The Archives of Sexual Behavior (ASB), a medical journal published by Springer Nature, once allowed research that questioned the “gender-affirming” model of care for transgender-identifying youth to appear in its pages. ASB served as an open-minded exception in a sea of politicized publications. 

Unfortunately, Springer Nature has succumbed to activist pressure and retracted a paper titled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases.” The study used an online survey of concerned parents, most of them politically progressive, who felt pressured by clinicians to support their children’s self-stated identity and their transition. It also found that pre-existing mental-health issues were common in these children and made them more likely to socially and medically transition. After social transition, youths’ mental health worsened.

The findings further support the theory that increased gender dysphoria may be a “socially contagious syndrome.” In a recent article for City Journal, Colin Wright details the retraction of the paper, which involved multiple arguments on the part of activist researchers. It began with the paper’s ethics-approval process, which turned out to be a nonissue. Then an open letter was put out calling for ASB editor in chief Kenneth Zucker to be removed for having published the study. A counter-letter sponsored by the Foundation against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), with 20 times as many signatories, including Stanford professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya and NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, came out the same day. The pressure then shifted to a bogus claim — by Springer itself — that the study’s participants did not provide written informed consent to have their data published in the article. The parents had been enthusiastic to provide information about rapid-onset gender dysphoria and consented to having the anonymized results published online, but Springer claimed that this consent didn’t extend to print publication (even though print-publication standards for anonymized data are stricter, and thus safer, than those for online publication). 

Springer’s retraction reflected double standards and inconsistent application of policies. The publisher claimed that it would investigate 19 other papers that had similar consent standards, yet these investigations are taking much longer. Wright notes that thousands of papers published by Springer would be unlikely to meet the standards proposed for this one, including those cited by supporters of “gender-affirming” care. 

Activists demand the retraction or correction of controversial papers such as this one in order to damage researchers’ reputations. Springer’s decision to publish this paper and then retract it because of activist backlash represents a sacrifice of science for the sake of a political narrative pushed by a small but vocal group. More so than the canceled researchers, the people harmed are the children who have been subjected to questionable clinical practices but whose stories don’t get told.