Talk:Irreversible Damage/Archive 12

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Lead description

Regarding my edit that was reverted by TheTranarchist, the original version has numerous problems that need to be addressed. See WP:OVERCITE and MOS:LEADCITE, for a straightforward point about having way too many citations in the lead. Having criticism in the lead paragraph is usually a bad idea. The criticism was focused on Rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which doesn't encapculate Shrier's views, and the sources for the criticism do not reflect what the article said in wikivoice. The original version said,

ROGD is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by any major professional institution and is not backed by credible scientific evidence.

That is a very bold statement and not neutrally worded or placed. The sources linked do not describe it that way, and mostly say that there is not enough evidence to endorse it and they stress the need for more inquiry. I removed the reference to ROGD from the lead paragraph and moved it to the reception part of the lead. I expanded the first paragraph to describe the book and the author's views the way they are described in reliable sources.

Regarding the accusation of misgendering, the wording in the article is quite clear for the context. We don't have to clarify the difference between female and trans-male, whether before or after transitioning, when it's obvious what is being discussed. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:46, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Your changes are obviously disputed, and you should self-revert pending the development of consensus in your favor. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:56, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

 Reverted per Fff. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 22:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, I made several improvements and the proper response is to change the piece that is objectionable, not revert everything. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

The proper response to being reverted is to discuss, not revert again. You should know this. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 23:00, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Says the one who hasn't done any discussing. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 23:02, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Mediocre comebacks are not how you build consensus. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 23:08, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

For the OVERCITE issue, anyone object to just bundling the refs? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:10, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

That seems like a good solution to me. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:12, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

+1 ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 23:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

1) That is a completely true statement and is placed neutrally. See WP:FRINGE. Medical organizations concur that it is harmful, that there is no evidence it exists or matches the experience of trans people, and that it is used to justify denying transgender youth care when it shouldn't be.

2) We do not misgender people in wikivoice, then claim that it is ok since it's obvious we're misgendering. See MOS:GENDERID

3) There is a large consensus on these points. For the former, see here, for the latter, see here (though these are just the most recent examples since these issues have been discussed repeatedly. You obviously failed to read or flat out ignored the existing consensus.

4) Your reverted edits were mainly just the first two points. Your addition of "excessive use of" before "gender-affirming" is not supported by sources, as she seems openly against it at all. You can't be excessively respect people's rights and bodily autonomy. Also, there is a difference between growing recognition of an issue and growing support of a pseudoscientific theory. Feel free to re-add the change of language in from "book of the year" to "included among books of the year" though. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:11, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Cuñado, I'd ask you again to self-revert. Your recent reversion re-added the "growing recognition" issue that TheTranarchist objected to just above. I agree, and I'd add that the cited source does not at all credit the book with any change in recognition or attitudes. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 07:11, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Firefangledfeathers I'm not sure if you read the article, but your statement sounds intellectually dishonest on the face of it. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 07:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear it's coming off that way. Just to be clear, we're talking about this article, right? It does not credit the book with any change in recognition or attitudes. It doesn't mention the book at all. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 07:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I see your contention. The Economist article is talking about an interview Shrier did with Bari Weiss about the book, but the Economist article doesn't mention the book by name. That seems like a trivial detail, since the interview is about the book. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:09, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

It's much more likely that The Economist is referring to this interview by Shrier of two WPATH board members. She does mention her book in passing. This is not enough to verify your proposed content. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:30, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link and I think you're right. I'll work on improving the sourcing. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 19:25, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Here we go:

• teenage girls is wrong. That's kind of the whole point of being trans.
• the controversial idea that an increase in trangender surgeries since 2010 among [AFAB teens] are from an atypical form of gender disphoria that is not well documented, and that they should be discouraged from medical intervention in most cases a.k.a. ROGD
• Shrier criticizes the excessive use of gender-affirming psychiatric support, – excessive according to whom? Obviously a critic of gender affirming care thinks it's excessive. That doesn't mean we put it in wikivoice.
• Having criticism in the lead paragraph is usually a bad idea. – A lead is a summary of the article, including the critical reception.

■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 23:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Bundling the references in the lead is really missing the point. Per MOS:LEAD, the only time citations are needed in the lead is when they are likely to be challenged and about a living person. Other than that, they are not necessary in the lead and the back-and-forth over-referenced fight in the first paragraph is a bad sign. A well formed lead is a summary of a well written and well referenced article. I got involved here because I happened upon an article with a poorly written and non-neutral lead.

The article should reflect how the topic is portrayed in independent, reliable sources. The Ferguson article says: "The book posits that a sudden surge in the number of teen girls identifying as trans boys is due not to gender dysphoria or transgenderism but rather to girls with other mental conditions who are mistakenly self-identifying as trans because there is social capital built into marginalized identities. Some parents see their own families and daughters in this book and believe it speaks to real issues their daughters are facing. (Note: I will use the term “daughter” here as it reflects Shrier’s view and is intended to reflect only biological sex; it is not intended by me to erase their self-identified male gender.)"

This is just one example, but Ferguson (who is critical of Shrier) faced the same issue in trying to describe the book and chose to use the same phrase that almost everyone uses, which is "teen girls". This is misgendering only by a fringe interpretation that ignores the practical need to communicate. When you say "teen girls" everyone knows what you're talking about, and in the context of what Shrier is proposing it is obvious that they are biological females dealing with gender dysphoria and seeking gender affirming care to transition to males. The lead also points out the accusation of Shrier misgendering, and the body goes into more details on it.

The original first paragraph is a mess. It does not actually describe the thesis of the book, but links to ROGD. I replaced ROGD with a description that matches summaries of the book. The criticism of the thesis in the original first paragraph has two huge problems: 1) it's in the wrong place. The MOS wants the lead paragraph to be focused on summarizing the topic of the article, and a good rule of thumb is to make 3-4 paragraphs for the lead, with "reception" last. Its prominence makes it violate NPOV, as much as it would to push praiseful sources to the lead paragraph while downplaying criticism. 2) the original criticism that I quoted above is outrageously and overtly non-neutral, and, more importantly, it does not reflect the sources. I read through the sources, and they either simply do not support the statement or are not review sources.

If you have not seen it, I recommend reading over Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Lead_section. I'd be happy to work together on wording that improves the article to more closely align with policies and guidelines. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 07:41, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

If there are too many references in the lead, surely that means we should elaborate upon that in the body, not simply remove the content. You're also missing the WP:FRINGE aspect of this. Per that guideline, we need to attribute fringe opinions and always present such views in the context of the mainstream scientific view.
I will gloss over your next two paragraphs since you're simply restating yourself with no additional arguments. I get it, you think we can refer to transmasculine people as girls. I disagree.
In re sources, it seems quite ironic to me how you talk of reflecting the sources while edit-warring a FICTREF, which doesn't even mention the topic of this article, into the lead. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 11:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not calling "transmasculine people as girls". I don't personally have any problem with calling people by the gender they prefer. Shrier's hypothesis is that more than half of teenage females attempting to transition are not trans and would not choose to transition if given some time. Socially conscious writers summarizing the book are using the phrase "teenage girls" and then explaining what is meant. I'm suggesting to follow reliable sources and all I'm hearing is opinion and a lack of understanding nuance. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:25, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I think the lead could be better than it is, though at the same time this has been discussed in the archives, including by me, and I'm rather burned out from it all. I would suggest after perusing that, that you try to formulate a new version that could potentially work as a compromise and if that fails, eventually perhaps do an RfC. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:28, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Re: Socially conscious writers summarizing the book are using the phrase "teenage girls" and then explaining what is meant - this statement strikes me as tendentious and misleading, and "sounds intellectually dishonest on the face of it" (to borrow an apt phrase). I haven't seen many quality non-partisan reviews using "teenage girls" in their own editorial voice, which seems to be what you propose for wikivoice. Newimpartial (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

• Having criticism in the lead paragraph is usually a bad idea - no, that's not true. What we put in the lead is based on the overall weight and quality of coverage; when (as in this case) high-quality sources overwhelmingly say that a book endorses pseudoscience, we need to say so clearly in the lead to avoid WP:PROFRINGE issues. And more generally, your characterization of peer-reviewed coverage of the book as just "criticism" strikes me as WP:FALSEBALANCE; if something is widely described as endorsing pseudoscience, then the neutral thing to do is to say so clearly. If anything my problem with the lead is that we're using WP:WEASEL terms by calling rapid-onset gender dysphoria a "contentious concept"; it is pseudoscience and the highest-quality sources clearly describe it as such. --Aquillion (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

At the very recent RfC over at the ROGD article, the attempt to introduce language describing ROGD as pseudoscience was rejected, partly due to the paucity of sources describing it as pseudoscience. Are we going to rehash the argument here now?

I do agree however that 'contentious concept' is sub-optimal.

How about replacing 'contentious' with something like 'unsubstantiated', until we can cook up some more critical language?  Tewdar  09:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I generally prefer "discredited", to better emphasize the denunciation and condemnation reflected in reliable sources. "Unsubstantiated" is an improvement over "contentious", but fails to convey the same attitude. To my mind, discredited encompasses unsubstantiated, but we could always just call it both. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:48, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I would not support 'discredited', which is a much stronger term not really supported by the limited sources currently in existence. I wouldn't even call Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis discredited at this point, even though I really, really want to and can't wait for lots of reliable sources to say it so I can change all our PIE articles. Sadly, we probably both have to wait a while to get what we want. 😁  Tewdar  09:20, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I notice that you are defending 'discredited' in other similar articles. Is there a (sensible) source for this claim? Even Ashley does not use this descriptor.  Tewdar  12:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

ROGD, a quick recap of how ridiculous (and pseudoscientific, though that's a different discussion) it is:

1) A quack asked parents from transphobic websites if they thought their kids caught trans from the internet, they said yes

2) Quack starts loudly insisting that this is evidence kids are catching trans from the internet (while disregarding all alternative explanations, such as the long-acknowledged "late onset gender dysphoria" (ie, trans kids who realize or come out as adolescents/adults)).

3) The journal retracts the paper, every review finds it doesn't exist, and hundreds of psychological and psychiatric professional organizations say it doesn't exist and is harmful.

4) Original quack and a huge lobby of anti-LGBT groups and conversion therapists continue to insist it's real.

There was past discussion of it at Talk:Genspect/Archive 1#"Discredited". The general idea is brevity and WP:PROFRINGE: we should easily present ROGD's status as unsupported and condemned by scientific consensus, but we shouldn't have to say in every place we mention ROGD a full explanation of all the factors. "Discredited theory of ROGD" (linking the ROGD article which goes over the criticisms) is better than "ROGD is a proposed phenomenon which has been condemned by the majority of the world's professional psychiatric and psychological organizations due to the lack of evidence it exists, the fact it does not align with transgender youths' lives experiences, and has been used in over 100 legislative bodies across the United States that seek to limit the rights of transgender adolescents".

The definitions of "discredited" are

1) being brought into disrepute.

2) suffering shame.

3) having been shown to be incorrect.

Quoting the CAAPS statement (which is the epitome of WP:MEDRS in this case: guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies.):

There are no sound empirical studies of ROGD and it has not been subjected to rigorous peer-review processes that are standard for clinical science. Further, there is no evidence that ROGD aligns with the lived experiences of transgender children and adolescents.

The available research is clear that transgender people are subjected to marginalization, stigmatization, and minority stress, which have significant detrimental effects on health and well-being. Terms, such as ROGD, that further stigmatize and limit access to gender-affirming and evidence-based care violate the principles upon which CAAPS was founded and public trust in clinical science.

Currently, there are over 100 bills under consideration in legislative bodies across the country that seek to limit the rights of transgender adolescents, many of which are predicated on the unsupported claims advanced by ROGD. Thus, even though ROGD is not a diagnostic classification or subtype in either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), nor is it under consideration for inclusion in future editions, it is critical to address the misinformation regarding ROGD now.

CAAPS supports eliminating the use of ROGD and similar concepts for clinical and diagnostic application given the lack of empirical support for its existence and its likelihood of contributing to harm and mental health burden

In short, according to WP:MEDRS, there is no evidence ROGD exists, it does not reflect transgender people's experiences, it makes unsupported claims, there's a lot of dangerous misinformation presenting it as real and being used to attack the rights of trans adolescents, and it shouldn't be used at all due to it's potential for harm. If we are to summarize scientific consensus as WP:MEDRS suggests, in a word, ROGD is "discredited" (especially definitions 1 and 3 listed above). "Unevidenced" does nothing to capture the condemnation, and "contentious" ends up failing WP:FRINGE and giving it more weight than it really has. The source does not need to call it "discredited" if they obviously discredit it.

In addition, a quick search found that Horton 2022 also uses "discredited": Trans-antagonistic parental accounts continue to be used to validate pathologising and trans hostile concepts, like the recently coined “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD), a discredited theory that appeals to non-supportive parents, that infantilises trans youth, and that is used to discourage support for trans adolescents (Ashley 2020; Restar 2020; Serano 2018; WPATH 2018). TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

The lead is terrible for the opposite reason. The sources primarily describe ROGD as needing more time and research. There is a difference between something not being confirmed, and being disconfirmed through empirical studies. The first paragraph should describe the book, not go into a tangent telling the reader that the book is wrong and bad. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

No, the sources do not primarily describe ROGD as needing more time and research. They primarily describe it as a pseudodiagnostic category with a significant capacity to cause harm. Newimpartial (talk) 17:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree with you that the criticism of ROGD is to be readily found in the ROGD article and does not belong in the lede of the article about this book. I also find it interesting how editors use WP:FRINGE to justify them unnecessarily adding commentary where it does not belong. Unfortunately, too many editors prioritize their ideology over NPOV these days. Fnordware (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Cuñado I agree. Please edit again 2.55.169.74 (talk) 04:52, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Here's an example. Littman's original article: "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. Parent-child conflict may also explain some of the findings. 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."

When the article was revised, the same conclusion reads: "ROGD appears to represent an entity that is distinct from the gender dysphoria observed in individuals who have previously been described as transgender. The worsening of mental wellbeing and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate AYAs from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand this phenomenon, its implications and scope."

The WPATH statement: "a proposed clinical phenomenon that may or may not warrant further peer-reviewed scientific investigation... WPATH asserts that knowledge of the factors contributing to gender identity development in adolescence is still evolving and not yet fully understood by scientists, clinicians, community members, and other stakeholders in equal measure... WPATH encourages continued scientific exploration within a culture of academic freedom, not censorship."

The AusPATH statement: "“ROGD” is an acronym describing a proposed phenomenon, with insufficient peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support its implementation and/or use within clinical, community, social and legal settings... AusPATH encourages continued scientific exploration within a culture of academic freedom, not censorship.

The Bauer article: "We did not find support within a clinical population for a new etiologic phenomenon of rapid onset gender dysphoria during adolescence... Similar analyses should be replicated using additional clinical and community data sources.

And besides the obvious misrepresentation of sources, those sources are not reviewing the subject of this article, which is why someone eliminated the Economist article that talks about Shrier but doesn't mention the book by name. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Please either retract misrepresentation or specify what you mean.

This article's current sources take a dimmer view than you are proposing:

The idea that gender identity is influenced by friends and the media segues us into a discussion of ROGD, or Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, a phenomenon Shrier endorses even though it is not a medical entity recognized by any major professional association and has no good evidence to support its existence. This bears repeating: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is a fake diagnosis, just like “adrenal fatigue“, a fake diagnosis favored by naturopaths.

[1]

The concept does not withstand scrutiny and is best explained by transphobia and research biases.

[2]

... growing disquiet about “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD), a pseudoscientific term that has driven much of the social panic surrounding trans children—and that has stoked open transphobia across the political spectrum.

[3]

It seems to me that none of the independent sources you have introduced actually bring any of these characterizations - made in the context of Shrier's book - into dispute. Newimpartial (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The sources you quoted are https://sciencebasedmedicine.org (a blog format), https://www.thepinknews.com (nuf said), and Wikipedia (user-generated content). Cuñado ☼ - Talk 18:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

No; the third source is a peer-reviewed journal article; I have now fixed the link. PinkNews has a green light from WP:RSN after multiple discussions, and Science-based medicine is also widely regarded as reliable.

So how about retracting misrepresentation ? Unfounded WP:ASPERSIONS are not likely to help arrive at a new consensus. Newimpartial (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Neither SBM nor PinkNews are medical societies, so they naturally carry much less weight than those do. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

So now you think sources that don't mention article's topic should be used to determine that article's content? I thought you were against that kind of thing.

Anyway, I don't see anything from the medical societies that contradicts the sources we currently use. Newimpartial (talk) 00:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

"Contentious" or "pseudoscience"

There's a dispute on this page whether to describe ROGD as "contentious" or as "pseudoscience". As I stated in my edit summary, the fact that ROGD is described on its own page as "its use has been discouraged by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and other medical organizations due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept" seems like reason enough to call it pseudoscience to me.

But Crossroads disagrees and has reverted my and another editor's (Archon_2488) edits to that effect (twice, I should note). So I'm asking on this talk page to see if we can form a consensus around one of the options. Loki (talk) 00:33, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly this has come up a couple of times before on the talk page (Archive 9, Archive 10, however those were brief mentions and no thorough discussion has occurred on it. We do have a few scholarly sources that refer to it as pseudoscience or pseudoscientific; V. Jo Hsu 2022, Pearce, Erikainen, and Vincent 2020, and Ashley 2020. There may be other sources, but these are the ones I'm aware of off the top of my head. Per discussion in the December 2021 RfC, there are a number of alternative descriptors that could also apply to the theory. As such I'd advise a deeper source analysis to assess what the most appropriate term to use is. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:51, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

That is not even close to a reason. What has changed since the RFC 9 months ago? Aircorn (talk) 04:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm gonna assume this is moot based on the RfC now started on the main ROGD page. Whatever result occurs there should be matched here. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:22, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the statement: "Science-Based Medicine retracted a positive review by the physician Harriet Hall and subsequently published a series of articles criticizing the book." I contest the word choice "positive," which implies bias. Hall had long been an editor of SBM because of her objectivity. Her review of "Irreversible Damage" has been reviewed as "fair and objective." (https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/06/22/science-based-medicine-unfairly-deplatforms-a-book-review/). And for retracting Hall's review, Science-Based Medicine has been criticized for "not liv[ing] up to its ideals of rigorous science communication..." (https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-based-medicines-coverage) Hall's review was subsequently published in "Skeptic," the magazine of the Skeptic Society. Linda Rosa (talk) 17:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The review by Hall was positive of the book, and praised many aspects of it. That's valid WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)≠