Some Additional Questions for Dr. Lisa Littman
By: L
Questions or comments for the author can be directed to Health Liberation Now! here.
Lisa Littman is a scientist who achieved notoriety in 2018 for publishing a paper claiming to discover a phenomenon of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) among youth, a phenomenon in which teens with no history of gender dysphoria would immediately come out as trans in adolescence. The paper was immediately met with criticism, both within the academic community and from trans advocates. They specifically took issue with the study’s methodology and the way it purported to identify an entire new phenomenon of adolescent onset dysphoria in spite of the scientific consensus that trans identity can become apparent at any age.[1] Eventually, Dr. Littman published a modified version of the paper, which was more conservative in drawing conclusions and clarified that ROGD is as of now only a hypothesis.
Despite the criticisms of her work, Dr. Littman has given a number of interviews on it:
- With Jonathan Kay, of Quillette[2]
- With Benjamin A. Boyce, alongside Sasha Ayad[3]
- With Julian Vigo, of Savage Minds[4]
- With Megyn Kelly[5]
- With Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad, of Gender: A Wider Lens[6]
Dr. Littman acknowledges the controversy, but typically presents herself as an unsuspecting victim of out-of-control woke activists, hungrily pouncing on any dissent from the One Transactivist NarrativeTM. She has also denied any affiliation with ideologically motivated anti-trans activists, stating in one interview that “I am not a religious conservative and I am not a radical feminist”.[2] However, all of these interviews have been uncritical of her work if not outright adulating, and have not gone into detail about the critiques that advocates had of it, nor questioned how it fits into the broader discourse on pediatric trans medical care. Thus, in the interest of openness and discussion, below are a few additional questions specific to Dr. Littman’s research that I would be interested to hear her answers to. Note that I will at no point here call Dr. Littman a transphobe, a fraud, or a grifter; I am merely asking questions.