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Is "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" Pseudoscientific?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I'm going to start off by saying that it is my job as closer to assess the consensus of the discussion, not to weigh the sources provided, their impact, or their fitness to refute or describe the topic. That is the job of those responding to the RFC.
There is no consensus to describe ROGD as pseudoscientific in the lead. Although sources were provided describing ROGD variously as pseudoscience, psuedodiagnostic, bad science, and other similar terms, there was no consensus that the weight of these sources was sufficient to describe it as pseudoscience in the lead. Those against the inclusion generally disagree that those sources represent a consensus in the scientific or medical community that ROGD is pseudoscience in part due to their relative rarity compared to sources not describing it as such and the expertise and qualification of the writers of the sources. Some of those supporting argued that other terminology and phrasing used in sources amounted to or were functionally equivalent to labeling ROGD as pseudoscience. This argument did not convince those against the inclusion, many of whom saw it as WP:OR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)


Should we describe "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" as pseudoscientific in the lead? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey

  • Yes (as proposer)
1) We have multiple scholarly sources describing ROGD as a pseudoscientific/pseudodiagnostic concept:
V. Jo Hsu 2022 (I consider how ROGD rhetorics draw from ableism, racism, and heteronormativity to fuel transphobia and vise versa. pulled from abstract as I can't access the article)
Hall 2021 (ROGD is an Adultist, cissexist, pseudodiagnostic label that stems from widespread panic concerning recent shifts in youth culture
Adair & Aizura 2022 (the pseudo-psychiatric condition of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) and ROGD uses manufactured, pseudoscientific language to spread misinformation about the evidence that transition is beneficial)
Pearce, Erikainen, and Vincent 2020 (a pseudoscientific diagnostic category for young people who supposedly believe mistakenly that they are transgender.
Ashley 2020 (politicised pseudo-diagnostic category of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)
1.5) Update (10/2/2022): Adding additional sources
Farley & Kennedy 2020 (we detect in claims about ROGD the return of a silent history of psychology that collapses development with normativity. Going deeper, the language of contagion and changing back may harbor a repressed history of eugenics underlying modern sexology: the logic being that if transgender is changeable and contagious, then so too should it be disappeared.)
George & Gogeun 2021 (trans-youth-panic material similarly “raises concerns” about trans youth in more or less alarmist way.)
Pitts-Taylor 2020 (This article explores a quasi-diagnosis, “rapid-onset gender dysphoria”, which constructs the pathologized untimeliness of trans youth. ... Critics argue that the study is “poorly designed,” “specious,” “bad science” (Ashley and Baril, 2018; Barasch, 2018; Serano, 2018) – highly biased, containing significant methodological flaws, and failing to represent the perspectives of trans people. Restar (2020) argues that a number of choices in the “study design, sampling, recruitment, and survey construction” demonstrate a priori bias on the part of the researcher, essentially stacking the deck to empirically validate ROGD as a real pathology and a potential diagnosis. In addition, the study treats parents’ assessments of the personal histories and mental health of the study’s research subjects as unmediated rather than biased and limited (Brandelli Costa, 2019). Further, the study pathologizes trans identification with its diagnostic language while failing to recognize its de-pathologization by the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, and other official bodies (Restar, 2020; WPATH, 2018).)
Smith 2018 (The main critique of Littman’s article is its apparent lack of scientific rigor; Littman only spoke to parents, not the children themselves. Furthermore, the parents interviewed appeared to be recruited through websites frequented by transphobic parents, pointing towards a problematic selection bias (Wadman 2018).) a master's thesis and therefore not applicable
Nicholas 2020 (This reflects international anti-trans propaganda of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” which was explicitly raised in opposition to a gender-affirmative model for therapists to support children in exploring their gender identity. The argument is that affirmation encourages children who are experiencing some kind of gender dysphoria to develop a trans identity when they may have remained (default) cis. In this, it relies “on the idea of ‘contagion’ in order to invalidate marginalized identities,” (Baril 2018) much as charges of a “gay agenda” do.)
Aizura et al. 2020 (the fabricated pseudodiagnosis of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, caused by teens learning about the existence of other trans people on social media)
2) We have a medical consensus that ROGD does not exist and is harmful:
WPATH's 2018 statement on ROGD states The term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)” is not a medical entity recognized by any major professional association, nor is it listed as a subtype or classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Therefore, it constitutes nothing more than an acronym created to describe a proposed clinical phenomenon that may or may not warrant further peer-reviewed scientific investigation. ... WPATH also urges restraint from the use of any term—whether or not formally recognized as a medical entity—to instill fear about the possibility that an adolescent may or may not be transgender
More recently, the majority of professional mental health organization signed the CAAPS statement stating 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. ... 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.
(Update Oct 19, 2022): The Australian Psychological society has stated Rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a concept used largely by people who question rather than affirm young people’s gender. The term was developed by parent communities who felt that their children’s disclosure that they were transgender or non-binary was sudden; the claim being that their children had been influenced by peers or by the media. In many ways this account of disclosure frames being transgender or non-binary as a form of social contagion. ... To date only one study has examined ROGD, and this drew upon samples from the same parent communities who developed the concept. In other words, it was a biased sample. Since being published, this study has been significantly revised due to community feedback, now indicating more clearly that while certain parents may have views about reasons for disclosure, this is not reflective of a ‘new’ clinical phenomenon (i.e., ROGD). Given the lack of evidence and the founding of the term in communities that may be less than affirming of transgender and non-binary young people, the use of ROGD as a clinical concept or tool would be counter to the APS statement on affirming approaches. ... Both clinicians and researchers should be aware that no professional organisation endorses this pseudo diagnosis, and that organisations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have categorically refuted the use of the term, especially when it is used to create fear or to limit pathways to care.
3) Wikipedia's guidelines on describing pseudoscience as such are clear:
WP:FRINGE: When discussing topics that reliable sources say are pseudoscientific or fringe theories, editors should be careful not to present the pseudoscientific fringe views alongside the scientific or academic consensus as though they are opposing but still equal views.
WP:FRINGE/PS: Proposals that, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification. should work, but "kids are suddenly turning trans because of the internet" is apparently a valid position. More than that, Proposals which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, such as astrology, may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
WP:FRINGE/QS: Hypotheses which have a substantial following but which critics describe as pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect; however it should not be described as unambiguously pseudoscientific while a reasonable amount of academic debate still exists on this point. There is no academic debate, some loud voices keep insisting it's real while the majority of the worlds health organizations have said it isn't.
TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:40, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
Adding on, human rights group usually label it as pseudoscientific. While not MEDRS, ROGD's use in the political landscape means we can't separate ROGD just the theory from ROGD as a pseudoscientific diagnosis used to attack the rights of transgender people. As stated elsewhere, ROGD must be considered in the context of how it's used and supported. It would be purely junk science if the study was made, the flaws pointed out, and it ended at that. It becomes pseudoscience because people still claim it exists as a real phenomenon that should guide healthcare and legal policy, despite all evidence to the contrary.
SPLC: The rise of anti-trans sentiment among anti-LGBTQ groups has fueled a cottage industry of anti-trans research that in turn is promoted by anti-LGBTQ groups, including ACPeds, which has become a go-to for expertise in anti-trans pseudoscience. One such study ACPeds has promoted is one published in August 2018 that makes unfounded claims about so-called “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” which posits that gender dysphoria seemingly appears abruptly during or after puberty as a result of peer pressure or “social contagion.” That is, youth are “pressured” into being trans and can therefore “change” into not being trans.
HRC: Anti-LGBTQ+ activists often use concerns about internet safety in order to spread harmful rumors about the LGBTQ+ community. You may see opponents of trans people specifically use junk science by Lisa Littman at Brown University to falsely claim that access to social media and the internet has created a “contagion” that causes many youth to mistakenly identify as transgender. Littman’s paper contained so many erroneous statements that one of her colleagues in her same academic department, Arjee Javellana Restar, published a critique of the study looking at fundamental errors in Littman’s paper. Restar explains Littman’s bias by the way the paper falsely treats transgender identity in a pathology framework, in which identifying as transgender is wrongly treated like a disease. Restar also explains how Littman’s paper was based on data in which responses were given information that skewed Littman’s results to meet her own personal goals to confirm her theories.
TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No; it should be "pseudodiagnostic" instead. On first glance, when reading the RfC, I thought "Well of course it should be." Even the lead of the current article says, "It has never been recognized by any major professional association as a valid mental health diagnosis, and 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." When doing a GSearch I couldn't find "pseudoscientific" linked with ROGD. Of the sources you provide above, there are four descriptions:
A. Pseudoscientific (1)
B. Pseudopsychiatric (1)
c. Pseudodiagnostic (2)
I would therefore actually lean more toward "pseudodiagnostic" at this point. --Kbabej (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2022 (UTC) - Updated !vote below
  • Yes per TheTranarchist's excellent collection of sources. Loki (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes per the sources provided. I have access to the full text of Hsu paper, for which there are two sentences of relevance: Far from a lone voice, Shrier's Irreversible Damage emerges from 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. on page 1, and The first two pseudoscientific studies about ROGD—Lisa Marchiano's "Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics" and Lisa Littman's "Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Young Adults" —both relied heavily on these three webpages. on page 3. The three webpages in the second quote are those mentioned in Littman's 2018 paper; 4thWaveNow, Transgender Trend, and Youth Trans Critical Professionals. While I recognised Kbabej's point regarding using pseudodiagnostic, I feel like as a term that would be unfamiliar to our readers (Google ngram of the two words), whereas pseudoscientific is far more recognisable, and I think it's acceptable to use that more familiar word in this instance. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:45, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
    Furthermore with the Hsu paper the counts of "pseudoscientific" and "pseudodiagnostic" are actually equivalent, so there's no argument for that any more even by the pure counts. Loki (talk) 22:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
    @Sideswipe9th, thanks for the update of the Hsu paper with the "pseudoscientific" term being included. Given that, and the common sense that they're equivalent (like @LokiTheLiar said), I'm going to strike my "no" !vote and update it to "yes". Cheers all! --Kbabej (talk) 23:12, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
    I do not believe that an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing is a reliable source for whether something is (or is not) pseudoscientific.  Tewdar  15:29, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Correct. None of these sources are serious researchers in the field. PerseusMeredith (talk) 19:30, 6 October 2022 (UTC)— PerseusMeredith (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Digression concerning epistemology
  • I'm not sure you are really a reliable source for the relationships among academic specialties and their domains, Tewdar. Newimpartial (talk) 15:59, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    There are a lot of people in this discussion, who clearly have no relevant scientific background whatsoever, attempting their own WP:OR definitions of pseudoscience. My opinion is at least as valid as the next editor's.  Tewdar  16:07, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Clearly this RfC ought to be settled based in the personal opinion of whichever editor here is most widely read (or widely published) in philosophy of science/science and technology studies. :p Newimpartial (talk) 16:16, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Editors are entitled to evaluate sources, whatever their background. If you think an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing is an appropriate source in evaluating whether an hypothesis is pseudoscientific, you are quite entitled to your opinion, and to cast your vote based on that opinion.  Tewdar  16:21, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Golly, thanks. And if you want to cast a !vote based on your opinion of the respective qualifications and domains of various academic disciplines, likewise. Newimpartial (talk) 16:24, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    My "!vote" is based on the suppositions that (i) very few reliable sources describe ROGD hypothesis as pseudoscience, and (ii) those (two) that do, are either (a) extremely crappy or (b) not suitable sources to make judgements in Wikivoice on what constitutes pseudoscience (or both).  Tewdar  16:31, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    And also the apparent supposition (iii), that only sources using the term "pseudoscientific" (TM?) are relevant to determining whether or not the relevant communities of expertise regard ROGD as pseudoscientific. Newimpartial (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    No, that's Axiom I.  Tewdar  16:37, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Could you point to the passage in NOR that tells us not to rely on synonyms and paraphrases? I must have missed that part. (This is one of the trusty shillilaghs that gets hauled out on a sliding scale when editors are trying to exclude a particular characterization, and is otherwise not used by the same editors). Newimpartial (talk) 16:42, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Please point out any published references that claim that fringe science is functionally equivalent to pseudoscience. Try not to include results from the Journal of Farce Studies or similar publications in your reply.  Tewdar  16:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    The most entertaining and satisfying source answering your question might be this one Newimpartial (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Although this is a perfectly reasonable source, it is a fringe opinion that fringe science and pseudoscience are synonymous. 😁 I'm ducking out now...  Tewdar  17:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Except to say, if you had sources saying "outside the scientific method" or similar, I'd accept that as a synonym of pseudoscientific. Bye!  Tewdar  17:12, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. The literature supports the term, and "It has never been recognized by any major professional association as a valid mental health diagnosis, and 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", as the article states. The description is accurate. --Kbabej (talk) 23:15, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No, which is not to say it is correct or even mainstream. Rather, the existing strongly worded description is sufficient and the proposed term is not supported by the relevant WP:MEDRS. As WP:FRINGE/PS quoted above says, Proposals which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community (emphasis added). The "scholarly sources" being used to justify "pseudoscientific" are not scientific WP:MEDRS sources, as this topic requires, but are mostly humanities journals (rhetoric, feminism, gender studies) or are sociology (which is not a medical field). So the requirements of MEDRS and FRINGE/PS are not met here. For example, one of them is about theoriz[ing] masc4masc t4t erotics as a type of contagious gendering.
    The WPATH and CAAPS sources are MEDRS and scientific, but both of them quite conspicuously do not go so far as to call ROGD "pseudoscientific". WPATH says that it may or may not warrant further peer-reviewed scientific investigation and CAAPS focuses on clinical and diagnostic application. Reading "pseudoscience" into this is WP:Original research.
    Lastly, WPATH's Standards of Care Version 8, released just this year, very conspicuously does not refer to Littman's hypothesis as pseudoscientific. Rather, it says (emphasis added): One researcher attempted to study and describe a specific form of later-presenting gender diversity experience (Littman, 2018). However, the findings of the study must be considered within the context of significant methodological challenges, including 1) the study surveyed parents and not youth perspectives; and 2) recruitment included parents from community settings in which treatments for gender dysphoria are viewed with scepticism and are criticized. However, these findings have not been replicated. For a select subgroup of young people, susceptibility to social influence impacting gender may be an important differential to consider (Kornienko et al., 2016). However, caution must be taken to avoid assuming these phenomena occur prematurely in an individual adolescent while relying on information from datasets that may have been ascertained with potential sampling bias(Bauer et al., 2022; WPATH, 2018). It is important to consider the benefits that social connectedness may have for youth who are linked with supportive people (Tuzun et al., 2022)(see Statement 4). Crossroads -talk- 00:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No, for the reasons explained by Crossroads. In brief, while ROGD might be wrong, the evidence for it scientifically flawed and some may consider it offensive, this is dramatically different from being pseudoscience. -Pengortm (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes - the sourcing for the term is quite convincing, and is not opposed by any comparable body of scholarship. The idea that social science and humanities journals are not part of the scientific community in the sense meant by WP:FRINGE/PS seems to be entirely original with Crossroads, representing yet another example of him accepting only certain sources as reliable because he approves of them. Read in context, there is certainly no requirement in FRINGE to find MEDRS sources stating that palm reading to predict longevity and phrenology to predict criminality are pseudoscientific practices, for them to be labelled as such, so the requirement - imagined only by Crossroads - that MEDRS sources (in the narrowest sense possible) are required to evaluate pseudoscience is, in the words of FRINGE/PS, obviously bogus. Newimpartial (talk) 01:28, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I don't usually reply to my own! vote, but it seemed the best way to add a couple of additional reflections.
    (1) Many statements have been made in support of No !votes suggesting that only MEDRS sources, or only "Behavioral and social science" sources, can be used in deciding whether the term "pseudoscientific" applies. There is no basis in Wikipedia policy (especially in WP:FRINGE) for restricting the sourcing in this way. The key question, according to FRINGE, is whether a reasonable amount of academic debate still exists about the validity of the ROGD hypothesis. At the time I write this, not even the No !votes in this discussion have proposed that to be the case.
    (2) The No !votes have confused the sourcing requirements for two distinct questions, where the bar in fact differs. Do the relevant RS agree that the ROGD hypothesis is pseudoscientific/ pseudodiagnostic/ discredited/ fringe/ "bad science" is a question for specialist sources, but what words do the sources use to express that consensus reality is not. As noted above, no editors have established any doubt that there is general agreement within the relevant sources on the former question. For the second question - how do we write about this on Wikipedia? - it seems to me that non-specialist sources are as relevant as specialist ones, and among non-specialist sources (e.g., [1] [2] [3]) "pseudoscientific" is one of the terms used to communicate this. Those opposing the use of "pseudoscientific" really ought to be proposing alternative ways to communicate the consensus view of ROGD clearly, since other articles will not allow space for the long explanations these editors may favor in the main article here (e.g., [4] [5]). Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's an accurate summary of the sources. Regarding the argument that the sources fail MEDRS, that's fatally flawed in several ways. First, MEDRS does not, in fact, require that all sources be from biomedical journals - that is just one of the categories of ideal sources. Another is academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers, which these fall under; when a topic falls at the intersection of biomedical and sociological sciences, it is completely inappropriate to suggest that high-quality sources from within the social sciences cannot be used for basic summaries. But second, much more importantly, MEDRS sourcing is not required to call something pseudoscientific - per WP:PARITY, all that is needed is that the sourcing that it is pseudoscientific be higher-quality than the sourcing presented that advances it. That is clearly the case here - given the extreme controversy surrounding Littman's paper, it cannot be considered a high-quality source itself, and the article contains essentially no other sources of any quality that support her thesis. That means that per PARITY we have to go with the consensus of the sources we have. --Aquillion (talk) 02:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No - An incorrect or flawed theory is not pseudoscience. Just like we don't label Lamarckism a pseudoscience, neither should we do OR here to label this as pseudoscience. The study is peer reviewed and has not been retracted and is still published in a prestigious journal. The fact that many subsequent studies have provided evidence to refute the main hypothesis of ROGD supports the idea that ROGD is a falsifiable hypothesis, a key distinction between science and pseudoscience. Furthermore, the provided RS, only one explicitly uses the term "pseudoscientific" to refer to ROGD specifically, and others use it as an adjective to other terms. My emphasis below:
V. Jo Hsu 2022 (I consider how ROGD rhetorics draw from ableism, racism, and heteronormativity to fuel transphobia and vise versa.) No mention of the word pseudoscientific. Citations: 1
Hall 2021 (ROGD is an Adultist, cissexist, pseudodiagnostic label that stems from widespread panic concerning recent shifts in youth culture). Uses pseudodiagnostic, meaning it is not fit for diagnosis. Citations: 2
Adair & Aizura 2022 (the pseudo-psychiatric condition of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) and ROGD uses manufactured, pseudoscientific language to spread misinformation about the evidence that transition is beneficial) Uses pseudo-psychiatric, and specifically "pseudoscientific language," but does not assert ROGD is pseudoscientific. Citations: 0
Pearce, Erikainen, and Vincent 2020 (a pseudoscientific diagnostic category for young people who supposedly believe mistakenly that they are transgender.) Only one to explicitly use pseudoscientific. Citations: 114
Ashley 2020 (politicised pseudo-diagnostic category of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)) Again uses pseudodiagnostic. Citations: 43
Again, of the above list, only one uses the word pseudoscientific explicitly for ROGD. Three are basically uncited papers, thus not indicative of acceptance in the scientific community. When you look at the Citations for the ROGD paper (Citations: 139) and its correction (Citations: 61), five papers, of which three have 0-2 citations, seem hardly enough to reflect scientific consensus on a topic. Five divided by 200 is ~2.5%, hardly enough to establish scientific consensus. Theheezy (talk) 06:12, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
As Sideswipe pointed out above, the Hsu paper does in fact use the word "pseudoscientific". Loki (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
That doesn't tip the math much. There are simply too few sources, with too few citations to give this due weight. Also note the following I brought up elsewhere:
Considering the text on WP:FRINGE which explicitly states, the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight. Litmann is in the Department of Behavioral and Social Science; the academic sources that have been linked are in Linguistics and Language, Gender and Sexuality studies, Cultural Studies/Gender Studies, and 2x Sociology and Political Science, respectively. Theheezy (talk) 05:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
And how would Gender and sexuality studies be less relevant to Littman's supposed ROGD hypotheses than Behavioral and social science? Colour me confused, Newimpartial (talk) 05:08, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I said nothing about that. I stated the position of WP:FRINGE, the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight. And Behavioral and Social Science is not Gender and Sexuality studies. Theheezy (talk) 05:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
That is either a sincere misinterpretation of what that passage of FRINGE actually means, or WP:WIKILAWYERING. I'll assume the former. I also assume that you would not make the same claim if nutritional claims made by a dissenting public health nurse were refuted by professional experts in human nutrition rather than other public health specialists. Newimpartial (talk) 12:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I acknowledge that it is your opinion that I am either misinterpreting, or WP:LAWYERing. I disagree with your opinion, and assert I am doing neither. Theheezy (talk) 12:34, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No - it's absolutely shocking quite worrying that editors are seeking to redefine pseudoscience based on three (just about) two one articles article from 'The Sociological Review', 'Transgender Studies Quarterly', and 'Rhetoric Society Quarterly'.  Tewdar  09:11, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Your arithmetic is not reassuring. Newimpartial (talk) 12:07, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Please list all the sources above that use the word(s) "pseudoscience/pseudoscientific" to describe ROGD.  Tewdar  12:33, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Pseudodiagnostic is a functional synonym, in this context. :) Newimpartial (talk) 14:48, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    So, two, then. 😭  Tewdar  15:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I hope you don't make your living using arithmetic lol. Newimpartial (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Again, I count two sources that describe ROGD itself as pseudoscien(ce/tific). Not 'uses pseudoscientific language'. Not 'pseudodiagnostic'. If my capabilities in mathematics have somehow eroded over time, please present the sources I have missed so that I can swiftly correct my vote.  Tewdar  16:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    But editors are not seeking to redefine pseudoscience based on the two articles to which you refer. At least I am not. I am also weighing in the "pseudoscientific" and "pseudodiagnostic" references and for that matter other references supporting "fringe". Your refusal to count these - coupled with your insistence, against the clear explanations of other editors, that we are not counting these - is, to give the most possible WP:AGF, not reassuring. Newimpartial (talk) 16:06, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Wow, the WP:AGF card already. And so much bludgeon.  Tewdar  16:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I'm sure that all the references presented so far satisfy you in your claim that ROGD is pseudoscience though. Sorry if you think I implied otherwise.  Tewdar  16:13, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No – this is a conflation of "false" (or "fatally flawed", or "unproven") with "pseudoscientific". The term pseudoscience has a specific meaning, and "egregiously non-random subject population", "faulty experiment design", and "fatally flawed conclusions" is not it. "Pseudoscience" is a completely different beast from "shoddy science". Criticize the paper for all the reasons it needs to be criticized for, but don't confuse it with pseudoscience. Mathglot (talk) 09:39, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    You're going to have to rewrite WP:FRINGE, then, where "pseudoscience" and "shoddy science" are presented as points on a spectrum. Newimpartial (talk) 12:05, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks for your textbook example of conflation, informed by not understanding or misinterpreting what WP:FRINGE says, and how it differs from pseudoscientific. Mathglot (talk) 23:40, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I was not the first to introduce the section of FRINGE that discusses pseudoscience into this discussion; that was Crossroads. Are you suggesting that FRINGE/PS does not apply here? A non-snide answer (avoiding, e.g., Thanks for your textbook example of conflation) would be appreciated, if you can manage it. Newimpartial (talk) 23:51, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Scientifically based theories once widely ridiculed were fringe in their time, such as continental drift/plate tectonics, or K-T extinction caused by asteroid impact (death of the dinosaurs), but are now widely accepted. A pseudoscientific theory, however, remains pseudoscientific no matter how many people subscribe to it because it is defined by adherence (or lack thereof) to scientific method, not threshold of support. In the end, this is all a sideshow, because the only thing that counts is what the majority of sources say. Mathglot (talk) 00:05, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    You (and Tewdar, above) are appealing to a definition of pseudoscience (as "not adhering to the scientific method") that is specifically not reflected in WP:FRINGE. My skepticism about this definition (for which neither of you have produced any RS support) doesn't mean that I am misinterpreting anything, much less FRINGE which explicitly operationalizes "pseudoscience" differently. This matters insofar as you (and Tewdar) refuse to accept other terms as functional equivalents to "pseudoscience" even when authors clearly suggest that this is what they mean. Newimpartial (talk) 00:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    you (and Tewdar) refuse to accept other terms as functional equivalents to "pseudoscience" - this is completely false, I said above that if you had sources saying "outside the scientific method" or similar, I'd accept that as a synonym of pseudoscientific. You have a pathetic collection of two sources, one of which is from the notorious Journal of Whatever Wherever, and a big sack of WP:OR, which you are using to claim that the so-called functionally equivalent language of the other sources supports your label of pseudoscience. This sort of disgraceful cherry-picking behavior is certainly not adhering to the scientific method.  Tewdar  09:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Also, as for RS support, here's page one of the book you linked (which I presume you have not read): On the imagined scale that has excellent science at one end and then slides through good science, mediocre science (the vast majority of what is done), poor science, to bad science on the other end, it is not the case that pseudo-science lies somewhere on this continuum. It is off the grid altogether.  Tewdar  09:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Just because I mentioned a source that defines both pseudoscience and fringe science as being off the grid does not make that a requirement for all definitions of those two terms. I was simply producing a source that uses them to mean the same thing: the idea that only theories relying on literal eliptons - or equivalent - are covered by either term is not only ORIGINAL but absurd.
    Two or three editors here hold to a preconceived definition of pseudoscience that is not used in the Wikipedia policies governing the use of the term. A whole lot of dancing and dismissing of RS for IDONTLIKEIT can't change that fact. Newimpartial (talk) 12:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Piss-poor unsourced definitions from Wikipedia policies guidelines pages cannot overrule relevant reliable sources, which overwhelmingly do not describe ROGD hypothesis as pseudoscience. You appear to be running out of arguments.  Tewdar  12:34, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    No, I'm appealing to the statements at WP:NPOV (which is policy, and which is non-negotiable) concerning due weight, which states: "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Since the proportion of published, sources that support allegations of pseudoscience represent only a very tiny minority of reliable sources (see § NPOV discussion; data gathering ongoing) such views "held by a tiny minority should not be represented" at all in the article. Mathglot (talk) 09:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No. The answer to "Should X be in the lead?" when X is not in the body is always no. I agree with the above points that four sources using "pseudo-something" language out of the hundreds available don't meet the "generally considered" standard required by WP:FRINGE/PS. The article and lead paragraph clearly convey the concept is unsupported by evidence and discouraged in practice. They don't support that it is unfalsifiable, which is what "pseudoscientific" would suggest, and in fact the best sources indicate further study may be undertaken to disprove the the concept more conclusively.--Trystan (talk) 14:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Unfortunately, WP:FRINGE does not define "pseudoscience" in terms of falsifiability, nor does it imply that pseudoscientific claims are or are not unfalsifiable - editors are bringing such original thought to this discussion. Sigh. Newimpartial (talk) 14:45, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Wikipedia is not a reliable source for anything the term 'pseudoscience'.  Tewdar  15:05, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Wikipedia policy pages are reliable sources for Wikipedia policies, tho. Otherwise, we are all fokt. Newimpartial (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Respectfully, adding the term "pseudoscientific" to this article requires WP:DUE by academic sources which simply are not there. E.g., by citations, by number of publications, or even considering the text on WP:FRINGE which explicitly states, the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight. Last I checked, Litmann is in the Department of Behavioral and Social Science; the academic sources that have been linked are in Linguistics and Language, Gender and Sexuality studies, Cultural Studies/Gender Studies, and 2x Sociology and Political Science, respectively.
    This research theory is already identified as fringe by other research works in the same subarea. This is exactly what is reflected in Wikipedia. Let's leave it be and not try to use science as a political cudgel. Theheezy (talk) 15:11, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    So, to be clear, are you proposing that we use "fringe" instead of "pseudoscientific"? Newimpartial (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    No. Theheezy (talk) 17:11, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    The research is this area is tiny. The other studies have similar problems of small sample sizes. This is far from a settled area. PerseusMeredith (talk) 19:36, 6 October 2022 (UTC) — PerseusMeredith (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • No Cherry picked obscure sources is not how we decide to label something as pseudoscientific. Aircorn (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Are you aware of any less obscure sources suggesting that ROGD is anything else? Newimpartial (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Here are some random descriptions from articles and journals of similar repute to the ones proffered above:
    "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a proposed diagnostic category, based on a single, flawed study."
    "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria is bad science"
    "ROGD is a clearly observed phenomenon but is not currently a recognized medical condition"
    As far as I can tell, none of these describe ROGD as pseudoscientific.
     Tewdar  20:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    WP:FRINGE suggests a spectrum from pseudoscience to questionable science (and on to regular science). Where in this spectrum do you think "bad science" is located? Newimpartial (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    First of all, as far as a definition of pseudoscience goes, I couldn't give a flying fuck what WP:FRINGE has to say about it. Secondly, bad science, in my opinion and that of the preponderance of relevant reliable sources, is within the spectrum of the scientific method. Pseudoscience is not. This is the difference, and the reason why you can only find two (just about) sources describing ROGD as pseudoscience is because the ROGD hypothesis is not pseudoscience, it is merely bad science. They are not the same thing.  Tewdar  20:16, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    You have identified the exact problem. Pseudoscience uses technical language to cloak a non-scientific agenda, and is impossible to test in a proper scientific method. It is this ability to be repudiated by, say, a study with a larger, representative, sample with more rigorous methods that makes this actual, albeit poorly done, science vs. pseudoscience.
    That is the maddening thing about pseudoscience. It is always impossible to disprove pseudoscience, and people don't get that the impossibility to disprove isn't at all support for whatever notion is being forwarded dressed up to look like actual scientific theory. Even the best accepted science can still be disproven by a new method, bigger sample, different experimental design that removes confounding factors, etc. etc. It is always possible to design a way that could possibly disprove it.
    This one tiny bit of poorly conducted science is at best suitable for generating a testable hypothesis to do a real study. It is not junk science, unless the author has a prejudice which is biasing their work. If that's the case, I would leave it to her department chair to sort out.
    It is not the actual worst science I have ever seen in a biomedical journal! But, if we refused to publish bad medical science, what would drug companies currently paying all that reprint money to NEJM, JAMA, etc. spend their money on? I would not be surprised to find that half of the trials published are biased, having being designed in pharma marketing departments, and do meet the "junk science" mark. I have lost track of the number of pharma supported studies where the evidence was incontrovertible that the drug did, at best, nothing, and usually made things worse (I am trying to remember how to spell Xigris. I read the pivotal trial, and was shocked it got FDA approval. (Don't get me started on the NINDS trial...) DrKC MD (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Re: definitions of pseudoscience, I don't think this is actually correct. I would say pseudoscience is anything which perverts the scientific process to push an agenda which is not compatible with the prevailing consensus in science, or which itself is not scientific or supported by the evidence. This is the definition more supported by Merriam-Webster [6], Cambridge [7], and Collins [8] dictionaries.
    E.g. acupuncture for lower back pain, reflexology for liver failure, or astrology. Such things have mechanistic explanations which are not compatible with scientific understanding of the world (e.g. Qi, energy healing, chakras, soul materialism, divine determinism at birth, etc.). But they are absolutely falsifiable. We have sham acupuncture trials, studies showing astrology has no predictive value, etc. There are absolutely testable hypotheses buried in these things. But they want the cloaking of science to gain credibility. Hence, they're pseudoscientific.
    Your definition would, according to major bodies like the AMA or APA [9], include such things as: psychoanalysis, literature criticism, string theory. Which are accepted mainstream disciplines, some of which don't claim to be scientific in their underpinnings. Lack of falsifiability is one useful metric with which to assess whether something is pseudoscience, but it is not the prevailing definition. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:32, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Here's an idea. Why don't we just go with what Pseudoscience says, on the assumption that has an editor consensus (and noting it has plenty of sources). Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. It is that "incompatible with the scientific method" that is key. Pretty sure that is the point User:DrKC MD is making too. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Yes, and I think not precisely the same as "unfalsifiable hypotheses". Which is why such a strict definition doesn't make sense here for ROGD.
    Having a hypothesis that isn't falsifiable would be one indicator that something is not scientific, but it isn't a slam dunk. Take, for example, String theory. Brian Greene would never claim that it's a falsifiable hypothesis (not with current technology, anyway), but simply that it's one proposed solution to the unified field theory paradox. He would say it is not currently falsifiable (and has said this) [10] [11] but that it is in principle likely to be falsifiable in the future. He has actually proposed that we loosen that definition and include unfalsifiable hypotheses which are, in principle, compatible with science. I disagree with Greene there, but his point is salient here. String theory is rarely, if ever, described as pseudoscience. But something like Homeopathy is often described as such, because its tenets are incompatible and it has proponents who claim it has scientific backing despite a lack of evidence. But it very much DOES have falsifiable hypotheses. Homeopathic sleeping pills don't make you sleepy.
    The definition you've described would be closer to the one I detailed above. If the data doesn't support it, if the experimental design is bunk, but you're still claiming it's factual and scientific, then it would be pseudoscience. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    If the data doesn't support it or the experimental design is bunk, it is a bad study but not incompatible with the scientific method. Challenging the data and experimental design IS science. There have been a lot of bad studies but they are not pseudoscience. Homeopathy is falsifiable and falsified by science. Studies of homeopathy that follow the scientific method are science, not pseudoscience. It is pseudoscience when pseudo-academic literature makes bizarre ontological claims incompatible with natural science. It is pseudoscience when practioners shift the burden of proof onto the sceptics. It is pseudoscience when it *delibeartely* cherry picks data, misreports or mischaracterises studies. Most of all it is pseudoscience when the practitioners take aim at the very epistemological foundations of the scientific method, which they do in order to deny that their doctrines are falsified, and, indeed, to deny that they can be falsified. That is what makes homeopathy unequivocally pseudoscientific. This study is nothing like that. This is science that has not been done very well. Pseudoscience is the wrong term and does not belong in the lead. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:13, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think you're really missing the point here. If someone continues to claim something, even when the data doesn't support it, that's called not following the scientific method.
    Here you say: [Homeopathy] is pseudoscience when it *delibeartely* cherry picks data, misreports or mischaracterises studies. It's interesting you say that, because that's what Littman has done regarding her online surveys of parents. To wit, from the article: "an online survey, which was not randomly distributed, but rather targeted at parents recruited from three anti-transgender websites where she had seen parents describe what they believed were sudden gender transitions in their adolescents" and employs so-called snowball sampling. Indeed, Littman already believed social contagion was a motivating factor in transitioning teens. She cherry-picked her data, to support her pre-determined conclusion.
    Worse, she actually called the phenomenon ROGD in her recruitment materials! She predisposed her subjects to describing what she was soliciting, by titling the survey: "Rapid onset gender dysphoria, social media, and peer groups". She acted, throughout her study design, analysis, and publication, as though the phenomenon already existed. Indeed, the SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies said the study "violates principles of research methods by using a pathologizing framework and language"
    Littman mischaracterized her results, and used bad methodology, to support the conclusion that her research was proof of ROGD's veracity. That's called not following the scientific method. She skipped the hypothesis part and assumed the phenomenon was real, without testing for it in any robust or meaningful way. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think you're really missing the point here. Yeah, I don't know if you realise that what you think you said about what you thought I thought I said was not the same as what I thought that I said about what I think. See: bizarre ontological claims incompatible with natural science and practitioners take aim at the very epistemological foundations of the scientific method. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    That Gordin book you linked says the exact same thing, btw.  Tewdar  20:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Which is all very well, except that (1) I offered the book as my answer to the question, "what reliable sources say that fringe and pseudoscience refer to the same phenomena?" - I was not appealing to it for definitions, and (2) WP:FRINGE was the basis of Crossroads' RfC argument for why the term "pseudoscience" should not be used in this instance, so perhaps it does matter what WP policy has to say about "pseudoscience". And WP policy does not define "pseudoscience" in terms of being outside the spectrum of the scientific method. Quite the opposite, in fact. Newimpartial (talk) 20:33, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Rather than get bogged down in the WP:FRINGE page, I'd rather focus on the (lack of) sources, which in general do not describe ROGD as pseudoscientific, even the sources that are (quite rightly) extremely critical of it.  Tewdar  20:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    And what terms do you think WP should be using to communicate this extremely critical mainstream view? "Fringe", perhaps? Newimpartial (talk) 21:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Were it not for the existence of WP:FRINGE, I would reply "maybe"... I'll get back to you on that tomorrow if I may.  Tewdar  21:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think "never recognized" and "discouraged...due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence" about cover it. They are reflective of the language used by the body of reliable sources, and already in the lead paragraph.--Trystan (talk) 21:09, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah, I think you're right. 'Fringe' is even less supported by sources than 'pseudoscience'. Cool name, by the way.  Tewdar  22:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    But how would that work in contexts like this one? Surely "contentious" doesn't really communicate an extremely critical mainstream view. And it has been explicitly argued that the RfC here should be the basis for mentions of ROGD in other articles. Newimpartial (talk) 22:17, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think that lead would work best without "contentious" or any replacement modifier: ...which endorses the concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria. ROGD is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by any major professional institution and is not backed by credible scientific evidence.--Trystan (talk) 14:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    I am not the one trying to add a label, but if you look at these then psuedoscience is not the term that springs to mind as an accurate description. Aircorn (talk) 05:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Anyway we can't do much worse than this article from science. Four years old I know, but nothing else presented comes close in terms of reliability . Aircorn (talk) 05:53, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    That statement is ridiculous. That piece was published before the replication studies were attempted and before the world's major professional organizations in the field weighed in. The situation has changed - it is as though you were saying that the most reliable statements about Covid-19 were made in the first half of 2020 because they were in Nature. Newimpartial (talk) 10:41, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • (Brief comment on the line between bad science and pseudoscience) I would like to point out as a relevant example, conversion therapy was considered completely valid science in its time, and is now considered pseudoscientific.
Human rights violations aside, if I gather up a hundred queer people, torture them until they say they aren't queer, and record that study as evidence they were "cured" of being queer and that conversion therapy works, by these standards that would technically still be "science". Concluding that conversion therapy is effective or ethical is a fatally flawed conclusion based on faulty experiment design but can still fall within the realm of the scientific method. However, we consider it pseudoscientific rather than scientific because it was based in a worldview that a priori pathologizes queer people and makes a mockery of the scientific method to advance political agendas and discrimination under the guise of "science".
Similarly, we can take the case of ROGD. What exactly is scientific, in anything other than very loose application of the scientific method, about
1) Going to a website for parents who refuse to accept their transgender children,
2) Asking them if their kids are really trans (who say "of course not, the internet made them think so")
3) Taking their answers as fact and insisting some kids aren't really trans, they've just spontaneously developed the condition "ROGD" (where kids turn trans because the internet)
4) Ignoring widespread medical consensus that it does not exist, should not be used as a classification, and that the study was flawed.
Remember, there are those who insist ROGD actually exists and is a valid diagnostic category, despite all evidence to the contrary. It is currently being used to attack the rights of transgender people in various states in the US. If you take a look at History of conversion therapy, you can see the many times "experts" supported it using the scientific method. Many of those papers have not been retracted. What is the functional difference between bad science, especially bad science promoted by a fringe group despite being known by the medical community to be bad science, and pseudoscience?
From WP:FRINGE/PS: Pseudoscience is nonsense claiming to be scientific, which captures ROGD perfectly. From WP:FRINGE/QS, questionable science crosses the line into psuedoscience when no reasonable amount of academic debate still exists on this point. The medical consensus on it being discredited and flawed is clear.TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 01:53, 2 October 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
Rather than focusing on the functional difference between bad science [...] and pseudoscience, which is a whole barrel of WP:OR, we should probably look at how relevant academic commentary critiques Littman's hypothesis, e.g. this, this, this, and this. None of these articles, even the ones that are extremely critical, describe the hypothesis as pseudoscience, or use any sort of synonymous language. We cannot categorize every study which features bias, methodological flaws, and unwarranted conclusions which do not follow from the data as pseudoscience, and we would require strong sourcing for this label, such as exists for the conversion therapy article, not two sources from journals of sociology and rhetoric.  Tewdar  08:37, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. We have basically every credible medical institution that comments on ROGD, denouncing it due to its lack of scientific evidence. ROGD claims to be scientific, but it's not. It's pseudoscience, and many sources listed above me describe it as such. PBZE (talk) 02:33, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Addition: The fact that not all sources describe it as "pseudoscience" doesn't change anything IMO. A sufficient number of high-quality sources do, and basically no sources say it's not pseudoscience. The usage of less strong terminology such as "bad science" does not weaken the case of using the term "pseudoscience", it strengthens it, because it shows general agreement with the characterization of ROGD as pseudoscience. PBZE (talk) 10:11, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
  • (Evaluating the weight of scholarly sources.) I will reiterate my points that I have made across this page.
  • The current text already reflects the scientific consensus on the topic. Almost all of the text of the page is criticism and flaws of the study. This already meets the guidelines of WP:FRINGE, A Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is. The theory is not accepted, the theory is not portrayed as accepted within the page.
  • The number of sources given to support the terminology pseudoscientific is too few to be given weight within the article. Five sources is nothing compared to the number of times ROGD paper (Citations: 139) and its correction (Citations: 61) has been cited. Even being generous and specifically going out looking for sources calling ROGD pseudoscientific, we only get the five papers already mentioned. The staggering majority of the papers citing ROGD do not call it pseudoscientific. We cannot do WP:OR to interpret the criticism of other works as equivalent to ROGD being pseudoscientific.
  • The presented scholarly sources have too few citations compared to other papers which cite ROGD. In total, the presented five papers have ~160 citations total. Just on the first page of ROGD paper and its correction we have papers with over ~2500 citations. Those papers do not use the terminology pseudoscientific and are cited many more times over.
  • WP:Fringe explicitly states, the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight. Litmann is in the Department of Behavioral and Social Science; the academic sources that have been linked are in Linguistics and Language, Gender and Sexuality studies, Cultural Studies/Gender Studies, and 2x Sociology and Political Science, respectively. Please feel free to verify this yourself by going to the journal pages of the linked sources. What is the reasoning behind regarding these works in vastly different subareas as the authority for judging a work in Behavioral and Social Science?
Theheezy (talk) 06:26, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
The last point of this WP:WALLOFTEXT is complete nonsense. WP:FRINGE cannot be interpreted to imply, for example that racist pseudoscience about human intelligence published by physical anthropologists in physical anthropology journals can only be refuted by publications by physical anthropologists in physical anthropology journals. Other fields are equally or more relevant, and WP:FRINGE does not mean to exclude such sources. In the current instance, each of these other fields are as relevant to gender identity and (supposed) social contagion as "Behavioral and social science" - most of them more so.
Also, the argument of the preceding paragraphs - that we should treat the PRIMARY sources with more weight because they have higher citation counts than the SECONDARY sources cited here - runs directly contrary to WP:RS policy.
Finally, TheHeezy has not answered my prior question about what term should be used, here or in other articles, in place of "pseudoscientific" or "fringe", to communicate the status of ROGD. "Discredited", perhaps? Newimpartial (talk) 12:14, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I acknowledge that you believe that my assertions are nonsense. I disagree, and stand by my assertions. Other editors have already proposed wordings which are adequately reflected in the current text hence, I saw no reason to respond. Theheezy (talk) 12:40, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
His question refers specifically to the discussion of the word "Discredited" on the Genspect talk page.
Talk:Genspect/Archive 1#"Discredited" 2: Electric Boogaloo
Talk:Genspect/Archive 1#"Discredited" BrigadierG (talk) 09:56, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Whoever is responsible for WP:FRINGE, they surely did not intend that racist pseudoscience about human intelligence published by physical anthropolists should be refuted by an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing in the Rhetoric Society Quarterly journal. If that was their intention, then I couldn't give two hoots about anything else in that guideline.  Tewdar  16:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Ill-tempered digression concerning humanities scholarship
Tewdar, your dudgeon directed at certain disciplines (such as Rhetoric) isn't any more relevant to Wikipedia consensus determination than are your two hoots. And if you don't see the relevance of rhetorical scholarship to the analysis of pseudoscience, well, I'd like to point out that a degree of WP:CIR in discussing any topic in relation to WP policy. Newimpartial (talk) 16:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Queer theorists don't get to decide if the Standard Model of particle physics is correct. Physicists don't get to describe how Dybo's law operates. And an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing certainly does not get to decide if ROGD is pseudoscience or not. This is how science works. Your inability to understand this suggests that you do not possess the relevant background knowledge that is required to participate in this discussion.  Tewdar  18:03, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Tewdar, you seem to be confusing scholarship used as a primary or as a secondary source. A peer-reviewed paper in rhetoric cannot be used as an original investigation to determine that ROGD represents pseudoscience, but it certainly can be used as a secondary source that refers to the outcome of the "debate" on ROGD within the human sciences. Newimpartial (talk) 18:36, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
No, Hsu's is an original investigation that cites precisely zero sources, relevant or otherwise, for the claim that ROGD hypothesis is pseudoscience. It is a primary source for this claim.  Tewdar  19:31, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't have access to the full Hsu paper, sadly, but there is a reference to the consensus embodied in WPATH - you don't think that's relevant? Newimpartial (talk) 19:37, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Here you go.  Tewdar  19:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
That's a good paper. Thanks. I see now why you couldn't find the citation you were hoping for - Hsu is sufficiently skeptical about the medical model of transness that the paper doesn't go out of its way to cite medical scholarship as authoritative. But the documentation the paper gives of the origin of the ROGD concept on the very web fora where Litmamn later turned to validate the concept is within the domain of Hsu's humanistic discipline, and provides compelling evidence for what author sources call "bad science" and Hsu with some justification calls "pseudoscientific". Newimpartial (talk) 20:03, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
That's a good paper - it's a pile of shit. 😁  Tewdar  20:09, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm going to WP:AGF here and assume that you approached the paper with incomprehension, rather than hostility. It is a well-written paper drawing on established theoretical perspectives, providing appropriate evidence and contributing to an important ongoing debate.
By the way, Tewdar, that just may be the best "say IDONTLIKEIT" without saying "IDONTLIKEIT" I've seen this year. Newimpartial (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Finally some recognition. Anyway, what do I know. I know nothing of the relationships among academic specialties, and lack even basic numeracy skills. It's lucky I can eke out an existence here gathering periwinkles from the seaside or I would probably starve to death.  Tewdar  20:19, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Also, re: this edit - you aren't doing your position any favours by refusing to count sources you don't like. You didn't have a good reason for removing TSQ, so your count still ought to be at 3 IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
As mentioned, TSQ says "uses pseudoscientific language", and Hsu is not qualified to pass judgement. If I was feeling more charitable my count would be three. But I'm not.  Tewdar  19:48, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
You don't think uses manufactured, pseudoscientific language to spread misinformation supports "pseudoscientific"? How frangible are the hairs where you live? Newimpartial (talk) 20:10, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Even in my most charitable moods, even with the newly-added references, the sourcing does not support calling ROGD hypothesis a pseudoscience in the lede even with attribution, or anywhere else in the article in Wikivoice.  Tewdar  20:37, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah; I am familiar with your opinion on the matter. Newimpartial (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No per Theheezy. A theory can be unproven or proven wrong without meeting the definition of pseudoscience. Springee (talk) 12:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    So, would your proposal for a pithy descriptive phrase be "contentious, unproven hypothesis", then? Newimpartial (talk) 12:32, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Please stop bludgeoning the discussion. Springee (talk) 12:36, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    The question is on topic - the question of what other terms editors who agree that ROGD is "bad science" or "discredited" would use instead of "pseudoscience" is fairly central, IMO. Also, why are you following my edit history? Newimpartial (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Seconded. I'd have only commented once were it not for the bludgeoning. Who knows, that may have helped the pseudoscience argument! 😂  Tewdar  12:41, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    So you respond to my "bludgeoning" by bludgeoning back? Err...ok. Newimpartial (talk) 12:55, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah, I expect someone will be along in a minute to tell me off...  Tewdar  14:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    I don't think it's bludgeoning, it's a real question. Everyone here seems to agree that ROGD is bad science, and the problem is the line between bad science and pseudoscience. Fair enough in a vacuum, but: this RFC pretty clearly originates from the dispute over at Irreversible Damage over how to describe ROGD in the lead. Currently the word we use is "contentious". Based on all the participants in this RFC and all the sourcing we have, it's fairly clear that stronger language than just "contentious" is justified. So then, what stronger language should we use? If "pseudoscience" isn't justified by the sourcing, what is? Loki (talk) 16:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    The question is outside the scope of the RfC. The Littman study had some serious issues, and the hypothesis is unsupported or undermined by other studies. But, hey, see this, for example, which says ROGD is a clearly observed phenomenon but is not currently a recognized medical condition. (You might not think much of this source, and perhaps I'd be tempted to agree if I had not been asked to accept the judgement of an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing in this discussion). So, how to describe it? "A controversial hypothesis, originally proposed in a study which has since been heavily criticized, has never been recognized as a diagnosis, and unsupported or contradicted by subsequent studies...", perhaps? If you want a single word descriptor, I'm not sure. But certainly not 'pseudoscientific', anyway...  Tewdar  17:12, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think your "contentious, unproven theory" wording would be fine, and I don't think we'd have any trouble finding sources to support that. Mathglot (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
  • @TheTranarchist: - you might want to remove Smith 2018 from your updated sources - that's a Master's thesis...  Tewdar  14:36, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No per Theheezy. The majority of reliable sources do not use the term to describe ROGD. They are very critical of ROGD, and use other terms to criticise it. We ought reflect that. BrigadierG (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No – for at least the reasons stated above by Theheezy and Mathglot. Under the Spectrum of fringe theories set forth in WP:FRINGE, ROGD does not satisfy the narrow criteria that are necessary to be labeled "pseudoscience", and would at most fall under the rubric of "questionable science". Lwarrenwiki (talk) 20:43, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    WP:FRINGE defines "Questionable science" as Hypotheses which have a substantial following but which critics describe as pseudoscience (emphasis added). Do you believe ROGD has a "substantial following" (after discounting as irrelevant what FRINGE calls amateurs and self-published texts)? That's a pretty strong claim for you to base your !vote on, and it runs contrary to pretty much all of the sources included in the article itself or presented on Talk, to date Newimpartial (talk) 21:05, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    You should probably read WP:FRINGE/ALT. Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. I'm not sure if WP:FRINGE considers the Department of Rhetoric and Writing to be part of the scientific community, but if it does, whoever helped write it needs to be immediately permaTBANned from all science articles, broadly construed.  Tewdar  22:57, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    What does that have to do with Lwarrenwiki's assertive claim about questionable science? "Questionable science" and "bad science" are not synonyms. ("Bad science" being a judgememt made of the ROGD studies, in reliable sources in the same domain as that in which the original papers were published, so no need to rant and roar about Rhetoric and Writing.) Newimpartial (talk) 00:18, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    While we agree about this RfC, Tewdar, I very much think your behaviour here constitutes WP:HOUNDING WP:BLUDGEONING. BrigadierG (talk) 01:41, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Hounding involves following the target around to other pages, not a discussion between people already on the same page. Crossroads -talk- 06:02, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    You must be joking. I disagree with Newimpartial, and I have a right to respond to their comments. Since they are cheerfully exercising their right to respond to almost every 'no' voter, I am certainly entitled to point out where I believe they are mistaken. They just asked me a question... I suppose you think I shouldn't respond? If Newimpartial seriously believed my behaviour constitutes 'hounding', I'm sure they would have said something by now.  Tewdar  09:10, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Apologies, it was 2am and I was tired and linked the wrong policy. I meant WP:BLUDGEONING. They're bludgeoning the discussion, but hammering them back on every comment makes the actual discussion hard to follow
    BrigadierG (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Well, that sounds slightly more like a reasonable summary of reality. Okay, I'll just let them bludgeon away, hopefully that'll make the discussion easier to follow.  Tewdar  12:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    This, but unironically. BrigadierG (talk) 13:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    I've explained several months ago why the "pseudoscience" label in Wikivoice is not applicable. The existence of a "substantial following" has already been addressed, at length and over a period of years, by numerous editors on this page. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:39, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Where? I see no evidence of any such following. The Genspect coterie are WP:FRINGE, and are by no means substantial - and this has been addressed, at length, and over a period of years, by numerous editors on this page and elsewhere. Newimpartial (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No. I agree with the observations by User:Theheezy, User:Tewdar, User:Mathglot, User:Trystan, and User:Crossroads. I don't need to expound on what has already been stated. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 03:28, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. It is a term used in many different RSes, and even those which do not explicitly describe the concept as "pseudoscientific" can be accurately summarized as same. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 03:48, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Merely asserting that they are present in many RSes doesn't cut it; produce them, and show that they are majority opinion (they are not). However, perhaps even more important is the perilous implications of the second part of your statement regarding " those which do not explicitly describe the concept as 'pseudoscientific' " which you apparently wish to also include in your tally of sources supporting a 'yes' vote. "Pseudoscience" is specifically called out by the Arbitration Committee (here) as one of the topics that are subject to Discretionary sanctions, so interpreting reliable sources (i.e., presumably, peer-reviewed, under editorial control) whose authors and editorial department decided to exclude the word pseudoscience from the article as nevertheless somehow meaning "the same" as those which include it and thus supporting an interpretation (by whom? Wikipedia editors?) of "pseudoscience", seems *really* problematic to me. In that case, it's the Wild West, and any article is subject to 'ps' discretionary sanctions if I think the sources are talking about pseudoscience, even if none of them actually use the word. Why not rather assume that such reliable sources mean what they say, and don't mean what they don't say? Mathglot (talk) 11:02, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    So should we use "bad science", then? Surely all the sources produced for "pseudoscience" in this context support ROGD being "bad science", and we have other sources specifically using that term (as well as other closely related ones). Newimpartial (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    That's a reasonable question. I haven't done a tally to verify my feeling about this, but my sense is that there are a number of sources that say it is "bad" or "junk" science, especially (but not exclusively) among those who might be considered among those labeled "transgender activists" in the article. (Zinnia Jones and Julia Serano come to mind as among the earliest writers who used this language or similar, iirc.) I believe (but don't know for sure) that a significant minority of sources may also use such language, sufficient to reach the threshold required by WP:DUEWEIGHT (i.e., more than "a tiny minority view") so that if my assumption holds up, "bad science" could be mentioned in the lead. That would be a survey worth doing, however I worry somewhat that with the size of this Rfc already, piggybacking additional options or diverting a portion of the discussion onto whether this would be a reasonable compromise would fragment the discussion and burden the closer with even more work than is already on the table. But I'd certainly support a second Rfc to decide the question, and might well !vote differently on that one than on this one, depending on the outcome of such a survey. I think it's worth keeping this Rfc more narrowly focused based on the original options of the OP. Mathglot (talk) 19:08, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • (An equitable compromise.) In assuming the best faith of all editors here. May I suggest an equitable compromise. How do the voters feel about adding ROGD has been described as pseudoscientific by some authors in the humanities. to somewhere in the academic responses section? I’m against saying pseudoscientific in Wikipedia voice, or in the lead due to weight issues. But I think it makes sense to point out that it is a legitimately held minority opinion. It is also a must have to mention that the unifying field of these authors is in the humanities due to the large discrepancy between their subarea of expertise not matching the area that ROGD is under lest we have another Sokal affair. Theheezy (talk) 11:33, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Sociology isn't among the humanities, though; it is a "Behavioral and social science". Newimpartial (talk) 11:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    9/11 sources pointed out are in the humanities, and two are in the Sociological Review monograph series, not in the journal itself. Please take the time to critically review exactly what the sources are, as I have constantly done. Theheezy (talk) 12:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Have you read Pearce et al.? It is very clearly a Sociology paper and published as such. Newimpartial (talk) 12:33, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Like I said, it is published in the monograph series, not in the journal itself. If you don't realize that a difference exists or understand why it is an issue, I also suggest WP:CIR. Theheezy (talk) 12:39, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Publication in the monograph series doesn't change the topic or discipline attached to the paper. Newimpartial (talk) 12:55, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    I acknowledge that it is your opinion that you believe that publishing in The Monograph Series for the Sociological Review counts as a peer reviewed academic publication equivalent to publishing in the Sociological Review journal. I disagree and strongly suggest you read WP:CIR. ; edited [that these papers are] fully refereed paper published within the domain of Sociology. I highlight that The Sociological Review monograph is focused on, publishing monographs which push at the boundaries of sociology and related disciplines – that ‘undiscipline’ the social sciences – and those which reinvigorate and renew established aspects of international sociological traditions. With the "TERF Wars," monograph specifically is interested in, [bringing] together a range of peer-reviewed interventions into complex debates over trans inclusion within (and beyond) feminism. As editors, we intentionally sought contributions from a diversity of perspectives. On some points, contributors take different approaches, use different language to one another, or draw different conclusions. We did not request that authors adhere to any given ideology or worldview, other than a commitment to recognising trans people’s stated experiences as worthy of respect and recognition. Rather, what unites the essays in this collection is a commitment to evidenced critique, and an interest in building genuine solidarity within and between trans and feminist movements. I suggest you read WP:CIR. Theheezy (talk) 15:29, 4 October 2022 (UTC) Theheezy (talk) 13:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Please don't attribute to me opinions that I have not expressed. Thanks.
    You also seem to be under the mosapprehension that articles published in the Sociology Reviewed monographs series are not fully reviewed journal articles, but that is just a silly mistake. Newimpartial (talk) 13:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Could you explain your exact opinion -- as it relates to the academic field of Sociology -- on "TERF wars: An introduction," an introduction to the Sociological Review Monograph "TERF Wars" by Pearce (A Lecturer in Community Development) et. al. and "A critical commentary on ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria’" by Florence Ashley (A PhD student in Law and Bioethics) . I would like to acknowledge this opinion and move on from the WP:Bludgeon. Theheezy (talk) 14:38, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Internal to the text, the paper inscribes itself within the domain of Sociology - We consider a sociological understanding of this phenomenon to be vital. Lots of papers in Sociology Review are written by academics working in disciplines other than Sociology, but that doesn't mean that they cease to be Sociology papers.
    As to the monograph series, its mandate is described as follows: The Sociological Review is home to a long-running Monograph Series, edited by Dr Cath Lambert and Dr Karen Throsby, that publishes collections of outstanding and original scholarly articles on issues of general sociological interest.[12] That is, it publishes within the domain of Sociology. Also note that All articles published within the monographs are fully refereed and have dual status as journal articles, which should answer your previous question about review standards.
    So I understand this to be a fully refereed paper published within the domain of Sociology. Newimpartial (talk) 14:52, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    That edit was a violation of the WP:TPG provisions concerning editing one's own comments. Also, you haven't shown any evidence that the paper is not refereed, or that it is not a Sociology paper. If you think diversity of perspectives makes a paper no longer part of Sociology as a domain, then I suspect you don't read much Sociology. Newimpartial (talk) 15:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes but also, I think the exact word (which is what all this debate is about) is not such a big deal - an equivalently strong label as "not science" is also ok. In my view the pseudoscience label entails a) "not science" and b) presented in the style of science, leading to c) synthesis of the two facts to apply the label "pseudoscience". In the spirit of being careful with potentially controversial negative descriptions, it's a) that has to be carefully sourced as representative of the literature. While of course we may not assess b) or perform synthesis c) ourselves, I think a lower burden of proof is required there, and is met by just some sources using the exact term. CyreJ (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment: Many editors are voting no based on a supposed distinction between "bad science" and "pseudoscience". The alleged distinction appears to be that "pseudoscience" is unfalsifiable while "bad science" is falsifiable (and false). But I think that's not so clear. For instance, all of the following are commonly held to be pseudoscientific: perpetual motion, Lysenkoism, phrenology, and homeopathy. I note here that it's pretty easy actually to falsify any of these theories, and in fact the reason they're commonly considered pseudoscientific is that they are false. (Also, off that point: I think we should not have to settle century-old debates in the philosophy of science to be able to describe something as "pseudoscience", and that this is part of why we operate based on descriptions in reliable sources instead of WP:OR.) Loki (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
No, pseudoscience usually means something like 'outside of the scientific method'. 'Falsifiability' sounds a bit like antiquated Popperianism, at least to me...  Tewdar  16:37, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Antiquated and erroneous are not synonyms.
Science is the method by which we understand the real (non-supernatural) world.
Science is about three things:
  • Making observations
  • Building models (hypothesis, theories, etc.)
  • Trying to break models
If it is not possible to break the model, it isn't science, it is make-believe (i.e. pseudoscience). The examples cited, except for homeopathy, are not prevalent or accepted by any significant community. I am befuddled by the continued presence of homeopathic remedies in drugstores, but then again, they sell cigarettes.
Einstein did observe “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity; and I am not sure about the universe.” I think wishful thinking and willful disregard for objective data are part of the appeal of pseudoscience. So much easier to reject what you don't understand as irrelevant, rather than having to put in the time and effort so many of us have had to do. So I suppose we have to lump in things w/ pretty convincing evidence (e.g. vaccines do not make you autistic, or gay*) that people who lack the ability to understand science, and reject it because they don't want to think about it because it is complex, involves math, or intrudes on their personal supernatural beliefs. But, I assure you, that the notion that their view could be wrong isn't an essential test of validity to them, but rather a source of existential angst.
People say we may have seen some of that going around the last few years.
If you make some technical sounding assertion and claim it is about reality, and there is no way to test it, if there is no logical way to invalidate your hypothesis (i.e. you cannot even formulate a null hypothesis) then it is pseudoscience.
All those who are in an uproar over this poorly conducted (and almost certainly biased) study just need to wait for better science. We can debate until we are blue in the face, but science takes time. Barstow Bates was not a scientist, but he hit the nail on the head with "Research Is the Process of Going Up Alleys to See If They’re Blind".
DrKC MD (talk) 09:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Nobody is a GRLwood fan anymore?
DrKC MD (talk) 09:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Antiquated and erroneous are not synonyms - sure, I should have said that solely defining pseudoscience based on Popper's falsifiability criterion probably wouldn't get a lot of support nowadays.  Tewdar  10:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Your personal definition of pseudoscience does not appear to be shared by the prevailing scientific community, which continues to describe such things as pseudoscience or pseudoscientific:
— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Also, I can only count two votes based on whether it is falsifiable or not, but then I lack basic numeracy skills.  Tewdar  16:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
As one of those two, I am happy to concede that unfalsifiable was the wrong word. What I had in mind was something more like "rejecting the scientific method", or attacking mainstream scientific theories and methodology, as WP:FRINGE/PS puts it. In any event, my position was not based on that, but on an assessment that the sources as a whole are more supportive of "unsupported" and "discouraged". My own conception of what is and is not pseudoscience is irrelevant to that process of canvassing of the sources.--Trystan (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No as per CROSSROADS.--Ortizesp (talk) 16:04, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes - This is a case of calling a spade a spade. ROGD is discredited and dismissed by every scientist who has investigated the original paper, and no further research has shown any validity to it. The original claim pretended to be scientific, but did not follow research standards, and has not stood up to scrutiny. Pseudoscience is the best way to describe this claim. We have enough journalistic sources, backed by the scientific community's dismissal of the concept, to use the term. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:06, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
    The linked SPADE page is an essay and is about civility, not article content. Crossroads -talk- 23:13, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
    Yes, it's an essay. You keep trotting that out like it's some sort of gotcha, when the entire point of essays is that they are a shorthand summary for a common situation on Wikipedia. If you'd prefer, I'll point to WP:DUCK, which fits this situation just as well. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:50, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    This is your opinion. There are lots of scientists that don't dismiss the original paper. PerseusMeredith (talk) 19:57, 6 October 2022 (UTC)— PerseusMeredith (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    "Lots of scientists" also promote homeopathy. That doesn't make them reputable, nor does it make homeopathy science. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:46, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes, for the reasons laid out by the proposer, and hence, per the sources. Failing this, and given the comments above about saying described as instead and/or describing it as "pseudodiagnostic" or "bad science" instead of "pseudoscience", perhaps we could discuss wording like "variously described as pseudoscience, pseudodiagnostic, bad science, not science," and/or whatever other descriptors are sufficiently well-/widely-sourced to merit mention. -sche (talk) 01:23, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No none of the sources are studies or research. This is clearly TheTranarchist's personal bias rather than the scope of the rather limited research in this field. There is still no consensus on the rise of transgender cases. Lisa Littman has a peer-reviewed study that held up. None of the citations are actual studies, Hsu, Hall, Adair, are opinion pieces about people weaponizing the term ROGD. You can find a number of opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal and other areas that agree with them. Those opinions are well-taken but does not show that the current rapid increase in teens identifying as trans is not caused by a social contagion. More research should be completed before the hypothesis is termed "pseudoscientific." PerseusMeredith (talk) 19:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)— PerseusMeredith (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Whether or not the word pseudoscience applies, ROGD is junk science that's been disproven, discredited, and is ridiculous. See the CAAPS Statement: 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. 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. CAAPS also encourages further research that leads to evidence-based clinical guidelines for gender-affirming care that support child and adolescent gender identity development. CAAPS opposes trainings that encourage others to utilize this concept in their clinical practice given the lack of reputable scientific evidence to support its clinical utility. Lisa Littman's study was forced to publish a clarification that the methodology was flawed and prone to bias, and reliable sources have thoroughly pointed out the flaws. Common sense states that the existence of transgender teens is not a social contagion. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:55, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
"Common sense" is your opinion as is "pseudoscience" which is why it shouldn't be included in the wikipedia page otherwise the page will lose what credibility it has (it already is not written from a neutral point of view). PlosOne included a description of two of the sites where she obtained her data, she did not say that it was "flawed and prone to bias." That's your opinion.
Saying that there aren't any sound studies is not the same as having a study to discredit it. CAAPS is saying they don't like how some people are using the term ROGD to damage a historically marginalized group. That's a fair statement. That doesn't mean that some of those identifying as transgender is not a result of a social contagion. You need studies to support that. PerseusMeredith (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeahhh, common sense says people aren't suddenly deciding they're trans because it's cool because the majority of trans children face a long uphill struggle to get to exist and it's an old right wing trope that queerness is a fad that's spreading and infecting people. They said no evidence supports it, as people have tried to prove it exists and failed, you misunderstand who the burden of proof falls on to say "kids are turning trans because they see trans people existing". The study it was based on went to websites for parents who didn't believe their kids are trans, asked them if they thought their kid is really trans, and reported their answers as proof their kids aren't really trans. Honestly, the majority of those kids are still trans and hate their parents. I've never once met a trans person who wasn't actually trans, but tons who's parents kept insisting they weren't in spite of living as themselves for years.
Getting back to why it's ridiculously fun to be a transgender child. If your parents decide they known better, in many places they can force you to avoid transitioning until 18. Many places there's no guarantee that your school will accept you. If below the age of informed consent, and your parents support you that is, you still have to go through a bunch of shrinks to clear you for transition (an old relic of conversion therapy and attempts to separate true transsexuals from the rest based on sexism and homophobia). You will have to worry about fleeing the state if they suddenly decide your care is criminalized or your parents are criminalized. You face bullying, higher rates of hate crime, discrimination, lower wages, and other cool perks. LGBT kids are over-represented in the homeless population since many get kicked out for coming out, with a large chunk being trans. But sure, it's wonderful and so easy kids are doing it just because. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't doubt that a lot of what you say is true. That being said, there isn't a scientific consensus that there is no social contagion element. It needs to be studied more. If there are additional studies that disprove the theory then I think we can label it pseudoscience. Until then, I'm a "no." PerseusMeredith (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
But the additional studies have been done, and have disproved the theory. The consensus of the RS is that ROGD is not a valid hypothesis (except for a few fringe figures associated with Genspect, etc.) - the differences among the RS have to do only with how to describe this lack of validity, whether that is "no empirical evidence" or "no scientific basis" or "bad science" or "fringe" or "pseudoscientific" - what have you. But the idea that there is any relevant professional support for the hypothesis is pretty much laughable. Newimpartial (talk) 23:10, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
This !vote is a collection of absurdities; perhaps the only accurate statement in it is There is still no consensus on the rise of transgender cases - which is true; indeed, there is no consensus on whether or not there actually is a "rise in transgender cases" (sic.).
Re" Lisa Littman has a peer-reviewed study that held up - that is an egregiously false statement. The methodology of her research has been taken apart within the relevant field, and none of the attempts to test her hypotheses under more rigorous circumstances have found any supporting evidence for ROGD.
PerseusMeredith seems to labour under the misapprehension that it is up to these critical or replicator studies to label Littman's work as pseudoscience, but that isn't their job - it is the job of secondary surveys of the ROGD controversy to do so, and those surveys are quite clear about the status of ROGD even though the language they use varies considerably from author to author. No RS support the idea that ROGD has received any empirical support or that it represents an interpretation worthy of further investigation.
Furthermore, PerseusMeredith seems to be under the misapprehension that it is necessary for mainstream scholars in the field to prove a negative, to somehow demonstrate that "social contagion" isn't responsible for a supposed increase in self-reported trans identity. This rhetorical move precisely represents the pseudoscientific alternative to science described in WP:FRINGE; whoever closes this RfC (preferably a panel) should not take this WP:SPA !vote at all seriously. Newimpartial (talk) 23:35, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Please WP:AGF, in addition let's not make this into a WP:FORUM. Theheezy (talk) 23:38, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
A note for closers: this person has at time of writing made no edits outside of this talk page. I suspect they may have been canvassed to this discussion somehow. Loki (talk) 14:13, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
  • (Question for closer): This RfC was only listed in Maths, science, and technology and WikiProject LGBT studies. Should it have also been announced in WikiProject Psychology, WikiProject Medicine, and WikiProject Sexology and sexuality? Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 08:50, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    • And also WikiProject Skepticism, perhaps, since pseudoscience is one of their main things? 🤔  Tewdar  10:30, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
      • I have added notices to those Wikiprojects along with WikiProject Gender studies as it is currently listed as a Wikiproject interested in this article [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. I did not mark Psychology, Sexology and sexuality, and Skepticism as Wikiproject notices as they are not currently listed as Wikiprojects which take an interest in this article and I am not a member so do not feel comfortable adding it, so the message is slightly different. Note that I used the wikiproject talk page for gender studies as Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender studies/Notice Board seems dead. I'd note that FTN might be a better place than Skepticism for a notice, but I'll leave that for someone else if they feel it is appropriate. Nil Einne (talk) 11:12, 8 October 2022 (UTC) 13:53, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes pseudoscience I see critics complaining that sources do not use the term "pseudoscience", as if it were WP:Original research for Wikipedia editors to make that claim without identifying that particular term in sources. I disagree that seeing that exact term is necessary. Wikipedia paraphrases and rewords many concepts. The reliable sources confirm that the concept is fake and hatemongering propaganda and that reviewers are unable to find legitimate science supporting the proganda. Wikipedia's style calls this pseudoscience and applies the term in many places against the same objections presented here. Bluerasberry (talk) 12:01, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    On the imagined scale that has excellent science at one end and [...] bad science on the other end, it is not the case that pseudo-science lies somewhere on this continuum. It is off the grid altogether. If you have sources stating that the ROGD hypothesis is 'off the grid altogether', or 'outside of the scientific method', or any sort of similar language, they can be understood as describing ROGD as pseudoscience. If they describe ROGD as 'terrible science (but still science)' then it is Original research to attribute to sources claims which they do not themselves make.  Tewdar  12:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Pseudoscience does not mean "outside the scientific method." The scientific method, when applied, can still beget pseudoscience. Drapetomania and Phrenology are both attempts to scientifically and empirically measure, hypothesize about, and describe the world. These were attempts to legitimize inequality and oppression under the label of science, taking an outsider's privileged perspective as on-par with the experiences of the oppressed and taking societal injustice for granted.
    Now, ROGD was derived from, what you could call at a significant stretch, a vaguely scientific method. Namely,
    1) you invent a term to explain why "kids are catching trans because internet and social trends",
    2) you define the concept to adults on websites for adults who believe there is no way their kid is trans and refuse to accept them (and don't disclose how biased your sources were),
    3) you collect them saying their kids have that and aren't really trans (without verifying with the kids, their doctors, psychiatrists or anybody else),
    4) you ignore all pre-existing evidence that parents often refuse to accept their children and say they're still cishet when they're obviously not, or try and say something caused them to be queer. (Failing to take evidence you don't like into account is actually a departure from the scientific method fyi)
    5) you publish the results as evidence of a supposed phenomonen without analyzing the serious flaws in it
    6) a bunch of medical organizations say no evidence exists for it, it fails to accurately capture anything about the experiences of transgender people, and it is harmful as it's used to attack the rights of trans people.
    Following this "scientific" example, I could prove homeopathy works by going onto a website for homeopathy enthusiasts, asking them if they believed it worked, and publishing the results as evidence it does, while ignoring all previous evidence to the contrary. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Pseudoscience does not mean "outside the scientific method." - citation needed.
    The scientific method refers to contemporary science, not that of the 18th-19th centuries. Else we'd never get anywhere, would we now? Who knows, future physicists (and Wikipedians) might declare the Standard Model to be pseudoscience... Tewdar  15:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Tewdar, it has already been pointed out to you that in relation to Wikipedia policy, pseudoscience does not necessarily mean outside the scientific method (or off the grid altogether. Do we need to have this digression again, just because you don't feel you got your point across the first time? High dudgeon isn't an argument. Newimpartial (talk) 16:16, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Look, I wasn't talking to you, and you'll just end up hatting the conversation anyway, so I don't think I'll bother to respond, except to say, one more time, that Wikipedia guidelines cannot define pseudoscience in the context of this RfC.  Tewdar  16:25, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Tewdar, if it isn't to offer guidance on the use of terms like "pseudoscience" in WP articles - which is what this RfC is about - what do you think WP:FRINGE is for? Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Newimpartial, as far as I can tell, the purpose of WP:FRINGE is expressed succinctly in the Fringe theories in a nutshell section. It seems to be a guideline, describing a best practice for describing a wide spectrum of non-mainstream theories in our articles. What it does not do, unless I missed it, is attempt to provide us with a workable definition of pseudoscience. Sensibly, the authors of that guideline seem to have left that task to the relevant High Quality Reliable Sources.  Tewdar  18:30, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Then how do you explain the spectrum of fringe theories section of the guideline, which places "pseudoscience" on said spectrum? Newimpartial (talk) 19:46, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Newimpartial, that section doesn't seem to provide us with a method of determining whether the ROGD hypothesis is pseudoscience or not, as it is not the universal scientific view [...] that ROGD hypothesis is impossible, nor does it appear to be generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community. I think we should use the relevant HQRS to determine whether ROGD is pseudoscience or not, instead of WP:FRINGE.  Tewdar  19:59, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    In fact, Newimpartial, if we look at the section which explains how To determine whether something is pseudoscientific or merely an alternative theoretical formulation, it looks like WP:FRINGE would prefer to call ROGD hypothesis an alternative theoretical formulation. You don't want that, do you?  Tewdar  20:39, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    IDK; I think the "alternative theoretical formulations" section of FRINGE does a pretty good job of depicting ROGD ... as pseudoscience.

    Pseudoscience generally proposes changes in the basic laws of nature to allow some phenomenon which the supporters want to believe occurs, but lack the strong scientific evidence or rigour that would justify such major changes.

    Check.

    Pseudoscience usually ... relies on weak evidence such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence (as for example in parapsychology), or indulges a suspect theoretical premise (such as the claims of water memory made by advocates of homeopathy).

    Check and check.
    So I entirely dispute your premise in this instance, Tewdar. Newimpartial (talk) 00:50, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    Alternative theoretical formulations generally tweak things on the frontiers of science, or deal with strong, puzzling evidence—which is difficult to explain away—in an effort to create a model that better explains reality. ✅
    Pseudoscience generally proposes changes in the basic laws of nature ❌
    Pseudoscience usually relies on attacking mainstream scientific theories and methodology while lacking a critical discourse itself ❌
    relies on weak evidence such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence ✅
    indulges a suspect theoretical premise (such as the claims of water memory made by advocates of homeopathy). um, "~" (meh). Doesn't really seem comparable.
    All in all, I find the unsourced opinions expressed in that section to be unfit for the current purpose. Constantly appealing to WP:FRINGE seems to be a tacit admission that the relevant sources do not support the label of pseudoscience for the ROGD hypothesis.  Tewdar  09:27, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    If you think Littman's hypothesis responds to strong, puzzling evidence then maybe that is the problem? The relevant scientific community just doesn't see it that way.
    I suppose the basic laws of nature are somewhat elusive in this context, but ROGD supporters certainly advocate social contagion - which is not known to exist in the context of gender identity - to allow some phenomenon which the supporters want to believe occurs, namely, young people who are not trans identifying as trans. It seems quite obvious from the "work" of Littman, Shrier and other ROGD supporters that they really want to believe that non-trans kids are identifying as trans in significant numbers, for some reason, even though the evidence for that is largely of their own imagining. It is that motivation, inter alia that marks pseudoscience in this passage of FRINGE, and I am disappointed not at all surprised that you refuse to acknowledge this. Newimpartial (talk) 11:41, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    I can actually predict how (or whether) you will !vote at RfCs before I even look at the sources now, just by looking at the question. I can predict some people's votes based on their username. So please don't talk to me about surprise. I'm officially done with this RfC, so feel free to carry on doing... well, whatever it is you do around here.  Tewdar  12:11, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    Quoting the article for Pseudoscience 1) Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. 2) Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; 3) reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; 4) lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; 5) absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; 6) and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. (Numbers added)
    ROGD meets 1, 2 (kids are turning trans because of social contagion as opposed to parents just think their kids are), 3 (see methodological flaws in the study, such as leading respondents, refusing to disclose the COI in the source, and ignoring alternative explanations such as parent's well documented tendency to avoid acknowledging their children's gender/sexuality), 4 (the position of medical experts and organizations, and the numerous flaws pointed out by critics), 5 (see methodological flaws), and 6 (see it's use continued use, Bluerasberry laid it out quite nicely below).
    Before you say Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, this is attributed to the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, which also says Some forms of pseudoscience have as their main objective the promotion of a particular theory of their own, whereas others are driven by a desire to fight down some scientific theory or branch of science. The former type of pseudoscience has been called pseudo-theory promotion, and the latter science denial(ism) (Hansson 2017) (emphasis added). It then says The most prominent difference between pseudo-theory promotion and science denial is their different attitudes to conflicts with established science. Science denialism usually proceeds by producing false controversies with legitimate science, i.e. claims that there is a scientific controversy when there is in fact none. (emphasis added) as is the case of ROGD, making it an example of both pseudo-theory promotion and science denialism. It also quotes the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of Pseudoscience as A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have (emphasis added).
    Not to mention, the scientific method hasn't changed between the 18th century and now, unless have you have sources suggesting otherwise. Describing the world in fundamentally biased terms and calling it science since it followed the scientific method was just as pseudoscientific then as now. And even then, by refusing to consider prior research and alternative explanations the paper failed the second step of scientific method, ie researching the topic area. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:14, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Sigh... I'm sure I'm about to be attacked by many other editors here. This sounds like a whole lot of WP:OR, we cannot fundamentally call something pseudoscientific, unless reliable sources call them pseudoscientific. According to @Newimpartial, ROGD falls under questionable science and should be labelled (in Wikipedia voice) pseudoscientific since reasonable academic debate no longer exists on the topic. What qualifies as academic debate?
    In Skordis, N. et al. Gender dysphoria in children and adolescents: an overview (2020). we have the following quote: Littman’s study received both supportive and non-supportive comments, leaving space for further future studies on this new clinical phenomenon. Along with multiple letters to the editor e.g., Costa, Angelo "Formal comment on: Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria", and Hutchinson A, Midgen M & Spiliadis A. "In support of research into rapid-onset gender dysphoria." How quickly should we decide that no reasonable academic debate exists when the study and its correction was only published three years ago? I can already sense several editors warming up their typing fingers now to leave a scathing rebuke questioning my reading comprehension.
    Like I said, you'll find no objection from me in describing ROGD as pseudoscientific according to some academic scholars. However, describing it as pseudoscientific in wikipedia voice still sounds like OR to me. As an aside, I will not be responding to the expected WP:Bludgeon comments that will soon follow this one. I've said my point of view, other editors have said theirs. There is no fruitful debate to be had here and I'll happily let the closer decide which arguments have more weight. Theheezy (talk) 17:53, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No, as per all the above. This does not mean it is not pseudoscientific or is, but that it is not lead worthy in this controversy. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:14, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No per Crossroads and Theheezy. Published, peer-reviewed scientific papers that are non-reproducible are not (necessarily) "pseudoscience". Methodologically flawed science can still be part of the scientific process. I think we should be quite restrictive in applying MEDRS and consider mainly medical sources in our consideration of whether to use the word "pseudoscience", and so the sources that use the term do not convince me. It is clear that many people misunderstand the scientific process and make pseudoscientific claims that use the language ROGD, but this is not the same thing as Littman's paper being pseudoscience. — Bilorv (talk) 21:17, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    Bilorv, why would we require good MEDRS sources to evaluate an original paper that is not itself a good MEDRS source? That seems to be stacking the deck, don't you think? The studies disconfirming the hypothesis are already a good sight better than the original study. Newimpartial (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No. Having skimmed this conversation and looked at some of the sources, it seems that the current language in the lead is sufficent –– and I think actually more persuasive that ROGD is indeed not a real thing than if we were to use the word "pseudoscience". Note that I would fight tooth and nail to resist any watering down of the language that currently exists in the lead, esp. It has never been recognized by any major professional association as a valid mental health diagnosis, and 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. That seems just right to me. Sometimes less is more y'all. Generalrelative (talk) 23:39, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think I can get behind this reasoning. Sometimes show, don't tell. Etc. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:26, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd just like to add this quote from the SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies: A scientific critique of this study is that it violates principles of research methods by using a pathologizing framework and language. For example, Littman uses terminology (e.g., cluster out-breaks) that promotes the conceptualization of gender dysphoria and identification as trans as a contagious disease or disorder. The aims provided in the article are as follows: “(1) to describe an atypical presentation of gender dysphoria occurring with sudden and rapid onset in adolescents and young adults; and (2) to generate hypotheses about the condition, including the role of social and peer contagion in its development.” Likening trans identities to a disease is in conflict with national and international organizations whose positions clearly state that identifying as trans is not a mental disorder (e.g., the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the World Health Organization). As such, bias appears to be present from the basic premise of the study and continued through each stage of the research process. In addition to what was summarized from it and added to the lead as "ROGD has been criticized as anti-trans propaganda and bad science.
Conversion therapy is regarded as pseudoscientific because while people have attempted to prove it using the scientific method (and failed), the structure and goals of the studies were inherently biased and pathologizing, and people continue to use it and insist it works as a valid medical practice, thus moving it from bad science to pseudoscience. ROGD is much the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheTranarchist (talk • contribs) 00:06, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Unfortunately the following quotations from the SAGE Encyclopedia entry seem to have been accidentally excluded: Through this review, the study and results were deemed a valid contribution to the scientific literature and Of note is that some authors do support additional research investigation into ROGD as a distinct clinical presentation. And perhaps you could remove Smith (2018) from your sources list now, that's a master's thesis and hence not a reliable source.  Tewdar  09:29, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Unfortunately that first comment is specifically about the journal's ass covering review process prior to the publication of the revised version. The second quotation is about the minority view expressed by a few of the professional organizations. Do you feel that either of three aspects is under-covered in this article? Whether you do or not, that isn't the topic of this RfC... Newimpartial (talk) 10:11, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Please could you stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS about my "POV" in edit summaries? It's not like my username is TheTerfmonarchist, is it now? Perhaps put your own house in order before making such ridiculous claims.  Tewdar  10:31, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Tewdar, WP:FALSEBALANCE is a WP:POV issue, and distorting a source to make a FALSEBALANCE claim (by treating all statements it makes in paraphrase of others as of they all had equal WEIGHT, as I pointed out here) violates WP:POV. I am not suggesting that you are motivated by an anti-trans POV or anything, although the hostility you express to me in your edit summaries, in particular, suggests that you may now sadly be motivated by an anti-Newimpartial POV. (You wouldn't be the first to make edits just to spite me, though it's been a moment.) Newimpartial (talk) 10:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
anti-Newimpartial POV - I mean... it probably doesn't have to be like that. Probably quite easily fixed, actually. The SAGE source was presented as supporting the claim that ROGD is pseudoscience. By stating that the review summarized the ROGD study and results as "a valid contribution to the scientific literature", with no further discussion, the source quite clearly does not support this claim, whatever else it might say.  Tewdar  11:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I for one have not used it to support "pseudoscience"; I used it to support "has been called bad science". It does support that, while the comment that the journal, in republishing Littman's article with revisions, is already reflected in this WP article, is it not?
As far as the !vote here is concerned - to which you replied without placing an "unsigned" template, so I don't know whose it is - the Encyclopaedia elaborates at some length why the ROGD study is considered bad science; it also briefly mentions that the journal editor called it "a valid contribution to the scientific literature" when publishing the revised version. Do you really believe these two points carry equal weight in the text? I ask you this as a former wikifriend, not as the enemy you seem prepared to swear oaths against. Newimpartial (talk) 11:32, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I for one have not used it to support "pseudoscience" - I never said you did. That is how it was presented here, however.
the !vote here - it wasn't a vote...
I don't know whose it is - oh come on! Take a wild guess! 😂
Do you really believe these two points carry equal weight in the text? - the way it is done currently in the lede, with attribution, yes. Personally, I think "crappy science" or similar can be put in the lede without a citation. I am yet to be convinced about putting 'anti-trans propaganda' in the lede however.
Please ask our colleague to get rid of the Smith 2018 master's thesis from the sources list... asking as a former wikifriend?  Tewdar  11:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Anti-trans propaganda is also supported by the SPLC and HRC. Not to mention the CAAPS statement, which supports the fact it's used to target the right to medical care for transgender adolescents. Also a bunch of news sources analyzing the connection.
For full context, Since Littman’s original publication, the editor-in-chief of PLoS One has offered a written apology to the trans and gender-diverse community, along with an explanation that a postpublication review of the Littman article was conducted. Through this review, the study and results were deemed a valid contribution to the scientific literature, and Littman revised the paper to address concerns regarding the study’s title, abstract, purpose, methodology, and conclusions. is followed by However, leading international trans and psychological health associations (e.g., World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the Australian Psychological Society, and the Australian Professional Association for Transgender Health) published official statements noting that ROGD is not currently recognized as a clinical phenomenon. These statements also emphasized that ROGD should not be used to limit appropriate gender-affirming care that follows existing standards of care and clinical guidelines. The Australian Psychological Society further challenged the notion that social media or peer pressures influence a person’s gender and noted that this narrative may be harmful to young people’s well-being. Of note is that some authors do support additional research investigation into ROGD as a distinct clinical presentation.
The overwhelming point of section is that ROGD is flawed science unsupported by any medical institution and likely to be used to cause harm. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:39, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Once again, flawed science is still science. Not pseudoscience. Start another RfC for the Anti-trans propaganda assertion. Thanks for striking the master's thesis.  Tewdar  15:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
By that same token, conversion therapy is science instead of pseudoscience. There were studies trying to prove it worked, which were eventually all found to have serious flaws, and it is regarded as harmful junk that shouldn't be used by medical consensus. However, people keep trying to insist it does work and should be used, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. Sounds an awful lot like ROGD.
The anti-trans propaganda description is well sourced. Tonight I'll factor more discussion of that into the article. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:04, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Tewdar, we don't need to RfC every little thing - my addition that mentions propaganda doesn't make claims in wikivoice, it is impeccably sourced, and nobody has questioned its accuracy. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were aiming to sign with team WP:SEALION. Newimpartial (talk) 16:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't really mind if you add 'anti-trans propaganda'. It's certainly used in this way. But out of scope for this RfC really. Please stop attempting to bring my intellectual integrity into question. I am deeply troubled by this attempt to classify the ROGD hypothesis as pseudoscience. It is unsupported by the sources as a whole, and it would set a worrying precedent if this RfC was to close in favour of describing it as pseudoscience with such little HQRS support. Luckily, this does not have the slightest chance of success, at least in my opinion.  Tewdar  16:35, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
My guess would be that this closes non-consensus; editors see unable to agree what principles should decide whether the term is to be used (is it sourcing? "scientific" sourcing? MEDRS sourcing? Some OR conception of what pseudoscience "really is?), much less how to apply principles to the case at hand (much of which has depended on whether an editor personally believes ROGD to be a "plausible alternative hypothesis", or not). There seems to be reasonably strong consensus that ROGD isn't a plausible explanation of anything, within the sourcing available, but the language to use to express that is still to be worked out. Clarity in this hasn't been helped by Littman's move from her original paper - which pretty evidently laid out some pseudoscientific claims, and which is the direction the Genspect fanboys have gone with in adopting ROGD - to the revised version, where she couches everything to such an extent that the paper seems to represent the step before systematic inquiry, which more likely to be "non-scientific" than being either scientific or pseudoscientific.
Anyway, I'll be happy when someone closes the RfC so we can move on to next steps. Newimpartial (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I have added an unsigned template. Nil Einne (talk) 11:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
The conclusion that ROGD is essentially anti-trans propaganda is reached by the peer-reviewed sources you keep disparaging because you don't like the fields in which they are published or the way that they are written. The discipline of Rhetoric and writing clearly ought to give weight to finding something "propaganda", though, and here we have a high-quality secondary RS making that statement in a neutral way, which I followed.
And you're right: this is a !comment not a !vote. I hadn't noticed. Newimpartial (talk) 12:00, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No - Not in the lead and not in the article either. A very strong no. The question is predicated on a fundamental confusion between the definition of pseudoscience with the definition of fringe science. This theory may be wrong, but as long as it is pursued scientifically it is not pseudoscience. It would be quite wrong and very much against wikipedia policy on WP:NPOV to describe this as pseudoscience. Also quite unnecessary. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:52, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    This theory may be wrong, but as long as it is pursued scientifically it is not pseudoscience.
    This was not pursued scientifically. They selected a group of people they knew would provide the answers they wanted, rather than interviewing the subjects themselves. They weren't just cherry picking data, they were ensuring they could only get the data that would support their assertion.
    When the entire "experiment" is fraudulent, it's pseudoscience. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    Snowball sampling. Terms like 'fraudulent' should be reserved for e.g. this plonker.  Tewdar  17:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. The takeaway I've gathered after reading all of this is that there is next to no disagreement that ROGD is a fringe theory. WP:FRINGE provides three terms for categorizing fringe theories: pseudoscience, questionable science, alternative theoretical formulations. Of these, "pseudoscience" seems to me to be clearly the most appropriate. "Questionable science" would require the theory to have a substantial following, which it plainly does not based on the highest quality sources linked above. "Alternative theoretical formulation" misses the mark by an even wider margin, given that a) they must originate "from within the scientific community" (emphasis mine - implying more uptake than the single flawed project introducing the idea) and b) the "aspect of reality" ROGD attempts to explain (that there is a marked, substantial rise in trans identification among children and young adults) is not itself even factually established. (In fact, the study in Pediatrics referenced in this very article is cited as finding that "the number of total trans youth declined between 2017 and 2019." In contrast, the observation Littman construed as an "aspect of reality" needing explanation is described as "a few" teenagers in her town coming out as trans in 2018.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatbox (talk • contribs) 12:34, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
    Apologies for forgetting to sign - the above comment is mine. Thatbox (talk) 12:37, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
    WP:FRINGE cannot possibly be a reliable source for a definition of pseudoscience. The entire guideline needs to be burned to the ground and rewritten from scratch to avoid confusing people.  Tewdar  22:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No.
It is bad science, but not pseudoscience. Not yet.
See my other comments as to why. With time, there will still be people clinging to this, long after it has been forgotten by mainstream researchers in the field when properly conducted, unbiased, studies showed debunked this theory, then it becomes pseudoscience. It is when you have some belief that is intrinsically not subject to the scientific method (e.g. Intelligent design) or when you just chuck out all the science as not relevant or too complicated, etc.
(I am not going to wager on whether clusters of kids coming out exist--but think an alternative explanation, like finding out you are not the only one who is facing these very difficult identity issues, maybe even being able to discuss your feelings for the first time in your life, might have more to do with it than some sort of mental contagion.) DrKC MD (talk) 10:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. Editors should not philosophize about what pseudoscience may be or not be, they should check reliable sources instead. See WP:OR and WP:RS. Science-Based Medicine is a good source for medical pseudoscience, and it says, Some see it as a victory that Lisa Littman, the creator of the term “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD), is referenced in the new guidelines. However, this inclusion does not legitimize Littman’s pseudoscience nor give credence to social contagion theory. Littman is also a member of both the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and GenSpect. ROGD is not an actual medical diagnosis recognized by any major professional associations and has no good evidence to support its existence. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Sweet, we can use blogs as reliable sources for our science articles now! Davidski gonna lay the smack down on those Reich lab fools in all our archaeogenetics articles!
    Seriously though, Eckert should get a peer-reviewed article published in a reputable journal instead of tweeting and blogging if they want to criticise Littman's wacky hypothesis.  Tewdar  19:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Ah yes, Science-Based Medicine, a generally reliable source that's not self-published, featuring an article written by a doctor with 14 years of experience in LGBT healthcare and 7 in gender affirming healthcare who is Medical Director of Anchor Health’s Gender and Life-Affirming Medicine (GLAM) Program, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, is exactly the same as a random self-published blogspot. Good thing we also have many a peer-reviewed article published in a reputable journal describing it as "psuedoscientific" (as does the SPLC, with the added "anti-trans" descriptor) or "pseudodiagnostic" paired with near universal condemnation of the original study inventing it as bad science and intrinsically flawed and counter to the scientific method.
    Funny enough, WP:PARITY also states In an article on a fringe topic, if a notable fringe theory is primarily described by amateurs and self-published texts, verifiable and reliable criticism of the fringe theory need not be published in a peer reviewed journal and Parity of sources may mean that certain fringe theories are only reliably and verifiably reported on, or criticized, in alternative venues from those that are typically considered reliable sources for scientific topics on Wikipedia. It's not as if ROGD has long been considered junk by most major medical orgs who have more important things to do than repeatedly disprove it and is primarily touted by far-right anti-LGBT organizations to attack transgender people's right to healthcare, a social rather than purely scientific observation... TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    Since you have many a peer-reviewed article published in a reputable journal describing it as "psuedoscientific" you shouldn't have any trouble achieving 'victory' in this RfC, then.
    How do you think that's going, so far?  Tewdar  22:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    That's the idea. I think it's going pretty good, considering those who oppose it tend to favor definitions of "pseudoscience" that would fail with their own examples of actual pseudoscience or include ROGD anyways, or in extreme cases claim that WP:FRINGE, the WP policy on how to recognize and handle pseudoscience cannot possibly be a reliable source for a definition of pseudoscience and needs to be burned to the ground and rewritten from scratch since it seems to pretty clearly lean towards supporting ROGD is pseudoscience and should be treated as such. In the end, up to the closer to decide. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:22, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    WP:FRINGE is not a policy. Perhaps you should ask on that guideline's talk page whether it is supposed to define pseudoscience or not. They already had to modify it recently, probably as a direct result of the way it has been misinterpreted in this RfC.  Tewdar  22:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • No – because we need WP:MEDRS sourcing to call it pseudoscience. But this entire article is in extremely bad shape. Most of the medical sources in this article are essentially being used as primary sources. The article needs to be thoroughly pared down to: citing the original article, as a primary source; the reactions of reputable psychological boards (almost all extremely critical); the reaction of commentators. Only the second group should be used for any actual medical information in wiki voice, and the first group should be treated as a primary source throughout. "Medical and other journals have published results of individual research studies that did not support claims that ROGD is identifiable as a distinct phenomenon" and similar sentences are not MEDRS-compliant unless they are systematic reviews, and I'm guessing the literature is still too sparse for those, although I haven't yet looked at sources beyond this article. This is why the guideline exists—to avoid panic and overeagerness over highly dubious medical claims. Ovinus (talk) 18:39, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    As I have asked of other, similar !votes, why would the critical sentences, based on primary sources that have reached mainstream conclusions and that are cited by major professional organizations, be excluded as not MEDRS-compliant? They already have a higher level of MEDRS than Littman's primary study, and they represent the professional consensus, which is supposed to lower the MEDRS standard for inclusion. Newimpartial (talk) 19:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    Because we should be citing the professional organizations only. THe ROGD statement says, 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. A paraphrase of this is easily fit for inclusion. Meanwhile, observe the current Further research section; it provides non-trivial biomedical information cited only to two non-reviews: a large survey of adolescents in the US, and a study of 173 Canadian trans people. These are trivially not WP:MEDRS-compliant. Ovinus (talk) 19:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    But they are better MEDRS than any Littman study. And more recently, the professional orgs have been citing their results, which ought to lend weight to them. Newimpartial (talk) 19:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    The Littman study is a main subject of the article and is thus being used, very unusually, as a primary source (c.f. Lancet MMR autism fraud, although that article isn't great either). Zero of its claims should be stated in wiki voice. But its presence does not mean it should be debunked with studies that are also not reviews. And no, they are not "better" MEDRS—they are simply not MEDRS. That's how the guideline works, and frankly—guidelines aside—it makes more sense to me to simply cite the professionals, as they can weigh the evidence properly and their assessments have much greater weight. Ovinus (talk) 20:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    My reading of MEDRS is that it creates a hierarchy; org statements and review articles rate highly, and primary studies within peer-reviewed specialist publications are lower quality MEDRS. The Littman study was published outside the relevant fields altogether. Newimpartial (talk) 20:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Ovinus:, while I agree with you completely on the issue of MEDRS-compliance and survey-level or literature reviews (such as Cochrane offers, but as you say is thin at this point), there is some history and background here which complicates the issue a bit (without undermining the main thrust of your comment) which you should know about. One issue is an article title issue; this article first saw light as Rapid-onset gender dysphoria and there were endless discussions about sourcing including MEDRS compliance such as you note. When considering issues such as Notability and reading the available sources, it became clear that almost the entirety of sourcing about ROGD was about the warring about it back and forth; that is, not about the alleged syndrome itself, but about the controversy engendered by publication of the study. Once that view crystallized, a move of the article to Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy was both highly appropriate, as well as supportable by editors otherwise on various sides of the debate about the syndrome itself. Following WP:Article title policy, this article is about the controversy, and anything relevant to the controversy may be included. Naturally, that includes the alleged syndrome itself, which still is subject to MEDRS compliance issues, however coverage of the allegations back and forth qua debate or controversy do not require MEDRS-compliance, in the same way that sources at Flat Earth theory, or the Sokal affair do not. So, back to your comments now: while I agree with you that to the extent a sentence or paragraph discusses the alleged syndrome from a medical PoV, yes, MEDRS compliance is required. However—and this is a big but—to the extent that the content discusses the brouhaha, which is most of it, it does not. If Alex Jones or some transphobic hate group weighs in on one side, and med-clueless activist groups weigh in on the other, *both* are perfectly appropriate for this article, to the extent that they meet WP:RS and WP:DUE. Because this is a bit of a tricky point, I'm going to ask User:Shibbolethink to weigh in here. Thanks for your comment, Ovinus, and I hope this additional background helps fill in some of the history and gaps, and will help explain why MEDRS-compliance is only required for a portion of the content here, and not all of it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) Bogus metaphysics and geodesy are not medicine. ;) I'll hopefully respond more completely in a few hours, but my main issue with this is that, imo, MEDRS often serves a similar goal as BLP: keep out harmfully incorrect information. When there's a living-biographical controversy, we cite the high-quality sources because we want to avoid harm. When there's a medical controversy, we cite the high-quality sources because low-quality ones are more likely to cause harm through misleading or incomplete information. Or, from a related perspective: As encyclopedia writers, we should stay above the fray of what (even usually highly reliable) popular media unfortunately does all the time: give credence to single studies. "Chocolate cures cancer! One month later: no it doesn't!" It is improper to indulge in the dispute in that way. Ovinus (talk) 20:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    Now, I must disagree with you, unfortunately. There is nothing in Wikipedia policy (including MEDRS) about keeping out (reliably reported) harmful information (however one might decide what that is) and specifically Wikipedia makes no attempt to keep out incorrect information (e.g. Flat Earth, Young Earth Creation, and a million others). If that's what you believe Wikipedia's remit is, I'm afraid you're mistaken. See WP:NOTTRUTH. Also, we do not stay above the fray, we *report* the fray (this entire article fits in that category). As long as you stick to MEDRS-compliance for MEDRS-subject assertions in this article, we are in agreement. Mathglot (talk) 20:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    Wikipedia makes no attempt to keep out incorrect information. That is not correct. See WP:MAINSTREAM. Wikipedia does have a remit to be mainstream. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    Perhaps this will help: this article is not about an alleged syndrome known as "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria". It is about the "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy" resulting from publication of an article about an alleged syndrome. Does that change your view at all? Mathglot (talk) 20:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) Well, I did not say "harmful information", but "harmfully incorrect information". (Also, sure there is such policy. WP:BLP says the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgmen. But that's irrelevant.) Why do the medical guidelines even exist? We don't report preliminary studies, even cautiously, on, say, some miracle new antidepressant, because it's irresponsible and intellectually dubious. I'm not aware of a carveout in the guideline for medical disputes between primary sources. We report the bogus study, then we report that it was rejected by countless professional organizations; we don't try to juxtapose it with contradictory primary-source information. To be more silly about it, "two wrongs don't make a right."
    Anyway, I think enough text has been spilt about this topic. My opinion remains. I'd love to hear more of your (and/or Newimpartial's) opinion on my talk page or elsewhere, because the interpretation of MEDRS in these kinds of cases—where popular-media coverage dominates more-reliable coverage—seems complex to navigate. Ovinus (talk) 20:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    @Ovinus I think we're having a conflict here between your interpretation of MEDRS and how it's actually used in practice. You're expanding MEDRS to encompass not just facts of disease (e.g. mechanisms, treatments, incidence, prevalence) but also to include the additional category of how we talk about the disease. I think @Mathglot hit the nail on the head with this one, it's about how MEDRS meets MEDRS-adjacent society aspects.
    This was very similarly argued to death, resurrected, hung from a rafter, drawn, quartered, and then made into a museum display over at this WP:BMI RFC about covid origins, which was overall inconclusive. But it is clear enough from that discussion that the community is not in favor of broadly defining "biomedical information" (which is the heart of what counts as MEDRS) to include MEDRS-adjacent things that impact society. I would draw the comparison to this quote from @Colin, who helped write MEDRS:

    [Suppose] [a]n 80-year-old grandpa dies in his bed and his GP comes out and says it looks like yet another heart-attack got him this time. We are happy that medical science, a qualified doctor, and a cursory investigation provides an answer, to which only his friends and relatives care much about. But consider instead there is a big knife sticking out of his chest and blood splattered all over the walls. Now we want a coroner/pathologist, we want forensics, we want detectives, and a court with a judge and jury, and the press are interested, and the case is national news.

    I would apply that analogy like this: The definition of ROGD is MEDRS. The incidence/prevalence (how often it happens e.g. a specific number) of ROGD is MEDRS. But the controversy surrounding ROGD is not strictly a scientific or medical topic. It involves lots of other stakeholders (activists, controversy-mongers, politicians, patient advocates, parents, clergy, etc.) who all have opinions about the topic. The question of "does it exist" is in some sense a medical/scientific question. And you're right, we should use our WP:BESTSOURCES (e.g. academic review articles, books, meta-analyses, medical org statements, etc.) for that question. And luckily, we already have.
    But in discussing how the disease has been described, how it has generated controversy among the public, all of these things, we absolutely do not need MEDRS-compliant sources. WP:PARITY applies. Meaning we should use our best available sources, but failing that, we should use whatever reliable sources we have available, and make sure we are keeping parity between cranks and skeptics. We should not have higher standards for ROGD-favorable sources than ROGD-skeptical ones. And it's okay if we have to dig deep to less-reliable (but still WP:RS) places to find that parity.
    Another analogy would be to Anti-vaccination. We do need MEDRS sources to say that vaccines are effective in preventing disease and do not cause autism. We do not need MEDRS to discuss the fact that another crank whackjob at some random medical school was sanctioned by his/her medical society for promoting these views. We do not need MEDRS sources to talk about the latest developments in Andrew Wakefield's saga. We only need MEDRS when it comes to talking about the disease itself (e.g. symptoms, definitions, mechanisms thereof, incidence/prevalence).
    Does that make sense? Your focus on MEDRS is admirable, but it is a bit short-sighted to be so broad in our definitions. And it's clear the wikipedia community does not agree with such broad definitions.
    Medicine and science are important (as a guy with a PhD in viruses and who is about to complete a second doctorate (in medicine), I of course agree), but there's also disciplines in the humanities such as "history and philosophy of science", "epistemology", "medical sociology", etc. for which we absolutely do not need to (and should not only) rely on MEDRS. To do so would be to shut out entire disciplines of study with reams and reams of research worth talking about. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 21:59, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No per reasons above. ROGD is discussed at length in this piece by Dr. David Zitner, a highly respected expert in Canadian public health policy.

Fake news is essential

  • Wikipedia should cite fake news ROGD is most discussed in hatemongering fake news propaganda, not in the scientific literature. We have difficulty showing that here, because Wikipedia prohibits citing fake news. Whatever scientific origins this concept may have had, it entered the realm of pseudoscience when it became more discussed in mainstream media than it is in scientific literature. Wikipedia fails to communicate that by citing unpopular and boring scientific papers on this topic while failing to cite or recognize the more popular and influential fake news on the subject.
See for example Breitbart - https://www. breitbart .com/tag/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-rogd/ Check the comments section for any of these articles to observe concise human emotional responses to this topic.
We do not cite this outlet because it is fake news. What I wish could happen is that we say, "Prejudiced media organizations including Breitbart say that..." Pseudoscience does not come from reliable sources; it is described more completely in the unreliable sources. Since this topic is mostly used in anti-LGBT propaganda, we miss that part of the picture by not citing such outlets. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree (with some of that)! We can always use WP:SELFSOURCE I think, as long as it meets the relevant criteria...  Tewdar  19:22, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    It's not really good enough though, is it? It should let us do stuff like 'Breitbart news says "(this pile of nonsense about this subject)"'. Surely this isn't prohibited by Wikipolicy?  Tewdar  19:27, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Breitbart, like most fake news websites, is on the spam blocklist. So even if you wanted to use it in this way, you wouldn't be able to do so. As far as I know only admins can add blocklisted URLs to articles and talk pages. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Probably does a lot more good than harm, I suppose.  Tewdar  19:48, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    It's possible for a URL affected by the blocklist to be added to the whitelist MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. If there is clear consensus that a URL is useful despite it being under whatever is blocklisted, I don't think it's hard to get it added to the whitelist provided there aren't intractable problems (e.g. copyright violations on the URL, BLP violations, outing). However you'd need to allay the concerns over whatever resulted in it being affected by the blocklist. Nil Einne (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Is this a serious argument? No, we do not engage in original analysis of sites like this by citing them to make an argument about how it is "most discussed" that does not appear in published sources. According to WP:SOURCETYPES, what was above called unpopular and boring scientific papers are the best sources on a topic. Breitbart is indeed on the link blacklist where it belongs. Crossroads -talk- 19:58, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Crossroads. This is not a serious, policy-informed discussion. WP:FRIND makes clear that a fringe POV can only be discussed if –– and to the extant that –– it is covered in non-fringe independent sources. Otherwise we simply leave it out of the encyclopedia. Generalrelative (talk) 23:23, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I mostly agree and it's a problem with a few articles that we can't really cite how they're supported by unreliable sources more often than reliable ones. Sideswipe9th put it really well in terms of Genspect, though it applies more broadly, with the only other positive coverage I can find for them based on a quick search are all from sources we consider unreliable. The same is broadly true for O'Malley herself. This is I think a feature and not a bug, as both Genspect and O'Malley regularly take positions that run counter to what mainstream medical sources state about trans and non-binary healthcare. Sadly we can't really point it out unless a reliable source does because WP:OR, but I tried to make some progress by noting the far-right groups that use it as reported in reliable sources. Best bet is to keep on the lookout for sources which state the connections to right wing media more specifically. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:40, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    Best bet is to keep on the lookout for sources which state the connections to right wing media more specifically. Yes. I'm with that. Generalrelative (talk) 23:50, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
    Did some better google-fu than my original searches and found some sources describing this which I added to the article. There was also an article in Verywellhealth (can't link directly so the url ends with /rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-4685597) covering it but we can't use it as a source, luckily it only provided marginal extra context. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:22, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
    Wikipedia remains neutral in all matters -- so must its editors. Therefore, if editors are going "to keep on the lookout for sources which state the connections to right wing media more specifically", they need to also be on the lookout for those that state connections to left wing media. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:48, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
    I've seen people continue to claim that ROGD exists and the "left wing media is hiding it and denying it" (paraphrasing) in unreliable sources. I'll keep on the lookout for reliable sources pointing that out. Also reliable sources discussing how liberal sources have begun to let the concept creep in. Generally, it's neutral to note we have multiple reliable sources saying people shouldn't believe it's real and pointing out it's perpetuated by far-right media and organizations to the detriment of transgender people. As I already included in the article. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:15, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
    This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Neutrality with regards to Wikipedia. Editors do not have to be neutral themselves, that's an absurd stance. The articles we write have to be presented neutrally, in accordance with the preponderance of appropriate reliable sources, but we do not have to be unbiased ourselves. Humans have biases, that's fundamental to our nature.
    With topics that are inherently biased themselves, as this one, we do not have to go out of our way to find WP:FALSEBALANCE just to appear neutral. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    I agree that we can't entirely rid ourselves of our own biases, but we should try to neutrally canvass and summarize the reliable sources, and avoid seeking sources that support specific points that we personally want to make. Whatever unreliable news sources (or Reddit, or someone ranting on the street corner) say about a topic is irrelevant, other than to the extent it is covered in reliable sources. Specifically searching out sources to support such additions would result in WP:UNDUE weight.--Trystan (talk) 18:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

NPOV discussion

In a contentious topic such as this article which is under ArbCom sanctions (WP:ARBGS), with a Rfc question which is contentious in its own right and *also* subject to ArbCom sanctions (WP:ARBPS) it is fundamental that we keep our eye firmly on Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy which is crucial to proper resolution of this Rfc. This means that we must represent

"fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

NPOV is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, and is non-negotiable.

The principle of WP:DUE WEIGHT is part of NPOV, and is the determining principle in how this Rfc question should be resolved. We should address the question of whether the term pseudoscientific is the majority view of reliable sources in describing ROGD, a significant minority view, or the view of a tiny minority. Everything else is just personal opinion, and is irrelevant here.

Since pseudoscience is a loaded term covered by specific ArbCom sanctions, we should try to assess what proportion of reliable sources use this specific term and not some other term to describe ROGD, because WP:NPOV policy states that "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such". Peer-reviewed books and trade journal articles use careful language that passes various level of editorial control, and if a word is present, it's not by accident, and if it's absent, it's not because they forgot to include it.

Accordingly, below I'll run some unbiased searches and resport the results, to attempt to determine if there's a trend in the data. If this Rfc doesn't get closed first, I'll do that in follow-up messages. Any help appreciated; I'd only request that we keep raw data and results in a separate subsection from conclusions and analysis. As for the timing, I'm sorry it's so late, but I've had little wifi access lately. Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 20:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes I would welcome this, regardless of what it is you may find. I hope your source review is broad and deep, and I would encourage you to also include what words these sources use if it is not "pseudoscience" such as "unscientific" or "bad science." I think we can come to a consensus via compromise of the best verbiage to use. Thanks for your work on this and I applaud your initiative. I would point you towards the source review we did on Talk:Azov Battalion/Sources as one possible approach for a similarly controversial topic, that ended up having participation from many multiple perspectives agreeing on the way sources should be delineated. I'm happy to help no matter how you end up doing it. (we ended up using a color-coding system which was somewhat controversial, but I think if it were to have more categories which were less vague, it would have worked better. And mainly I think the strength was including quotations for each source inline. I would really encourage you to do that.) — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 21:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
@Shibbolethink: Thanks for this comment. As I had already designed what I hope will be unbiased searches starting with Scholar, and have been working on those, rather than start all over (and risk making it even slower to report) I'll start by going with the original plan, which is to show raw data in a raw data section, analysis in a separate section, and then double back to try to improve both the searches and analysis by taking your comments into account. An incremental approach, in other words, hopefully leading to a more valid result. In the meantime, if you detect any possible bias in the queries or raw data, or flaws of analysis, please point them out. One bias which I hope is obvious, is that the top ten results will be biased against reports of pseudoscience, because they will likely include the original journal article and correction, which won't label themselves as pseudoscience; a deeper dive is needed. In addition, we need to think about how we want to handle primary sources, letters to the editor (from otherwise RS authors, e.g. clinicians in pediatric gender-related issues, etc), and so on, which also appear to be heavily present in top results. But I need to report raw results as I see them, and then we can proceed to analysis as more results are culled. I was planning to use Cochrane subsequently in the hope of eliciting more MEDRS-compliant, review-level articles, but have no idea if there are sufficient numbers there to be meaningful; I suspect we may have to include primary sources at some level, but we'll see. (If you can confirm that you are subscribed, I'll stop pinging.)
Here are some find sources links, for anyone who wishes to help.
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL
(Note that in some links you have to reenter the query; eg., Cochrane.) Top ten coming soon; but as noted, likely won't be particularly useful for analysis. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 22:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I think that's a really good plan. Only thing I would ask, is: please also include if the source uses other words such as "unscientific" "bad methodology" "bad science" etc. So we can come up with an alternative solution based in the sources if "pseudoscience" isn't the answer! A binary answer "yes/no" on "pseudoscience?" would only help inflame the discussion, I do not think it will help us achieve consensus. And yes you can absolutely stop pinging if you want, I am subscribed. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Good point; will do. Mathglot (talk) 23:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Shibbolethink, in order to keep this within a standardized methodology and not subjective, rather than just eyeballing the texts for alt terms, I'm going to use a regex which either will, or won't, generate a match on the text of each result. I used a thesaurus to generate all the likely terms I could think of, so this is what I'm planning to use:

Regex to check for alt terms

The following regex looks for two words within 30 characters of each other, consisting of any word in the first group (bad...wrong), near any word in the second group (analysis...undertaking):

(bad|​baseless|​fallacious|​false|​hoax|​ill-founded|​illogical|​inadequate|​inept|​invalid|​junk|​poor|​pseudo|​rubbish|​sophistic|​trash|​unscientific|​unsound|​untrue|​void|​wrong)(.{,30})(analysis|​diagnos|​exercise|​experiment|​investigation|​method|​observation|​practice|​probe|​procedure|​reasoning|​report|​review|​science|​scient|​statistic|​study|​trial|​undertaking)

I'm confident of my regex skills, but if you can check the word list to see if there's any term that is glaring by its absence, I'd appreciate it. If you know of specific, critical papers we could mine them for negative terms and add those. (There's no extra cost to adding terms, so add as many as you want.) Using the regex will keep any personal bias or subjectivity of mine out of the equation. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:38, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
This is really comprehensive! I would add -- "poor" "inadequate" "inept" and "method" "statistic" "reasoning" to those two, respectively. Just suggestions though, no need to take my word as gospel I won't be offended :) — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Done (also, hoax and diagnos). Thanks, can move ahead now. Mathglot (talk) 01:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
In the second set, I think you need scientific otherwise you miss pseudo-scientific. I presume a manual check of the hits is then required. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:32, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
The term pseudo already catches pseudo-scientific (as well as pseudo-anything). And you're right: after that, a manual check is required, which is why things are a bit slower, now. Thanks for the comment. Mathglot (talk) 08:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
You have science and unscientific but not scient(ific, ifically, etc.). Is this intentional?  Tewdar  22:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Hm, I thought I responded a while ago, but it seems not to have been saved. Basically, it wasn't necessary to search for that, as it wouldn't directly help to resolve the OP question; an unbiased search need only establish what proportion of RSes label it pseudoscience. But it doesn't hurt to add it, and may give a fuller picture of the variety of descriptions of it, and so I've added it to the list. Mathglot (talk) 09:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I mean, wouldn't it have failed to catch stuff like "scientifically unsound", that sort of thing?  Tewdar  10:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Shibbolethink, I had forgotten about the Azov sources page until you mentioned it above, but I remember it now, and must've been inspired by it: take a look at Talk:The Buddha/Tertiary sources for something similar which was used to support an RM there. Mathglot (talk) 10:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Scholar searches

The raw tally for a scholar search for "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (excluding citations) is around 417 (your results may be different based on your location, search history, and other factors). The actual count is smaller. By "nexting" through the results (or jumping ahead), by page 37 of results fewer than half the results on the page have the bolded term in the context snippet. Page 43 is the last page of results.

Note on methodology: content at the url returned by Google was examined, and as much text as available at that page is matched against the § regex pattern and any hits are listed after the label alt terms in each result. If the full text of the article or book is not available at the given url as rendered, but on-page links or buttons are present with a label clearly intended to provide the full text such as, 'Download', 'Full text', 'Access article', and so on then I followed the link to access the page containing full text, and used that content to match against. In cases where an on-page link or button clearly intends to provide full access but requires institutional login or registration or a fee, I would attempt to gain access to the full content however I could get it: in several cases through TWL, in some cases through my home library article database, in a couple of cases via assistance from another editor by passing them the complete citation (or link) of the content blocked to me. In cases where the originally rendered SRP (search result page) did not contain a direct link clearly intended to provide the full text (whether paywalled or subscription-protected or not) then I did not attempt to gain access to the full text by a separate search or other retrieval methods.

Results 1 – 10
Excerpt from result #1

Circumventing science through pseudoscience

Built on unsound empirical bases and shaky theoretical foundations, ROGD exhibits features of a discursive strategy that mobilises scientific language to circumvent evidence that challenges the status quo. Parallels may be drawn between ROGD, Parental Alienation Syndrome and False Memory Syndrome (Dallam, 2001; Meier, 2009; Schuman & Galvez, 1996).

In 1985, Richard Gardner proposed Parental Alienation Syndrome to refute accusations of child abuse in custody litigation. Suggesting that as many as 90% of children in custody litigation suffered from the syndrome (Meier, 2009), Gardner suggested that vengeful mothers had enlisted and brainwashed their children into believing, repeating and fabricating untrue claims of abuse. The proposed syndrome was based on claimed clinical experience rather than scientific evidence (Meier, 2009), and has been extensively mobilised in custody cases to disclaim abusive behaviour.

Similarly, the False Memory Syndrome construct did not emerge from disinterested research. Instead, it was coined by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, an organisation of parents accused of child sexual violence, in 1992 (Dallam, 2001). The foundation was created by Peter and Pamela Freyd after their daughter Jennifer Freyd, a respected specialist in memory research, accused Peter of sexual assault. Although false and distorted memories are known to be possible, FMS was predicated on false memories of child sexual violence having reached epidemic proportions due to recovered memory therapies. Without epidemiological evidence or viable means of distinguishing between false memories and recovered memories, the foundation’s advocacy and research lent scientific credibility to numerous individuals accused of child sexual violence. Neither proposed syndrome was ever included in the DSM.

The three theories share important features: (1) an extant phenomenon, (2) new scientific language, (3) claims of an epidemic primarily based on anecdotal evidence, and (4) a reactionary party concerned by a challenge to the status quo. The strength of the rhetorical strategy lies in its simultaneous appeal to common sense phenomena and the authority of science. Memories can be defective or distorted. Children can develop unwarranted hostility toward a parent during divorce. People can transition for the wrong reasons. Yet in each case, the further claim of an epidemic that is added to these extant phenomena fails to attract credible evidence and conflicts with known data. Scientific language discursively bridges this evidentiary gap by profiting from the public’s shortcomings in distinguishing good from bad (and pseudo-) science. In so doing, proponents of ROGD elevate anecdotal cases to scientific truth, rationalising opposition to social and medical transition. Even if, as with the now-flourishing Noah, it was evidently the right decision.

  • 4. In support of research into rapid-onset gender dysphoria A Hutchinson, M Midgen, A Spiliadis - Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2020 - Springer
    • in abstract: n/a; in full text: NO (via TWL); alt terms: (none) (appears to be a letter to the editor describing the experience of clinicians in the field of gender identity and pediatrics)
Excerpt from result #7

Just as a young person’s desire for intervention can feel too soon for adults facing difficult decisions about medical interventions, so too can those interventions feel too slow for the young person who seeks them out. In this collision of time, we suggest that ROGD may offer a tempting solution to the adult's discomfort of facing gender diversity in that it offers the certainty of an explanation and the promise of a young person’s return to “the cis-temic order” (Posadas, 2018, p. 102). The sheer reach of ROGD is suggestive of precisely this promise, for the pseudo-diagnosis seems to have grabbed the attention of many parents, and not only the parents using the anti-transgender websites where Littman recruited the majority of her participants.

Results 11 – 20

Search results: 11 – 20

  • 12. Gender dysphoria is not one thing JM Bailey, R Blanchard - 4thWaveNow. December, 2017 - 4thwavenow.com
    • in abstract: n/a; in full text: NO (this is a Blanchard typology primer and Q&A for blog readers)
Excerpts from result #13

This introduces a major sampling bias: the three sites which recruited respondents vociferously promote the notion that gender dysphoria in youth is almost always inauthentic and that transitioning is undesirable and dangerous; their spokespeople and survey respondents describe transitioning as “enslaving” and “physician-assisted self-harm”; their blog posts condemn transness itself as a “cult based on sexual fetishism and pseudoscience”; and these three sites are the very same ones that originally proposed the unproven construct of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” itself.

. . .

By relying wholly on parent-reported awareness, Littman is likely generating incorrect data regarding the development and course of gender dysphoria in these youth. This likely incorrect data constitutes the very basis for proposing “rapid onset” of gender dysphoria as a new and distinct condition. There is substantial reason to believe that this supposed “condition” is in fact entirely illusory and a mere artifact of Littman’s poor choice of methodology.

Results 21 – 30

Search results: 21 – 30

Excerpt from result #22

Critics argue that the study is “poorly designed,” “specious,” “bad science” (Ashley and Baril, 2018; Barasch, 2018; Serano, 2018) – highly biased, containing significant methodological flaws, and failing to represent the perspectives of trans people.

Excerpt from result #27

That Littman and others have interpreted community building among TNB youth as cultish rather than as a need for support echoes Keri DeJong's [End Page 293] finding that adults tend to stereotype young people as "clannish" (DeJong 2014, 139). Not unlike the sentiments expressed in How Is This Not a Cult?, a blog post that was published on 4thWaveNow, one of the websites from which Littman recruited her sample, these gender-critical opinions allude to the idea that a cult-like mentality may have deceived TNB youth into rejecting medical authority (4thWaveNow 2015). When reporting the findings of her study, for instance, Littman noted that several of her participants' children only trusted "information about gender dysphoria… from transgender websites and/or transgender people and sources" (Littman 2018, 23). In actuality, health and mental health providers have given the TNB community ample reasons not to trust their judgment, so it is understandable that youth would seek support and advice from individuals who share their experiences (Benson 2013, 29–31; James et al. 2016, 5). In sum, ROGD is an adultist, cissexist, pseudodiagnostic label that stems from widespread panic concerning recent shifts in youth culture.

One more round of scholar data might be worth it from the middle of the result set around result page 21 (results 201-210) to eliminate ranking algorithm-related bias, but switching first to books, then may come back to it. Mathglot (talk) 02:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Scholar search analysis

Insufficient data to conclude anything so far; the top ten results in particular are biased away from the term pseudoscience because they include the original paper and corrected version. A few more rounds of data are needed before we can assess it. Mathglot (talk) 03:55, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Lookin good methodology-wise though! Let me know if there are any full texts you can't get ahold of and I can try and get them for you. I have a lot of subscription access to weird journals from my job, wikilibrary, past affiliations, etc. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 20:04, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. Look for the term "full text: (not avbl)" (or maybe, "(n/a)") in the collapse section above; I think there are one or two. I'll try to be consistent going forward. Another couple of pages of ten results coming soon. Mathglot (talk) 20:42, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I think so far just this one, available on ResearchGate: Transgender Embodiment as an Appeal to Thought: A Psychoanalytic Critique of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 20:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
My impression thus far is that "bad science" is the most appropriate identifier by consensus via compromise and summation of these sources. But that may change with the books results. I say that because it is the most frequent of identifiers we've discussed that is mentioned in your source review, and because it does encompass multiple other identifiers included (e.g. bad methodology, junk science, etc.) I could get on board with that terminology. It also seems that this would persuade a lot of "no" votes in this RfC, since a common reason boils down to "it's badly done science, but it isn't pseudoscience." Thanks for this very thorough review, Mathglot! We should have just done this from the beginning. But such is the nature of Wikipedia discussions. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Google doesn't give a total tally for book search, but limiting the time range to 2014 to present, and looking for bolded query terms in the result snippets on continuation pages shows that there are about 36 mentions in books: based on search options of 50 results per page, there are 27 hits on the first page of 50 results (including 7 of the top ten), 9 hits on the second page of 50 results, and none on the 3rd page, for query "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (limited to 2014-present). Your results may be different, based on your location, search history, language options, and other factors.

Note on methodology: full text regex search of an entire book (or whatever pages Google exposes) is not practical. Each book found to contain the term "rapid onset gender dysphoria" or "rogd" was then individually searched for the terms "pseudo", "pseudoscience", "misdiagnosed".

Book search results 1 – 10

search books (2014-present) for: "rapid onset gender dysphoria"

1. Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our ... by Abigail Shrier · 2020

  • pseudoscience/-science: 1; misdiagnosis/-tic: none
    • "She abhors what she sees as efforts by trans activists to make biological women feel unsafe, and she says the gender ideologues' 'pseudoscience is nuts'. Kristal knows that she is biologically male; she simply feels most comfortable presenting as a woman." p. 106

2. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies by Abbie E. Goldberg, ‎Genny Beemyn · 2021 - Page 39 in chapter/article "Anti-Trans Theories" (39-42)

  • pseudo (not in this article); bad science p.39
    • "ROGD has been criticized as anti-trans propaganda and bad science." -p. 39

3. Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the ... by Preston M. Sprinkle · 2021

  • ROGD: 8 page snippets show up on an inside search, but the pages are non-viewable,and the snippets don't contain pseudo or diagnos/ed/is

4. Case Studies in Clinical Practice with Trans and Gender ... by lore m. dickey · 2021 - Page 81

  • 'pseudo': 0; 'misdiagnosed'=1 (p. 87, about autism); 'bad science' p. 184, citing title of Ashley & Baril (2018)

5. Inventing Transgender Children and Young People by Heather Brunskell-Evans, ‎Michele Moore · 2019 - Page 237; chapter 15: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, by Michelle Moore p. 238 (only viewable page in chapter)

  • pseudo: 2 (p. 44: pseudo-vagina 95: pseudo-constant children); misdiagnosed: 0; bad science: 0

6. When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson · 2018

  • ROGD: 0; Rapid-Onset: 0; pseudo: 0; misdiagnosed: 0

7. Diversity, Oppression, & Change: Culturally Grounded Social Work by Flavio Francisco Marsiglia 2021

  • pseudo: 1 (false +: p. 183: pseudo-intersex individuals); misdiagnosed: (false +: p. 59: mystic, visionary or healer... misdiagnosed as delusional or even psychotic)

8. The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and ... by Debra Soh · 2020

  • pseudo: 0; misdiagnosis: 1 (p. 120): "The misdiagnosis of another mental health condition as gender dysphoria is a problem that..."

9. The Sociological Review Monographs 68/4: TERF Wars: Feminism ... by Ben Vincent 2020

  • pseudoscientific: 1[clarify]
    • "The next article, ‘A critical commentary on “rapid-onset gender dysphoria”’, dismantles the concept of ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ (ROGD), a pseudoscientific diagnostic category for young people who supposedly believe mistakenly that they are transgender. Florence Ashley politically and historically contextualises the emergence of ROGD as a category, and deconstructs the evidence base and arguments used to support its use within scholarly contexts and by campaign groups such as 4thWaveNow. Ashley argues that ROGD reflects a deliberate and politicised weaponisation of scientific language to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that exists to support gender-affirmative approaches to care provision for trans teenagers." (p 691, in the monograph outline paragraph describing Ashley's paper)[clarify]
Methodological note about result #9

Note: the SRP url at G books was no-preview and non-searchable, and no direct link to a full-text version was provided. And so per the methodology, in theory, any non-retrievable content at that url should be excluded from representation here. Someone retrieving a physical copy and quoting the text would be within the methodological constraints, so with that caveat, the text is includable. (Perhaps the "p. 691" comes from a physical copy; in any case, a downloadable copy is here, where it appears as p. 17; but that doesn't meet the methodology requirements for inclusion.) Somewhat ironically perhaps, it's the clearest example of a text related to book search that uses the term at issue in the Rfc, and from a practical point of view, is unlikely to make a difference in the overall picture if current trends continue. For the time being, its presence is noted with an asterisk. note interpolated by Mathglot (talk) at 21:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

10. Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views by James K. Beilby · 2019

  • pseudo: 0; misdiagnosed: 0

More coming... Mathglot (talk) 09:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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