J. Michael Bailey is an American psychologist and author of The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003), a controversial book that explored the role of sexuality in males who pursue sex change. Controversially, Bailey advanced the typology of transsexualism articulated by Ray Blanchard, who proposes basically two types: homosexual transsexualism and autogynephilia, or sexual interest in having a female body.

More recently, in March of this year, Bailey published a paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, co-authored with Suzanna Diaz, titled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases.” Bailey and Diaz were informed by the publisher, Springer Nature, that its decision to retract the paper was made because of the lack of “written informed consent” by the participants whom the paper surveyed.

As James Billot at UnHerd explains, this was very likely a pretext. One reason activists might seek to tarnish Bailey’s paper is that it provides evidence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, thus undermining so-called gender-affirming care.

The research, which focuses on parents’ reports on gender-dysphoric adolescents and young adults whom the parents believe have Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), gained over 42,000 downloads before the decision to retract. ROGD is a theory that links the explosion in cases of gender dysphoria among young females to a socially contagious false belief that they are transgender. The paper found 1,655 cases of ROGD in which the parents said that these young people had a high proportion of pre-existing mental health problems, predating their gender dysphoria by four years on average. It also found that the best predictor of transition was consulting a gender specialist, where parents often felt pressured to transition their children.

The paper is still available, but Springer Link has added a publisher’s note alerting readers “that concerns have been raised regarding methodology.”

Concerns have also been raised regarding the publisher’s methodology for evaluating methodology.