Data first, then conclusions

I forgot to send this last week when it ran: my latest for UnHerd on Springer Nature’s shameful retraction:

Springer Nature is doubling down on its decision to retract a controversial paper about trans-identifying teens and their parents. Despite nearly 2,000 researchers and academics signing a letter in support of the article, Springer nonetheless decided to retract the paper without disciplining its editor.

Co-author Michael Bailey has run afoul of trans activists before. He has a pesky habit of being a free-range researcher who follows his curiosity wherever it leads. In interviews, he is disinclined to make predictions, preferring to see the data first. 

Critics — many of whom could better be described as professional activists, rather than academics — balk at Bailey’s research-first approach. Twenty years ago, the scientist faced vicious attacks for daring to write frankly about the sexual motivations that drive some men to transition. His 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen hit the press at a particularly inconvenient moment, when trans activists were seeking to desexualise transgender identity in the public imagination. As punishment, activists flung every insult and accusation — no matter how baseless or horrifying — at Bailey that they thought might squash his book and its insights. 

Recently Bailey made another inconvenient outing, publishing an article on the controversial issue of rapid-onset gender dysphoria earlier this year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Bailey and his co-author, the pseudonymous Susanna Diaz, analysed a survey of 1,655 parents whose children had no childhood history of gender dysphoria, only declaring a transgender identity upon adolescence. 

Girls outnumbered boys three-to-one. Parents reported that 60% of girls and 38% of boys had at least one friend declare a transgender identity around the same time. In 73% of cases, parents reported that the child suffered a stressful event — like romantic rejection or the death of a loved one — shortly before coming out as transgender. 

Over half (57%) of young people had a prior history of mental health issues, with these problems preceding the onset of gender dysphoria by over three years on average. Bailey and Diaz observed that “youth with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to take steps to socially and medically transition”. Parents reported that, after social and/or medical transition, their children’s psychological functioning declined. Parent-child relationships suffered, too.