Brown University’s retraction of their news article on Littman’s study has been making rounds. So has the comment by PLoS ONE that they will be conducting post-publication review. These points are most often shared as a win, as evidence that the study is being recognised as bad and will go down in the annals of history as a failure.

I think we also need to talk about how it could be a significant setback for trans communities and good science.

How pretty is Brown?

“In light of questions raised about research design and data collection” is how the Brown University statement starts.

The problem is that research design and data collection isn’t the primary issue with the study. Yes, methodological concerns are significant. Yes, bias might impact the accuracy of reported numbers because participants might have an incentive to lie. But to reduce criticism of the study to methodological concerns completely misses the core of the problem.

If there’s one label I would give the biggest problems with the study, it’s “interpretive”. The data is for the most part fine. If you want to convince yourself of that, imagine if the exact same study was done but instead it was trying to elucidate parental attitudes about trans kids among regular members of anti-trans websites, and concluded that those parents were hostile to their kids’ gender identities and justified that hostility by the belief that people identify as trans due to social contagion. Most of us would be fine with such a study. It’s indeed what’s happening here.

The problem isn’t so much with the data itself than how it’s interpreted. In particular, it fails to adequately position the data in relation to the null hypothesis — that this is a mundane presentation of late-onset gender dysphoria among teenagers with anti-trans parents — and thus conveniently ignores the fact that its data provides no support for the thesis of ROGD since it is equally compatible with non-ROGD hypotheses. Furthermore, those non-ROGD hypotheses satisfy Ockham’s razor insofar as they don’t require positing any new clinical subgroup or new, unpredicted social facts. The burden of proof lies squarely on those positing ROGD to show why we should reject hypotheses that are in closer alignment with established scientific knowledge. Because it doesn’t adequately address these issues, the Littman study fails to say anything interesting about the existence of ROGD.

If the concern of Brown University is primarily for research design and data collection, and if PLoS ONE is known for being relatively light in their review of interpretive aspects so long as the data’s good, then we’re in a dangerous set up. It’s likely that PLoS ONE’s review will largely let the study stand. And if it does, then it seems that Brown University’s concerns will largely have been addressed.

If that happens — and it’s not unlikely — then the Littman study will get a huge boost in credibility. To external observers, it will look like concerns were raised and turned out not to be substantiated.

By supporting Brown University’s statement and PLoS ONE’s review, we might be playing right into the hands of proponents of ROGD. I think we should consider that, maintain a healthy scepticism toward the whole review process, and make clear that the biggest issue with the study is interpretive, not methodological.