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Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. PLOS ONE describes ROGD as

Conclusion Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) describes a phenomenon where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood. ROGD appears to represent an entity that is distinct from the gender dysphoria observed in individuals who have previously been described as transgender

Whereas Wikipedia says:

Controversy surrounds the concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), proposed as a subtype of gender dysphoria and said to be caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has not been recognized by any major professional association as a valid mental health diagnosis, and use of the term has been discouraged by professional and academic institutions due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence, major methodological issues in existing research, and likelihood to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.

  • Is ROGD real?
  • If so, how prevalent is it?

Edit: It has been questioned what 'real' means. Real in this particular case: does the phenomenon described by Littman L occur in reality.

pinegulf
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    It feels like any answer to this would just be a rehash of the Wikipedia article, which seems at a glance to have plenty of references. It's very unlikely someone will present a firm "yes" or "no" to the question of "does it exist?" – IMSoP Jul 21 '23 at 08:13
  • From the article quoted : _Emerging hypotheses include the possibility of a potential new subcategory of gender dysphoria (referred to as rapid-onset gender dysphoria) that has not yet been clinically validated and the ***possibility of social influences and maladaptive coping mechanisms. Parent-child conflict may also explain some of the findings***. More research that includes data collection from AYAs, parents, clinicians and third party informants is needed_ – Nigel J Jul 21 '23 at 09:11
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    Oof... this does feel like one of those things where it could be a valid concern (one of those signs of psychosis is a sudden desire to make massive changes in one's life or body, with an extreme example might be a patient who decides their fingers no longer belong to them and try to get rid of them), but there will be a conflict with people wanting to use that as an explanation (shades of how women acting out could lead to them being sent to asylums and/or times when governments have "re-educated" people crazy enough to oppose them). – Sean Duggan Jul 21 '23 at 11:52
  • @SeanDuggan This isn't the right place to discuss the social or medical implications of something. Comments here should be about improving the question, or discussing its suitability for the site; and the fact that something is interesting or important in the world isn't enough to make it on-topic here. – IMSoP Jul 21 '23 at 12:14
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    This isn't suitable for this site because it's an open question of epistemology and epidemiology. The success or failure of labeling ROGD a genuine condition can't be determined by a simple survey of patient outcomes -- it's a complex problem of medical and social systems. (Although, I would be more surprised by a psychological condition which is *not* affected by social influences or parent-child conflict.) – Avery Jul 21 '23 at 12:17
  • Hmm... my impulse is that it's a notable claim (paper cited above, although I'll admit I didn't try to track down where it was published) where there is uncertainty, so it's no more off-topic than most posts on the site, but I will agree that it could be one of those questions where there will be a lot of supposition and opinions due to the lack of hard evidence. – Sean Duggan Jul 21 '23 at 12:38
  • I will say that this is how Wikipedia usually handles claims that are extremely doubtful - it lists them as "controversial", notes the lack of expert support and cites the reasons for disbelief. – DJClayworth Jul 21 '23 at 13:40
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    I do not like the title. What does it mean for a classification to be "real"? Is it *recognised* by professionals? You know the answer. Is it in the DSM? You know the answer. Has anyone met the criteria? There are no official criteria, but there are some reports from parents. What more is there to answer? What facts are missing? – Oddthinking Jul 22 '23 at 09:30
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    @Oddthinking Real in this particular case: does the phenomenon described by Littman L occur or not. If it does, is it marginal outliers. If not, that's completely fine with me. Btw, what is DSM? A TLA? – pinegulf Jul 24 '23 at 07:31
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    @pinegulf: The phenomena described is that some parents selected from trans-critical web-sites where parents complain about their trans children report that, from their perspective, the gender dysphoria of their children was sudden news. That could well be a very accurate, statistically correct summation of what those parents believe. But that might be explained by, for example, children hiding their gender dysphoria from their bigoted parents, or children who didn't have words for their long-felt feelings until they met other trans youths. So what is the question asking? – Oddthinking Jul 24 '23 at 08:01
  • [DSM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5) refers to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is basically the official list of recognised disorders by the American Psychiatric Association. It isn't considered infallible; it included homosexuality until 1974. It is, however, one possible definition of "real". – Oddthinking Jul 24 '23 at 08:04
  • @Oddthinking I'm not interested in advocacy sources, one way or another. The phenomenon is described in the article and disputed in Wikipedia as false. "anti-trans propaganda and bad science", "methodologically flawed",or a "moral panic". to be precise. What I'm asking if in the reality the described phenomenon occurs or not. (And if it does is it actually relevant in size) – pinegulf Jul 24 '23 at 08:57
  • https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/search?q=real It seems that concept of 'real' has been readily understood in the past. – pinegulf Jul 24 '23 at 09:43
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    You'll notice that the vast majority of those listed in the search are from nearly a decade ago. The site's expectations have been refined over the years, but I'm no expert on that. – Jiminy Cricket. Jul 24 '23 at 10:29
  • @pinegulf: Be careful that most of these search results are ones with "real" in the body somewhere, rather than in the main claim in the title. (The search by relevance gives you the few in the title first.) What I would love to know, but my skills in Stack Exchange's data explorer is insufficient is, by year, what percentage of open questions HAD "real" in the title, and don't any more as they were cleaned up. – Oddthinking Jul 24 '23 at 11:06
  • Regardless of the debate around the word "real", you don't seem to have addressed my very first comment. If I pasted the Wikipedia article, including references, into the answer box, would you consider your question answered? If so, why do you think it needs to exist here? If not, why not? Do you think the references cited by Wikipedia are low quality? Is there some part of the question you don't think is addressed by Wikipedia that could be addressed differently here? – IMSoP Jul 26 '23 at 11:40
  • @IMSoP I genuinely do not know. Hence the skepticism. Sociology is not my field of study. My access to journals is cut off at the moment and I can't review them for myself. If you feel that the question is addressed properly there, feel free to craft an answer. – pinegulf Jul 26 '23 at 11:58
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    @pinegulf If you can't assess the Wikipedia article's quality, how will you assess an Answer's quality? Is there some reason you trust users of this site more than you trust users of Wikipedia? – IMSoP Jul 26 '23 at 12:11
  • @IMSoP This would make an excellent meta discussion. How about we continue there? – pinegulf Jul 26 '23 at 12:31
  • My comment was very much focussed on this question, and addressed to you specifically, but feel free to raise something on Meta if you think it raises a broader issue. – IMSoP Jul 26 '23 at 12:50

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I was unable to find any paper that would validate the rapid-onset gender dysphoria hypothesis.

The paper you link was one of the first to mention a phenomenon called ROGD. You can see that it contains a correction which "serves to provide additional clarifications and context" (my highlight):

Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is not a formal mental health diagnosis at this time. This report did not collect data from the adolescents and young adults (AYAs) or clinicians and therefore does not validate the phenomenon.

As has been pointed out in the comment, the report approached the issue by questioning parents - who may or may not be on board with their child transitioning - if they thought that their child transitioning was sudden. Obviously, the parents assessment is not necessarily correct:

Because this is a study of parent reports, there is some information about the AYAs that the parents would not have access to and the answers might reflect parent perspectives.

Specifically, parents were primarily recruited from websites that were unsupportive of trans people:

Concerns were raised that this study only posted links to the recruitment information on selected sites that are viewed as being unsupportive of transition. [...] Specifically, three of the sites that posted recruitment information expressed cautious or negative views about medical and surgical interventions for gender dysphoric adolescents and young adults and cautious or negative views about categorizing gender dysphoric youth as transgender. And, one of the sites that posted recruitment information is perceived to be pro-gender-affirming.

Children of unsupportive parents may of course not come out to their parents right away, so any transition might seem rapid to the parents.

A more in-depth criticism of Littmans methodology can be seen in Methodological Critique of Littman’s (2018) Parental-Respondents Accounts of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”.

There's also this more recent paper, which suffers from the same problems (questioning the parents, who in this case where not supportive, but instead worried their child suffered from ROGD). The paper has also been retracted.

A study from 2021 Do Clinical Data from Transgender Adolescents Support the Phenomenon of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”? found no evidence for ROGD:

We did not find support within a clinical population for a new etiologic phenomenon of rapid onset gender dysphoria during adolescence.

A study from 2023 Age of Realization and Disclosure of Gender Identity Among Transgender Adults also investigated the issue:

Of 27,497 participants, 40.8% reported “later realization” of TGD identities. Within the “childhood realization” group, the median age of sharing one's gender identity with another person was 20. In this group, the median time between realization of one's gender identity and sharing this with another person was 14 years.

Based on this, they conclude:

The results of this study do not support the ROGD hypothesis.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has stated:

The term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)” is not a medical entity recognized by any major professional association, nor is it listed as a subtype or classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Therefore, it constitutes nothing more than an acronym created to describe a proposed clinical phenomenon that may or may not warrant further peer-reviewed scientific investigation.

They encourage further research. As seen above, so far that research has results in studies which do not find any evidence for ROGD. I am unaware of any non-retracted studies that would provide such evidence.

tim
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