Brown University Professor Lisa Littman recently conducted a study on transgenderism that involved interviewing parents who, for the most part, were supportive of the LGBTQ movement. However, when her study revealed that peer pressure can make young people want to switch genders, far-left progressive activists went berserk.
Brown University subsequently caved in to their demands that the study be suppressed. The university failed to defend their own professor in spite of the fact that there were no scientific grounds for failing to accept the results of her work. Professor Littman interviewed more than 250 parents of transgender young people, which means that she had many more study subjects than other celebrated self-reporting studies.
It is not hard to see why transgender activists would be furious with the conclusions that this particular study reached. Professor Littman noted that up to 87% of all young people in the study wanted to become transgender after one of their friends did so and/or after spending time online reading about gender dysphoria.
Additionally, nearly half of the young people in the study noted that they experienced a stressful or traumatic even before they opted to become transgender. Up to 45% of all young people were harming themselves before professing to have gender dysphoria, while nearly 70% had problems with social anxiety. Nearly 45% of all study subjects had problems interacting with peers, many had a history of feeling isolated and, according to the parents, most of the young people involved found it difficult to handle negative emotions.
It is also worth noting that, as the study points out, none of the young people involved in the study would have been diagnosed as having childhood gender dysphoria under guidelines set down by the American Psychiatric Association. In summary, the study makes it clear that the so-called gender dysphoria that many young people experience is not caused by actual mental health issues but rather a desire to fit in, get attention, appear cool and find a quick fix to complicated life problems.
While Brown University is doing everything it can to apologize for Dr. Littman’s work in order to appease the LGBT activists who threw a tantrum over it, thousands of parents and researchers are speaking out in support of Dr. Littman and her scientific conclusions.
Lee Jussim, the Chair of the Psychology Department at Rutgers University, accurately pointed out that the activists who are decrying Dr. Littman’s work should produce evidence that her study is flawed rather than simply railing against it because they don’t like the study’s conclusions. Richard Krueger from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons called Brown University’s treatment of one of its own professors abhorrent. The former dean of Harvard Medical School also spoke up in defense of Dr. Littman, noting that Brown University has the responsibility of encouraging academic freedom of speech and allowing researchers to explore controversial topics.
Even many liberal parents who embrace transgenderism in general but are worried about their underage teens having life-altering have signed a petition supporting the study. The petition supporting Dr. Littman’s work currently has 4,000 signatures. Despite this, Brown University refuses to acknowledge the petition or change its reaction to the controversial study. In fact, the university continues to defend itself for speaking out against the study by stating that
The good news is that LGBT activists who wanted to suppress the study have actually achieved the opposite result. The study has now been viewed online about 59,000 times. Doctors, researchers and parents alike are supporting Dr. Littman’s work, noting that she offers genuine scientific insight into a condition that has not been studied sufficiently by other researchers in the past. National and regional newspapers and magazines have picked up the story, ensuring that millions of people who never would have heard of the study are now familiar with it.
Thanks to Brown’s brush with censorship, people are able to see for themselves that gender dysphoria is a condition that is often brought on by a number of other factors rather than a genuine desire to live as the opposite gender long-term.
~ Liberty Planet
