Brown University and PLoS ONE: Defend academic freedom and scientific inquiry

As a gender non-conforming teenager twenty years ago, there is no doubt in my mind that my sexual and gender struggles would have been even more difficult to navigate in the current culture. I hate to imagine how easily I could have made a decision to transition. With years of therapy addressing the impact of having a mother with borderline personality disorder, I now have a loving family and am more than comfortable being a woman. My heart goes out particularly to the girls who find themselves distressed and confused, whose wellbeing is being sacrificed for the ideology of adults.

Shame on you. What is a university if it cannot support reasoned argument?

Why are so many adolescent girls and young adult women with no childhood history of gender dysphoria choosing to become transgender? In the not very distant past very few girls and young adult women made this choice, as compared to their male counterparts. Now it is females transitioning more than males. Dr. Lisa Littman's study is a beginning toward answering important questions about young people's choices to transgender. Her data suggest that social influences such as belonging to friend groups where others are transitioning are playing an important role, as are online influences. Science cannot be forced to bow to social pressures placed on it by transactivists. If adolescent girls and young women are claiming to be transgender because their friends are, the transactivist story line deserves some serious questioning. Please give every support you can to Dr. Lisa Littman's research.

No comment necessary. The shameful circumstances spawning this petition say it all.

Academic research shouldn’t give in to mob rule

We need more research into this phenomenon.

Once again, the drug companies (and surgeons?) are eager to profit by "creating" a problem.

Let us learn all that we can ablut this phenomenon

Scientific inquiry is just as important if not more important than freedom of the press. This blatant caving in the wake of a loud few is a cowardly move by Brown U, what should be a bastion of academic integrity and scientific inquiry, the move to not support these findings the same as the university would support any other is shameful!

This careful research study already passed IRB and that should be enough. This is a craven political move based on perceived financial threat to the institution. It has the characteristically anti-intellectual stance of fascism.

This matter is too new and too important to limit the free flow of information discussion and academic studies.

One more foolish college administration willing to limit free inquiry is not what this country needs.

I am appalled by the assault on free thought, speech and science.

When researchers discovered that breast cancer is not a single disease but in fact has several subtypes based on the hormone receptor status (HR) and the HER2 gene, we lauded this research because it led to more effective and safer treatments for patients. Yet, when researchers are discovering that Gender dysphoria is not a single condition but has several subtypes, one of which is largely affecting adolescents and young adult females with no marked history of dysphoria and apparently mediated by social circles, and are suggesting that the previously blunt and midieval treatments consisting of amputations and pharmacological agents that create life long complications may not be the answer for this subtype of dysphoria, we silence this research. Anyone who is awake today and has a child 5-25 knows beyond reasonable doubt this new subtype of dysphoria is happening at unprecedented rates. Let’s study it’s prevelence (it’s far more than the historical rates of 0.03%), it’s causes— and explore new treatments. Brown, stand up to the political pressures! Political battles should not be fought on the battlefield of health — especially the health of young adults.

Stifling of academic freedom represnts introduction of destructive elements from wider society designed to stunt assertiveness & narrow determination unto conformity. Oppressor's tools.. Anyone behaving that way, should have no place. They're not contributing.. Theirs is not any debating position. Support the gathering of data, further study to the topic of ROGD. As Dr Littman acknowledges this is a fledgling field of study, but to limit awareess of the work is to defeat the greater goal of discovery.

Publication of a paper should be determined by the publisher and its referees, not mob-pressure. Any flaws in the paper academia must respond to, not an angsty team of internet trolls. This paper deserves to be heard and fairly reviewed.

It is so important that this distressing subject should be open to the fullest possible debate. Please do not give in to those who wish to silence it.

I am writing to encourage Brown University to support the research of Dr. Lisa Littman on rapid onset gender dysphoria. I am deeply concerned about the seemingly epidemic proportion of teens who are suddenly declaring they are transgender. My granddaughter is one of them. Please help bring this alarming phenomenon to the attention of the scientific community and all who value our children.

Politics and ideology should have no pull in what kind of research is put forward. Littman is clear that this is preliminary work that needs further exploration and expansion. Still valid information! Free speech! Free thought!

Brown acted improperly.