, and I do see what you mean about the need for some wording changes. I've got to give the section heading some more thought, because a good NPOV solution hasn't yet leaped out at me either. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 20:53, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Combining #Status into #Terminology seemed like a pretty reasonable way to go about this, although I acknowledge that the heading "Terminology" is a little bit vague, in context. (Perhaps we might later come up with a section heading that's more fully descriptive.) As I see it, the combined section's purpose isn't to provide a definition of ROGD, but rather to provide the term's history and to correctly categorize the term. It can be categorized, in Wikipedia's voice, as a hypothesis because all reliable sources (Littman included) are in agreement that ROGD is a hypothesis and not a diagnosis at the present time. Costa's opinion is relevant on why it falls short of being a diagnosis; i.e., what would be needed to change that. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 04:08, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Check Wikipedia

Hi Mathglot,

I wrote on your talk page before. Because you haven't seen it here again on the talk page of the article:

The WikiProject Check Wikipedia has defined errors which should be cleaned, e.g. ID 104 Unbalanced quotes in ref name or illegal character. If you don't agree with that definition talk with the responsible people of WP:CHECKWIKI about a change of that definition before reverting edits according to that error lists. --GünniX (talk) 05:37, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

First, that’s not what your changes were about, they were meaningless white space changes and underscore changes, and meaningless insertions of quotation marks in named refs that were perfectly satisfactory and policy-compliant before your change. Your AWB run probably didn’t notice that. Furthermore, the WP:BURDEN is on you to demonstrate why your change is an improvement; it is not incumbent on editors here to go argue with some project about what their preferences are.

Your change amounted to a pure, stylistic preference in the wikicode with zero effect on the rendered page, with no policy basis. This is not a beneficial change. Please stop making changes to this article which do not improve it, and please do include an edit summary with your edits, describing briefly what it was and how it improves the article. Your edits did not improve the article, and were reverted. Your rerevert is contrary to WP:DR and WP:BRD. Anything some project had “decided” is not binding here if it is not conformal to Wikipedia policy, and there’s no need for anyone here to go argue with anybody there about what their preferences are. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 06:07, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

AFAICT, the change from a link with underscores to a (AFAIK more common) regularly spaced link was OK, and fixing the imbalanced quotation marks on the GDA-2018 ref seems downright desirable, even if the mismatched version apparently still works, at least in this iteration of the software. (I recall when the software was changed and e.g. mismatched noinclude and includeonly tags broke.) While I can understand that not everyone cares to spend their limited volunteer time on tiny gnomish changes, I must admit I'm mystified to see them stridently undone and opposed. Is there some backstory I'm missing?? I would support restoring the edit. And FWIW, "ref name" seems (to me, at least) like a tolerable if terse summary of the main (and IMO useful) thing the edit was doing, to which the other "best practices"-like fixes seem incidental. As it happens, I recently made a spate of copyedits with the even terser edit summary "c/e", fixing instances where people had written "etc.The" without a space (which in turn was spotted by WP Typo Team Moss), and sometimes fixing other things along the way... -sche (talk) 07:02, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

You're right about the gda-2018 ref with mismatched quotes; I fixed that. I’ve had my say; the rest are unneeded. Mathglot (talk) 10:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Working group comments

Lwarrenwiki has removed the following sentence from the lead: In September 2018, the Gender Dysphoria Affirmative Working Group (GDA) released a statement describing the paper as "methodologically flawed and unethical". Lwarrenwiki cited WP:DUE, WP:NPOV and MOS:LEADNO. I noted that the sentence is the only comment in the lead about the validity of the study made by professionals and therefore important to include. To questions of due weight and LEADNO, it's given a lengthy paragraph in the body and rightly so, as it's a source from a significant working group supported by (about) 50 professionals. To questions of neutrality, the statement is probably attributed. I think the sentence should be re-added.

As for the other working group mentioned in the article, the GD Working Group, I was about to suggest that perhaps a sentence from their statement should be added to the lead until I looked more closely at the source. It's one paragraph with no attributed author. The working group and the statement still sounds significant enough to include, in my opinion, but it's given far too much weight in the body already. It's quoted almost in full, in contrast to the much lengthier GDA letter of which a much, much smaller proportion is quoted. I suggest we cut the GD paragraph down to:

The Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria (GD) Working Group, a group of professional clinicians and researchers, stated that ROGD "warrants further study." Noting that many people with gender dysphoria also have mental health disorders, they further commented that there "may be elements of social contagion at work" due to websites about transgender issues.

— Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 14:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

The reasoning provided above is too result-oriented to be convincing to me. It states that GDA's opinion is "important to include" in the lead, because it is "the only comment in the lead about X made by professionals", but that does not justify why the GDA's POV would deserve more weight than other opinions held by different professionals. It concedes that due weight in the lead should be in rough proportion to relative weight in the body, and then suggests that a paragraph in the body describing a different professional opinion should be cut shorter, in order to justify excluding the second opinion from the lead. (That would be a case of the tail wagging the dog. Or since the lead is up front, maybe it's the nose wagging the dog. )

I see no evidence that GDA is an especially "significant" working group, either in its own right, or compared to the other group. A working group could be called "significant" if its work product was shown to be influential or consequential. But as a group, GDA hasn't produced any visible work outside of its own self-published website. I found no scholarly publications that cite or mention this working group. The GDA's letter to the editor of Psychology Today wasn't even published by Psychology Today.

GDA appears to be nothing more than an ad hoc group of individual members who agreed to sign a letter and endorse a website, in support of a shared cause. That wouldn't be improper or uncommon, and it may apply equally to both of these self-designated "working groups".

I could potentially support any number of compromise edits, such as mentioning a range of opinions in the lead, or cutting both working groups from the article. I think the best available choice would be to leave both working groups out of the lead. That gives no undue weight to either POV, and returns the lead to its WP:STATUSQUO before the July 8 edit. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:STATUSQUO is about user conduct; once discussion is had it becomes irrelevant, and we decide based on consensus. You're completely misconstruing one sentence of my comment as some sort of rigorous argument rather than me just describing my thought process. I went to look at the body to see what the lead should summarise and then noticed that a paragraph in the lead was violating WP:UNDUE. My suggestion is that we correct that violation and this is unconnected to my discussion about the lead. I grouped the two concerns because I thought it would be useful to discuss them both together, as they're both about working groups, but perhaps that was confusing.

I'm not saying that the GDA deserves more weight than other professionals; rather, the open letter has the weight of 50 professionals whereas it's not even clear that the GD source wasn't just written by a single person. I actually don't believe it matters whether the working group is significant—the open letter is significant because of its signatories. But if you want to delve into the working group's "work product", our own page on the subject says A working group's performance is made up of the individual results of all its individual members. As Safrolic says, there are many notable experts in the group.

If you have more context for the source that would be useful, but on its own a one-paragraph page hosted on a working group website doesn't match up to the weight of a lengthy and thoroughly-cited open letter supported by 50 academics. What I'm arguing is precisely the opposite of "some professionals' opinions get more weight than others", by saying that a source endorsed by 50 professionals is weightier than an anonymous paragraph written by some members a working group. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 22:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Lwarrenwiki: any further comments? @Anyone else: more opinions would be helpful. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 21:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Both Working Groups likely fail WP:MEDORG criteria as reliable medical sources; Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria medical positions are fringe and in opposition to pediatric consensus

So a section has been constructed on the viewpoints of medical organizations. We have guidelines concerning how to cover organizations in WP:MEDORG, a quick check will show that while professional groups like WPATH and AAP easily meet this criteria, both of the smaller working groups listed likely do not. This is of extra concern with Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria as a check of its editorial statements shows it frequently publishes claims in opposition to the treatment and scientific consensus adopted by the major medical organizations.[17][18] WP:MEDRS would tell us that the guidelines created by national organizations are very reliable and a good benchmark of consensus. Is a site that fails WP:MEDORG and who's publications are in avowed opposition to the consensus a medres compliant source? I don't think it is and the rest of the editors along with project med should consider what we will do with these small groups, particularly if their positions are fringe.Freepsbane (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

A big reason we have WP:MEDORG is that presenting claims as "professional commentary" and the views of "medical organizations" when many of the groups are small and don't meet the criteria for inclusion can mislead the public about the medical consensus and what treatments are supported by the vast majority of doctors. Both groups are quite small and don't meet WP:MEDORGlike how WPATH does. Additionally, given GDWG's disputes with the recommendations and findings of Endocrine Society and American Academy of Pediatrics among others, it not only lacks the criteria to be a medical source, but also would appear to fall into Wikipedia:Fringe. We shouldn't give undue weight to a source that doesn't meet medical source criteria and is in contradiction with the national organizations.Freepsbane (talk) 22:53, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Per your reasoning, I've removed both working group paragraphs for the time being. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 00:54, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

This removal was premature. Remember that MEDORG does not prohibit opinion, it specifically calls out the fact that organizations may disagree. It merely cautions against undue weight, and if that's a factor here, then the sections should be trimmed or adjusted accordingly.

Remember also this basic fact about the article: this is not the ROGD article; it is the ROGD controversy article. Opposing viewpoints are what this article is all about, and why it is named the way it is. There's no call to eliminating viewpoints, because they are, or aren't, similar to that of other reputable medical groups, or with organizations devoted to the central controversy involved in the article. There might be other reasons to eliminate them, but that's not one of them. Mathglot (talk) 11:34, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Mathglot's comment. I'm about to make one small edit, changing two or three words (for minor issues of NPOV or VOICE). But primarily, I want to thank Freepsbane and -sche for their constructive edits in the past week. It looks to me like there's an emerging consensus on the article's current discussion of the two working groups, and I'm okay with it too. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 22:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Correct Mathglot,WP:MEDORG does not prohibit opinion, it merely states clearly that small groups like these are inadmissible as medical sources. My suggestion is that they be moved to social and political commentary. As we can agree, they might not be medically acceptable sources but they can have valid opinions. Another reason why you might want to do that is that MEDORG explicitly cautions against giving small groups undue weight. If we leave the two groups in a medical section, the guidelines would either call for their removal, or truncation to sentence length. When it comes to delivering medical information we are supposed to deliver disproportionately large attention to the main organizations and the medical consensus WP:VALID should apply in this situation./ As an addendum, I just looked over the current shortened versions. If no consensus for further changes can be found, I would think its acceptable as it is. Freepsbane (talk) 03:04, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

And likewise thank you to Lwarrenwiki, Bilorv and all the other editors here. I agree, the article looks pretty good thanks to everyone else's hard work. Freepsbane (talk) 03:07, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Freepsbane:, thanks for making that comment; it reminds me that I wanted to say something similar. I've had disagreements ("run-ins" is too strong a word) with pretty much everyone here, but I've been impressed with how the end result of it all, was pretty much always in the direction of a better article. And I'm talking about the history all the way back to the beginning of the Littman article, and all the twists and turns since. I also know what it feels like to get reverted, it stings. Even if you end up reflecting afterwards and agree with the outcome (and I'm not making any assumptions on that score) it still does, so, I wanted to particularly thank Bilorv at this point for their contributions, and look forward to more of them. This is an article on a controversial topic, and I think the discussions have worked really well, here. Which isn't to say we're done, by the nature of a Wiki, we never are; but it's been great, so, kudos to everyone; you're a great bunch..

@Mathglot: Agreed again. I know that I've learned some valuable lessons about WP:CONSENSUS and WP:AGF here, and I'm probably not the only editor who can say that. Among other things, I've learned (to my initial surprise) that when I make the effort to hold back an impulsive response to another editor's changes, and instead calm myself down and wait a few days to see what happens, I can trust in others to take constructive steps. Different from mine, but still constructive. This is a good feeling. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 14:47, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

So, as you saw, I tried to condense the content a little (because I saw given thea number of threads on this talk page arguing that too much weight/space may be being given to one or both working groups), but fwiw I didn't have time to look into whether the second working group is fringe (as suggested above), and it's possible the space given to them (or both groups, though compare the section above this on their differences) may need further reduction and/or relocation. I do agree with Mathglot in appreciating the critical perspectives you've all brought to this article. -sche (talk) 03:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Professional commentary sources

Let's take a careful look at this section, particularly the second paragraph. Follow the link and look at the cited source. That's a blog, and it's being given greater weight in the article (a long paragraph of its own) than numerous more reliable published sources. It's clearly self-published, and it makes personal accusations that go beyond the sources it cites, and that are contested elsewhere. And we're reporting it all as "fact" in Wikipedia's voice. This is a problem. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 12:31, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

This is a professional association of experts, who signed a group letter under their own names. Of the individual experts, the first four I looked up (Elsa Almås, Erica Andersen, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, and Cianán Russell were all notable experts, and it looks like they're far from alone. Self-published sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. This was produced by dozens of them. Safrolic (talk) 07:19, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Although I am not convinced, I will attempt in good faith to address problematic content with specific edits, rather than by removing it a second time. To begin addressing issues of WP:NPOV and WP:WIKIVOICE in this paragraph, I've edited sentence-by-sentence in hope of reaching a consensus. Lwarrenwiki (talk)

Yeah, I can't do this. @Mathglot and -sche:

Of the four experts in the open letter that Safrolic looked up, Almås and her husband Benestad have been investigated by authorities in Norway for treatments that are not within the scope of directives of the Health Authorities. The foremost experts on research, investigation and treatment of GD in Norway, at the Rikshospitalet, Oslo, are strongly sceptical of Almås' and Benestads adolescent investigations and treatment and have warned (in the Norwegian Medical Society Journal) for a development where treatment would be delegated to groups such as their who lack the Medical and Research knowledge base required. Furthermore, the group under Almås and Benestad (who has been active in research for decades) haven't published a single peer reviewed article (as listed by Medline) on gender dysphoria, and Benestad (who heads the group as "Professor" at the Univ Agder, Norway) is a coauthor of, sum total, one single peer reviewed paper (in a completely different field to his activity). On brief inspection there are many highly controversial signatures in this list of the open letter. That Safrolic in good faith judges these to be experts highlights the problem of relying on "Professional commentary sources" on the topic of Gender Dysphoria. It is generally accepted to be an ideologically coloured medical field with little evidence based treatments and doctrines. Such experts letters are subjective and not reliable for opinions on medical and evidence based aspects of Gender Dysphoria.KoenigHall (talk) 21:48, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to this page@KoenigHall: while your allegations against these clinicians are interesting and I'd be happy to read your source please be aware that medical information is governed by WP:MEDRS. If you plan to add content related to the validity of a school of thought, you should support your claims with reviews from medical journals. Per WP:MEDPOP you can't just say Benestad and all colleagues are incompetent or cite a news article claiming such, you have to find an editorial in JAMA or the like alleging such. The closest example to this I can find would be position statement from the AAP[19] critical of Zucker and the other members of the GD Working Group's research and methods, and even then it isn't too consequential. While I personally think the GDWG's ongoing[20] dispute with mainstream organizations means we should be cautious it doesn't matter, neither the GDAWG nor the GDWG are large enough to meet WP:MEDORG status and the current consensus is to leave both in their current truncated form.Freepsbane (talk) 22:08, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

As a newbie here I appreciate your comments on the important principles. Please note I have not concluded on the competence of Benestad and Almås. You may judge this implicit but, for the record, those are your explicit words. Competence and expertise are different things in particular when it comes to division on consensus of theoretical knowledge, research and clinical practice. My comment was to highlight the (exceptional in my opinion) ambiguity and subjectivity in comments on GD I read in this TALK page. That the group was brought as evidence of the expertise of GDAwg is illustrative. Even if, as you say, neither the GDwg or the GDAwg opinions re relevant to include into the main ROGD page (as judged only at this point in time..), the TALK comments still carry influence so I think it is relevant. As far as your requirement for evidence is concerned it is simple for anyone to search medline to verify that Benestad has no "peer reviewed" papers on GD, has sum total of only one, as a coauthor in a field where he is not active and published many years after he was appointed professor in Sexology. He is also not PhD (more difficult to bring evidence on this). Strange situation, he and spouse Almås were recently challenged (professionally) in the Norwegian Psychological Society members publication, and there has been no reply/rebuttal. The articles are in Norwegian (I am Swedish but I judge a google translate is reasonable for both this and the article in the Medical Society, the general "warning" from Rikshospitalet (a different society and the article requires background knowledge of context). The Psychological society article recently specifically addresses Benestads group https://psykologtidsskriftet.no/2019/06/hoy-risiko-feilbehandling. KoenigHall (talk) 11:00, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for misunderstanding your comment. Also I agree, much of what the working groups have written is subjective and more importantly neither meets our criteria as a citable medical organization. As for the letter critiquing Benestads, I tried to look up Tidsskrift for Norsk psykologforening and see if it is listed as a peer reviewed journal and what its impact factor is but found no information pertaining to its citability or its publisher let alone impact factor, which doesn't appear to exist. At risk of being premature it would appear that psykologforening might be a WP:MEDPOP source and at any rate the American Association of Pediatricians has published, in its pediatric journal, a review critical of the research validity and regimens practiced by leading members of GDWG [21] and the GDWG has notably been lobbying against the mainstream consensus ever since. Since the AAP is one of the major medical organizations and its journal also high impact and source of credible pediatric reviews, it certainly carries weight per our guidelines. And much like you've said about Benestad many of the GDWG either have no research background such as Lisa Marchiano, or in the case of Dianna Kenny worked exclusively in counseling adult musicians and have no background in pediatric medicine. And notably while the GDAWG's positions are in line with the mainstream perspective, most of the editorials published by the GDWA attack the AAP, Endo society and other medical groups, they also oddly enough cite the American College of Pediatricians, widely recognized as a front group for far right politics, as a credible scientific source[22]. This is not to say you're wrong but per our guidelines and WP:Fringe it would seem that the problems with the GDAWG are more minor than those with the GDWG and if we decide the former is inadmissible the later certainly should be according to guidelines.Freepsbane (talk) 19:09, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Sullivan opinion column, and reminder about getting the article right

This is partly a notification about an opinion column in the press that is possibly relevant to this article, but also a reminder of how important it is to get this article right, with neutral point of view and proper weight given to all views, and why. This is especially important for articles in controversial areas, such as this one. For better or for worse, with Wikipedia's high profile, not only does the general public come here to find out about stuff, but so do journalists, pundits, and other professional writers.

I cannot prove it, but it seems clear to me from reading Andrew Sullivan's recent opinion column in The Intelligencer (an online division of the reputable NY Mag) entitled "The Hard Questions About Young People and Gender Transitions", that he has read this WP article, and relied upon it in one part of the column. In it, Sullivan talks mostly about detransition among young people, but also mentions Littman and ROGD. We have a real responsibility to the public, and anything that's off in a WP article may be reflected by journalists or pundits in major press outlets. Now, Sullivan's piece is an opinion column, and that means it is not subject to the kind of fact-checking or peer review that would apply to a news or news analysis article at the most reputable publications. Nevertheless, opinion columns can affect the public dialog, which can then seep into other sources, which in turn might be picked up by Wikipedia. (As an aside, Sullivan's article claims to reference the first in-print use of ROGD, not Littman, but Marchiano (2017), which someone here might look into.)

It's important that we get this article right, with neutral PoV and proper balance per WP:DUE. I believe that the great team of editors on this article has as good a shot or better at getting it right as anyone; but I just wanted to put this out there, as a reminder of why it's so crucial that we do so. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Marchiano has attributed the term to Littman: Twitter post. Cheers, gnu57 01:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

On getting the NPOV right and the importance of it

Thread was dead, then an IP resurrected it just to agree with... a user who was banned for WP:BLP violations & gaming the system. Closing this, if anyone has a policy-based concern, they can raise it in a new thread. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:00, 22 July 2020 (UTC) (non-admin closure)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In the opening sentence, the use of 'controversial' kind of comes off as not NPOV. We don't use 'controversial' in front of other controversial concepts and ideas. For instance, communism is not listed as 'a controversial ideology' and sungazing is not listed as 'a controversial practice' even though these are things many people have been disagreeing on passionately for years. Alleged is another one that comes off as not gotten right. Both in the first sentence. It doesn't look like we're getting this right and it's very important we do get it right. Because that's where an encyclopedia's value comes from - getting things right. An encyclopedia that doesn't get stuff right is like a broken pencil. Pointless. Nikolaneberemed (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC) The problem is that the "ROGD" purports to be science, and to say "Rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a [] neologism which describes a [] socially mediated subtype of gender dysphoria." risks giving credibility to the concept despite it being a matter of scientific dispute — it is based on one paper which was partially retracted, and there has been heavy criticism of it on scientific grounds. A better comparison than communism and sungazing, which are not scientific theories, would be Wikipedia's various articles on pseudoscience topics. —ajf (talk) 20:03, 10 April 2020 (UTC) I agree with all the concern that has been stated in this talk page. As a thought exercise, I'd suggest for symmetry, to judge what treatment of an equivalent opninionated-concept on the "other side" benefited from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_defensiveness I have certainly saw controvery regarding that concept, but the wikipedia page doesn't mention it in the title. --153.242.21.130 (talk) 06:30, 21 July 2020 (UTC) A) You're replying to a three-month-old dead thread. B) I'm not sure why you're replying to a three-month-old dead thread, because I can't make sense of your comment. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC) Agree with Nikolaneberemed (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC) - thus removed the controversial word "controversial" in the the interests of NPOV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.143.179.2 (talk) This entire article is about a controversy over a theory. Without the controversy, there aren’t even enough reliable sources to establish WP:Notability for a stand-alone article. Reverted. Mathglot (talk) 08:41, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Nokolaneberemed - find the use of "controversial" as curation and framing by a non-neutral audience. Propose "controversial" be removed. Also, the <SHOW> banner smacks of censorship of the discussion here, on this talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.55.50 (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, IP 24. If you wish to propose that the word "controversial" be removed from the title, you are welcome to propose it here on this page. Please follow the instructions you will find at WP:RM#CM. To save you some trouble, I can tell you that your effort is very likely doomed to failure, for reasons that have been spelled out in previous discussions, when this article lacked controversy in the title. I suggest you study those discussions carefully, and the concept of Notability before opening a new Move request which is likely to be rejected and waste a lot of time. If you have a policy-based reason to object to the collapse of the thread, feel free to state it, but it looks compliant to me. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Dear IP user, as per WP:SNOWBALL, and the current political climate, the best advice I can give you is to premptively drop the WP:STICK until the woke wave is passed. Feynstein (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

New section

Whole talk sections have been erased, why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.143.179.2 (talk) 16:30, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

They have not been erased. The section was placed under an archive template, because you were responding to a three-month-old dead discussion. If you have a current suggestion to make for improving the article, a new section is more appropriate. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:33, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Tag removal

The tag {{Primary source inline}} was recently added to the third paragraph of the "Professional commentary" section. That tag, and the rationale stated in its edit comment, applies with equal force to the second paragraph as well as it does to the third. Taken together, those two paragraphs accurately describe commentary of two complementary professional organizations, each of which has its own POV. In the interest of NPOV, either both paragraphs should be tagged, or neither should be tagged. It would perhaps appear to be WP:POINTY to tag both, and therefore, I suggest tagging neither. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 06:01, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

One violation does not excuse the other; both should be tagged; restoring the one; please add the other. Mathglot (talk) 12:29, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Reactions - Academic

I added subsection #Academic under section "Reactions", as a better home for some content that was recently added to the lead, but didn't belong there because nothing was said about it in the article body. It's a bit choppy currently, due to moves from several parts of the lead, and needs some copyediting to improve flow. Also, I'm not sure that's the best title for the subsection, and it's possible some of the material would fit better in a different section. The main issue here is "lead" vs. "body", and I wanted to solve that issue, first. Further copy-editing and some moving around of content might still be needed. Mathglot (talk) 08:42, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Final sentence in lead section and corresponding sentence in body

Currently, the final two sentences in the lead sentence read:

The controversy grew as articles and opinion pieces, both critical and supportive, were published in mainstream media discussing concerns about the study's methodology and the validity of its hypotheses, as well as issues of academic freedom. Subsequently, other studies remarked on a much increased incidence of youth seeking care for dysphoria.

The bolded sentence seems to be referring to part of a sentence later in the article, in the section on academic reactions:

A number of clinicians who provide care for gender dysphoric youth state that what was described in Littman's research is consistent with their patient population, and several additional reports have been published since the PLOS article republication noting a novel large adolescent cohort presenting with gender dysphoria.

To me, both of these seem like improper synthesis. In the lead section, the clause feels out-of-place in general, as these other studies don't seem sufficiently relevant to the controversy around Littman's paper to warrant inclusion in the lead section. The second excerpt is particularly egregious, as it implies that these studies which note demographic changes in patients support Littman's conclusions about the etiology of GD. I would suggest the phrase in the lead section be removed and the phrase in the body be separated into its own sentence, with wording to make clear the difference between the clinicians who say that Littman's causality model fits their patient populations and the researchers who note an increase in a demographic cohort. Srey Sros^talk 03:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Since it is part of the article, it should be part of the overview in the WP:LEAD. As for the part in the body, I did split the sentence now and change the tense, but I don't see how to change the wording to be better. It is worded accurately and it isn't saying that this group is because of ROGD or anything. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

References

NPOV concerns

I'm concerned this article accepts one side's view that a scientific journal made its decision to do a post-publication review solely due to pressure from trans activists and not the underlying science, without further clarity that this is a disputed view.

While my original view was that there isn't any evidence that trans activists caused the post-publication review to happen even with the two sources that were cited (a blog post with original research and a news article published within a scientific journal, both of which contained similar, but slightly different, quotations from the journal responsible for the review stating the review is being done solely due to the underlying science and not social/political influence), I think I can say more conservatively that this article should not show editorial bias in favor of one particular view when it is contested.

Wikipedia:NPOV states, in a nutshell, "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it." Wikipedia:MANDY states, in a nutshell, "When mentioning an unsavory allegation against a subject, do not place undue emphasis on their expected denial, since this is false balance."

I think we all agree NPOV applies.

When it comes to MANDY, I think it's debatable whether or not it applies here. Personally, I'd find it a stretch. One explanation in MANDY is: "If X is accused of being a white nationalist, and investigation has shown that X publishes white nationalist talking points but has not self-identified as a white nationalist, then the fix is not to add a self-sourced denial, it's to frame the statement as an accusation and establish the basis for it and the error bars around it: 'X is described by multiple sources as a white nationalist'."

In this case, the blog post and news article do not contain any statements from PLOS One staff indicating that the journal made its decision to do the review due to trans activists. Nor is there any evidence beyond equating correlation (trans activists being angry) with causation (the journal doing a post-publication review for scientific reasons). In the above example from MANDY, the individual is publishing white nationalist talking points but denies doing so; in this case, the journal never published any "talking points" (metaphorically speaking) for the view the article is stating as an indisputable fact. The journal also kept the article published (albeit in substantially revised form), which makes it all the more murky with MANDY.

So, given the example in MANDY, if a source published white nationalist pieces, while denying it did so, the fix is to "frame the statement as an accusation and establish the basis for it and the error bars around it." In this case, the journal never published any related views that this Wikipedia article claims was the basis for the post-publication review; we're not even at that point in level of evidence, but, somehow, the article as currently written implies there is no dispute that the review was motivated by social activists (trans activists -> post-publication review) without framing it as an accusation, establishing the basis, or establishing the error bars around it, as MANDY would require here, if it were to apply, or NPOV more generally speaking.

Controversial articles can invite uncivil behavior with editing. Going forward, I think it's important to stop, think, and promote compromise before reverting every change in its entirety to an article. The goal is to improve the article, not keep it static. ⇒Bayerischermann ^- 15:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a wall of text that never actually gets around to saying what you want to change. Do you have a specific change you want to make, or was this just to post an essay? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite

I think this has to do with this, although the length and irrelevant comparison to white nationalism didn't help. Anyway, what's POV is to just say a vague "became aware of allegations" just sourced to PLOS One itself. The secondary source, Science, explains clearly what preceded the extremely unusual events that followed: The paper, by physician-scientist Lisa Littman, is drawing fierce criticism from transgender advocates, who call it antitransgender because it suggests that some cases of gender dysphoria may be “socially contagious.” They say the paper has serious methodological flaws, noting that Littman interviewed only parents, not the young people themselves, and recruited from websites frequented by parents who were concerned about their children’s apparently sudden gender transitions. Meanwhile, the reactions of Brown and the journal are being assailed by critics who accuse them of caving to political pressure. (Bolding added.) [23] What Heber says there, the editor of PLOS One, does not contradict that. And of course he wouldn't say he bowed to political pressure. What matters is what the secondary source says and how they describe these events, which is basically the same as what is currently there. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Correct. It is a response to that edit. I think WP:MANDY doesn't apply here (the examples of when it applies are much more extreme than here, both in content matter and level of verifiability), but I brought it up as a courtesy to Crossroads, who cited it as the basis for a revert in the edit history. My above post makes no comparison to white nationalism; it simply uses an exact quote from WP:MANDY that it intends to be guidance for editors. (WP:MANDY also applies only to the denial itself, not necessarily to alternative explanations.)

WP:Verifiability states, "If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources." The correction notice published in the journal as part of the republished article is a peer-reviewed publication, unlike the cited ScienceInsider news article (a non-peer-reviewed news article published by the same organization as a peer-reviewed scientific journal) and the Retraction Watch blog post. The correction notice does not make any mention of "activists" or even "advocates" (which have distinct meanings) leading to the review. I'd also add that the excerpt from the ScienceInsider news article Crossroads quotes above does not state that the advocates *caused* the post-publication review.

So, where do we go from here? Interim solution: Go with a vague "became aware of allegations" just sourced to PLOS One itself, as Crossroads recommends above, which I think is reasonable.

That being said, in the future, I wouldn't oppose working towards a detailed account of the history, including specific names of individuals involved from verifiable sources, if it can be cited from reliable sources.⇒Bayerischermann ^-

@Bayerischermann: Sourcing the journal involved in the incident is not a good idea. If we do that, we also need to quote Littman herself in an interview (she's not giving a lot but I watched them all) saying her second version was minimally altered and that parents' studies is a valid methodology used elsewhere and no one is ever complaining about it. And since we don't want to do that, the text can stay perfectly fine as it is because it uses a secondary source. Feynstein (talk) 03:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. Peer-review is not an absolute requirement for more news-y topics like this. WP:PRIMARY sources are less preferred. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Cantor's recent edits

I reverted James Cantor's recent edit. I'll put my edit summary here for easy access, as I suspect this will require some discussion: "This lead has been discussed over and over and represents the consensus reached by several editors. Please don't edit it without discussing, especially when you have a clear COI." To elaborate on the conflict of interest I refer to: Cantor is a member of the "Gender dysphoria working group", whose main purpose seems to be to promote Littman's fringe theory. Cantor has also promoted the theory on several occasions ([24][25][26][27]) and has professional connections to others who have done so (Blanchard, Zucker, etc). @James Cantor: I'm guessing you take issue with the words controversial and alleged socially mediated subtype, as you removed them with the summary Rm POV words not contained in RS.

1. The article is about the controversy. That it's controversial is well-sourced; that's the reason the article is called Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy and not just Rapid onset gender dysphoria (The concept, without the controversy, fails notability and wouldn't deserve an article on its own).

2. Per WP:MEDRS and WP:FRINGE we must be careful to describe it as what it is: an alleged subtype. This is a fringe theory and does not represent any sort of medical consensus, and it's necessary to frame it as such. For examples of how Wikipedia handles fringe theories and pseudoscience, see the articles for Morgellons, Neuralgia-inducing cavitational osteonecrosis, or Scientific racism.

Srey Sros^talk 20:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks; good call. I have contributed a fair bit in the past, and lurk frequently. Probably a lot of others do, as well. Mostly, WP:SILENCE is good enough, but I just wanted to chime in this time to let you know I agree with your points, and to welcome you as I haven't seen you before a few recent posts of yours here. And as the undoer of a bold edit subject to WP:BRD, even though you weren't required to explain yourself, you chose to explain your reasoning here anyway; that was a wise move, thank you for that as well. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 22:14, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding WP:BRD and the reverted edit by @James Cantor: Apart from the WP:COI issue, Cantor's actual edit seemed moderate and reasonable to me. However, in the interest of maintaining consensus, the substantive difference is not worth reopening past disputes. The article's title and current language is the result of consensus (and mutual respect), after months of adversarial but highly constructive debate among editors who are still present. For the benefit of newer contributors, it seems necessary to point out that there was never any consensus that this hypothesis is WP:FRINGE or non-notable, nor is it agreed that previous versions of the article failed to satisfy WP:MEDRS. Those editorial positions are debatable opinions, which remain very much disputed. The dispute was not resolved, but it was successfully avoided by consensus language that maintains WP:NPOV by citing undisputed facts and neutrally reporting a balanced set of attributed opinions without WP:POVPUSHING. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Strong disagree on this revert. There's no reason to put "alleged" in wikipedia's authoritative voice when it is a clearly an opinion and not a fact. It's also an extremely unusual way to describe a scientific theory of any kind. Other scientific topics do not use the term "alleged" regardless of how fringe, disproven, or unpopular they are. The pages that SreySros cited to support this use don't even use the term. Scientific articles never use this term. Its use is not supplied by any of the RS on this page that I can see. It was invented out of whole cloth, reportedly to avoid a dispute on the talk page, in obvious violation of WP:NPOV. Furthermore, even if we all accepted that there was a consensus amongst the experts that this is a fringe theory, this use would still violate WP:NPOV: "Wikipedia articles should not express any opinion as fact, regardless of whether it is the consensus view of experts or not."

Finally, if you want the article to continue to reflect that this is a fringe view, the article needs the following, per WP:RS/AC: "A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." From my review of the sources, there is no source on this page that could substantiate that claim. The fact that it has been heavily criticized by small groups of academics certainly does not provide the required evidence laid out by WP:RS/AC. Aurelius9 (talk) 20:15, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

ROGD is not recognized by any major professional association, with Littman noting that it is "not a formal mental health diagnosis at this time".

That sums it up. This is as fringe as it gets. When it's not even recognized by any professional organization, saying it's fringe is WP:SKYBLUE territory. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:00, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits at Professional commentary

Just noting here for the record the twice-removed, twice-restored material (diff-zero) from section #Professional commentary containing opinions by the Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Dysphoria (GD) Working Group, sourced to this web page. Edit summaries on four edits centered on whether this group is WP:FRINGE and whether the material is WP:UNDUE, and thus perhaps not suitable for the article.

In my opinion, because this article is about a controversy, and opinions by various interest groups are at the heart of the controversy, I'm okay with this material being included in this form, or some form, although I personally see that group as a WP:BIASed advocacy group with an agenda rather than a neutral observer, as long as verifiability requirements such as WP:INTEXT are satisfied. Other such opinions, including opposing opinions, are also welcome; if there weren't any, there probably wouldn't be sufficent coverage to have an article on this topic. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:46, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with @Mathglot: the opinions of both of the interest groups under "Professional commentary" are suitable for inclusion in this article. I believe that the paragraphs about both working groups are in compliance with the applicable policy requirements, and should remain in the article in the interest of maintaining WP:NPOV. As Mathglot noted, there were multiple cycles of WP:BRD at the time this content was first added, and the result was a consensus to retain both. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 20:15, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Found a new source

Hey I found [this] on Springerlink. What do y’all think of it?CycoMa (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Already included in the article as source 33. Srey Sros^talk 23:03, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Another source needs recognition also: Samuel Paul Veissiere, Ph.D.'s (assistant professor, Psychiatry, McGill University) articles in Psychology Today: Psychology Today, November 28, 2018, Why Is Transgender Identity on the Rise Among Teens?: A new study of social contagion raises important clinical and ethical questions. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201811/why-is-transgender-identity-the-rise-among-teens, Psychology Today, November 29, 2018, Teen Transgender Identity: A Response to Critics: Ideology or scientific rigor? https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201811/teen-transgender-identity-response-critics, Psychology Today, December 2, 2018, The Debate on Trans Teens: Compassion Is Needed on All Sides: We need dialogue and common humanity, not polarized thinking. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201812/the-debate-trans-teens-compassion-is-needed-all-sides Dogru144 (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

"Social contagion"? Wew.

Those are all part of the /blog/ section of the website. I see no reason to include them. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:33, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The blogs themselves fall under WP:NEWSBLOG, and are written by an expert in cognitive science, so would generally be considered reliable sources (see WP:SELFPUB as well). The issue is not reliability but how much weight, if any, to give to Veissiere's analysis and views. --Animalparty! (talk) 07:48, 28 July 2021 (UTC)