[We are reprinting and translating here Colin Wright's article relating to the latest scandal at springer nature linked to the unjustified retraction under pressure from trans-activists on https://www.city-journal.org/article/anatomy-of-a-scientific-scandal]
The scientific method is the best way for humans to study phenomena, gain new knowledge, and correct erroneous beliefs. Scientific journals play a vital role in this process, encouraging rational, evidence-based debate and the pursuit of truth above all else. But because the inner workings of these journals remain largely opaque, citizens, policymakers, and science journalists can have difficulty discerning whether politics has compromised a given publication, particularly when ideological agendas are couched in scientific language and benefit from the veneer of scientific authority.
Medical journals as a whole are on the verge of such ideological capture, if they have not already succumbed to it. It has become virtually impossible to publish results that contradict the dominant model of care for transgender youth, or that offer even mild criticism. There are, however, rare exceptions, notably the Archives of Sexual Behavior (ASB), a journal published by Springer Nature. This publication has distinguished itself by its commitment to facilitating diversity of perspectives in the field of gender medicine – until now.
A recent and alarming event highlights the vulnerability of scientific endeavour to politics. The ASB is a prime target for activist researchers who are intolerant of dissent, and a months-long campaign by activists to pressure Springer Nature to retract an ASB paper they disliked was successful. While the activists’ desire to censor inconvenient research is not surprising, Springer Nature’s capitulation to their demands represents a profound betrayal of scientific integrity and the publisher’s commitment to the truth.
The article in question, titled " Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases", was written by researchers Suzanna Diaz (a pseudonym) and Michael Bailey and published in ASB on March 29. The theory may help explain the documented rise in gender dysphoria among adolescents and young adults who previously had no gender-related concerns. Littman proposed, with supporting evidence, that social factors have at least partially caused the increase, particularly among girls.
Such a hypothesis may seem plausible, or at least a straightforward empirical question to be answered by an evidence-based examination. But it runs counter to the dominant thesis advocated by medicalization activists, that the rise in transgender identities is the result of society’s greater acceptance of “gender diversity.” Evidence supporting ROGD would challenge the “gender-affirming” model of care, an approach based on the idea that children can learn their “gender identity” from a young age and will rarely, if ever, change their minds about it. This philosophical belief system, which flies in the face of centuries of accumulated wisdom about human development, has been succinctly summed up by the phrase: “transgender children know who they are.” The affirmative model guides health care providers to “affirm” (i.e., accept) the child’s self-reported identity and facilitate access to hormones and surgeries, all in order to align the child’s body with the gender identity they feel. As a result, activists have worked hard to undermine ROGD research at every opportunity.
Littman’s 2018 paper sparked a strong backlash from activists, who successfully pressured the journal that published his results (PLoS One) to take the unusual step of undertaking a second round of peer review after the paper was published. The paper was republished with a “correction” that provided a more detailed explanation of its methodology, including its reliance on parental reporting, and clarified that ROGD is not a clinical diagnosis. Importantly, however, the paper’s main conclusions about the likely role of social influences remained unchanged. Activists repeatedly disrupted Littman’s subsequent attempts to explore ROGD using online surveys.
But Diaz and Bailey’s new paper has added credibility to the ROGD hypothesis. They examined parental reports of 1 potential ROGD cases in an online survey. The sample size exceeded that of Littman’s original study, which was based on 655 parental reports. The data reinforced Littman’s findings that gender dysphoria develops after puberty, primarily in girls, in conjunction with pre-existing mental health issues, heavy social media use, and peer influence. They also corroborated Littman’s 256 findings that an overwhelming majority (2018%) of affected parents are politically progressive, undermining the widespread notion that criticism and concern about gender affirmation stems from conservatism.
What else did the study find? In the sample, gender dysphoria appeared about two years earlier in women than in men. Women were more than twice as likely to seek social transition. However, among those who had experienced gender dysphoria for at least a year, men were more likely to undergo hormonal interventions. Additionally, a majority of parents reported feeling pressured by gender specialists to affirm their child’s new identity and approve of their transition. Parents who facilitated their child’s social transition reported that their child’s mental health “deteriorated significantly after the social transition” and that their relationship with their child suffered.
These findings are crucial. They add to a growing body of evidence supporting the ROGD theory, indicating the need for a new, specialist treatment approach for young people with gender-related distress. Clinicians widely acknowledge the existence of this new cohort. Anna Hutchinson, a former lead therapist at the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service, has vividly described a trend of adolescents “with no notable history of [gender dysphoria] symptoms before or during the early stages of puberty”. “Littman’s description [of gender identity dysphoria] is consistent with our clinical experiences in the consulting room,” she said. More recently, the English public health authority, the National Health Service, has just published new treatment specifications warning against medical treatment of young people with late-onset gender dysphoria, noting that "there is even greater uncertainty regarding the clinical evidence base, less well-established clinical practice and less well-understood natural history of gender dysphoria" for this new group of patients.
The suppression of ROGD research undermines scientific inquiry into a live and urgent issue for the public. It prevents doctors and clinicians from basing the treatments they prescribe on evidence rather than ideology. As Diaz and Bailey have found, the activists’ drive for suppression is constant and aggressive.
On April 18, just weeks after the article was published, Bailey received a list of questions from the executive committee of the International Academy for Sex Research (IASR) about the ethics approval process at the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Northwestern University, where Bailey works. The next day, a message from the IASR executive committee began circulating on its listserv informing recipients of “significant concerns about the ethical conduct and integrity of the editorial process” at the ASB. Members were told that the IASR was consulting with the journal’s editor-in-chief and its publisher, Springer Nature, to address these concerns.
Springer Nature contacted Bailey on April 28. “Some questions have been raised about the article,” the editor wrote, “and we are reviewing these with our Research Integrity Group.” The email was all about the IRB ethics approval process obtained before publication. This is a formal procedure that applies to all human subjects research proposals to ensure that they are conducted ethically and that participants are adequately protected. Springer asked Bailey to “provide details of the protocol you submitted to your IRB for review and any relevant documentation regarding the review process.”
Two weeks later, on May 5, an open letter to the IASR and Springer Nature was published. The letter called for Kenneth Zucker to be removed as editor of the ASB over his decision to publish Diaz and Bailey’s study. The letter had 100 lead signatories, including Marci Bowers, president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and a host of other academics and health professionals. All threatened to “no longer submit articles to the journal, act as a reviewer, or serve in any editorial capacity until Dr. Zucker is replaced by an editor with a proven track record of integrity on LGBTQ+ issues and, in particular, transgender issues.” Specifically, the letter claims that Zucker's decision to publish the study "threatens the foundations of research ethics" because the paper's authors did not obtain IRB ethics approval before collecting and publishing the data.
Bailey was quick to address concerns about IRB ethics approval. He explained that the initial survey data used in the study were collected by the paper’s lead author, the pseudonymous Diaz, who is not affiliated with an institution that requires IRB approval for such a project. In addition, Northwestern’s IRB representative informed Bailey that while the IRB could not retrospectively approve pre-collected data, it would allow him to co-author a paper on those data provided that they were redacted of all personally identifiable information. Importantly, Springer’s policy explicitly states that in cases where “a study has not received ethics approval before it begins . . . The decision whether or not to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the discretion of the editor.” Thus, all efforts to undermine the study or discredit Zucker's decision to review and publish it because of IRB considerations have been futile.
So the pressure campaign changed tactics. On May 23, Springer emailed Diaz and Bailey thanking them for responding to its earlier questions, but also informing them that the paper would nonetheless be retracted “due to noncompliance with our editorial policies on consent”:
Survey participants did not provide written, informed consent to participate in scientific research or to have their responses published in a peer-reviewed article. Additionally, they did not provide consent for publication for their data to be included in this article.
Diaz and Bailey had until May 26 to provide a written response expressing their agreement or disagreement with the retraction and its wording. That response, Springer said, would then be incorporated into the retraction notice. To be clear, Springer was not inviting Diaz and Bailey to challenge the retraction decision; it was simply offering them the opportunity to reflect the authors' position on the matter.
The activists’ tactic was simple: retract Diaz and Bailey’s paper on a technicality, then present the retraction as an invalidation of the study’s main findings. This tactic was used successfully with Littman’s 2018 ROGD paper; the journal’s decision to reexamine the paper and publish a “correction” was repeatedly and disingenuously exploited by proponents of “gender-affirming” care to declare the study “debunked.”
A retraction of Diaz and Bailey’s study could have an even more disastrous effect. It would not only retract an important contribution to the ongoing scientific debate about transgender identification among young people, but would also signal the ideological stranglehold of a scientific publishing giant that controls hundreds of journals that shape our knowledge base.
Faced with such a threat, Diaz and Bailey have fought back. On May 25, Bailey wrote a detailed appeal letter to Springer’s editors, emphasizing the irrationality of their impulsive and “capricious” decision to retract his paper—an act he sees as an attempt to “silence the critical conversation around gender issues.” Bailey says the retraction threatens not only to inflict professional, financial, and reputational harm on him, but also to undermine Springer Nature’s essential role “as a source for the fair and impartial publication of scientific articles that address the pressing gender issues facing society today.” He further urged Springer to resist outside influence, objectively assess the issues raised, and align itself with the journal’s core mission of “advancing discovery.”
Bailey raised three major objections to Springer’s decision to retract the paper. First, he challenges the grounds for the retraction, which he calls a “moving target.” Springer initially worried about a potential ethics violation stemming from the lack of IRB approval, which activists brought to its attention. When that challenge proved unfounded, the focus abruptly shifted to concerns about the informed consent of study participants.
Second, Springer claimed that study participants did not provide “written consent to participate in scientific research or to have their responses published in a peer-reviewed article.” As Bailey explained, the parents who participated in the survey were eager to provide data on ROGD, given the paucity of information on this new presentation of gender dysphoria. The introduction to the survey, which all participating parents responded to, mentions the paucity of data on the topic and the need for parents to “seek out this information for themselves” to “help us better understand” this new phenomenon. After completing the survey, parents were informed that their “responses will help us better understand which children are more vulnerable to rapid-onset gender dysphoria and what we can do to better support them.” The data, parents were told, will be made publicly available online once a large enough sample size has been established.
Parents were not only eager to provide information to improve understanding of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, but also aware that the anonymous results would be published online. Bailey emphasized in his rebuttal: “The sole purpose of parents’ participation in the survey was to inform the scientific community about the new presentation of gender dysphoria in youth with no history.”
Despite this, Springer has chosen not to respect the spirit of the consent requirement. Consent to publish anonymous data on a public website is not the same as consent to publish that data in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. But consenting to have your data published on a website run by unqualified volunteers is a far greater risk than having your information managed and published by an academic publisher staffed by dedicated professionals trained in deep data analysis and the protection of human subjects. As Bailey put it:
If participants had initially consented to participate only in future peer-reviewed academic research, but their responses were then published on a non-academic website with much lower quality standards, it could be argued that the initial consent was invalid. However, in this case, the exact opposite was true: the respondents’ wishes were respected and additional quality standards were put in place. To be clear, the consent was consistent with the intended use of the data provided.
It is hard to believe that participants' consent does not extend to a situation in which their data is treated with more care and precaution than they initially agreed to.
Finally, Bailey highlighted Springer’s inconsistent application of its presumed consent policy. He cited “a series of [Springer’s] ‘scientific publications’ based on surveys in which respondents did not provide explicit permission for ‘scientific’ use – and often did not apparently provide consent for research purposes.” Examples include at least six publications using data from a health survey conducted by the American College Health Association that “included intensely personal questions about substance use, sexual behaviors, and other highly sensitive topics.” Additionally, at least seven publications used data from a Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), and no fewer than six used data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS). Bailey found these studies after a cursory scan of the literature, suggesting there are many more such cases.
The day after Bailey filed his appeal, Springer paused the retraction to deliberate internally. Shortly thereafter, Springer informed Bailey that it had “concluded that this retraction was necessary due to the lack of informed consent.” Part of the proposed retraction notice reads: “The survey participants did not provide written, informed consent to participate in scientific research or to have their responses published in a peer-reviewed article.”
Surprisingly, Springer thanked Bailey for bringing to its attention the 19 other papers that appeared not to have obtained written consent from the study participants, or their consent to publish. According to Springer, these studies are currently under investigation. (Unlike Bailey and Diaz’s ROGD paper, investigations into ethics violations by authors who support “gender-sensitive care” seem to take much longer: an investigation into a paper by activist researcher Jack Turban has been ongoing for more than a year.) Springer also dismissed Bailey’s concerns about potential reputational damage, saying that the retraction “simply reflects the findings about the research itself and not the conduct of the author” and that it “is not intended as a punishment.”
It was a surprising response. Such retractions, no matter the motive, are routinely exploited by activists to tarnish the reputations of the researchers involved. Lisa Littman’s original paper on ROGD was simply “corrected,” and no findings or conclusions were changed; nevertheless, she was relentlessly vilified online and in the press. Brown University, where Littman was employed at the time, felt compelled to affirm its “longstanding support for members of the transgender community” in response to the paper’s publication. One science editor criticized Littman’s study as “scientifically specious” and claimed that “ROGD provides political cover for those who wish to roll back transgender rights and health care.” The controversy even led to Littman losing her consulting job after local clinicians demanded her dismissal.
Springer's acknowledgement of investigating the 19 papers highlighted by Bailey sets a new precedent that could be devastating for the research community, particularly in relation to transgender research, as much of the existing literature relies on survey data for which it is unlikely that written consent would have been obtained both to participate and for the research to be published in an academic journal.
In any event, several thousand research papers published by Springer likely do not meet the standards to which the Diaz and Bailey study is arbitrarily subjected. Consider Turban, a researcher often cited by proponents of the “gender-affirming” model of care. Turban published a study in a Springer journal on the unique needs and experiences of hospitalized transgender adolescents. While the study’s methods claim to have informed consent obtained to participate in the study, there is no mention of obtaining explicit permission “for their responses to be published in a peer-reviewed article,” a requirement that Springer now apparently deems necessary to apply retrospectively. Will Springer extend its review to Turban’s paper, requiring documented proof of each participant’s explicit written consent for publication of their data?
It is unclear whether Springer truly understands the enormity of its decision to retract the Diaz and Bailey paper because of a minor and inconsistently applied technicality.
Part of the problem with retracted papers is that the journal holds copyright to the content, preventing the authors from resubmitting the paper to another scholarly publication. In this case, serendipity worked in Bailey and Diaz's favor. When they first published in ASB, a grant from the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) – a US-based non-profit professional organization committed to raising the bar for evidence in gender medicine – has licensed the work under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. While Springer retains copyright, this license “permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.”
Following this retraction, Bailey and Diaz resubmitted the manuscript to the Journal of Open Inquiry in Behavioral Science (JOIBS), a fledgling publication founded by academics committed to the principles of “free inquiry and the pursuit of truth” and convinced that ideas should be scrutinized rather than suppressed. Unfortunately, in medical journals, this commitment increasingly seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
