ROGD is a sex specific phenomenon. As in, it is disproportionately appearing in females, with dysphoria in males following a different pattern.
I'm afraid that we DO need to point out that gender dysphoria fits into the same box and DOES present differently between sexes. Politically this is never going to sit well with trans activists, but this isn't a political point and ideology should be kept out of medical research.
This is important and its valid, due to the age of the people involved, that parents be involved in examining the subject. Precisely because the capacity for informed consent without undue pressure, is a major facet of this debate. Social issues which are relevant SHOULD be being considered by researchers.
The young age of females reporting symptoms makes it distinct and have different issues compared to how gender dysphoria in males presents. How you then treat it stems from here.
I'm minded to remind people that women have suffered from the medical profession being lacking in identifying how women present differently to men in all manner of health conditions which has ultimately harmed them. For example heart attacks.
In this case parents are voicing concerns that highlight that they feel decisions are being made in a vacuum where informed consent is impossible because of undue pressure. Parents who have both a legal and moral responsibility to their children, but are being sidelined by various institutions. This raises the question of whether adequate safeguarding is happening.
In terms of whether this study is therefore biased or self selecting is somewhat irrelevant in this context.
If just one parent comes out and says, they think that informed consent without duress has occurred, that is worthy of investigation and should be followed up. If there are multiple people saying the same thing, then the question arises about whether this is indeed a medical condition which parents are ignorant about OR whether its a symptom of a systematic failure of institutional safeguarding policy.
In other words, is this a medical study or is it in fact potentially a whistleblowers study? Thats the direction the question that needs to go, to ensure that its indeed not highlighting something other than a medical issue.
Bias and self selection as an argument when it comes to research is very important to assessing the quality of a research project, but you also have to look at what the study was concerned about too.
In this case, the presence of a control group isn't necessarily relevant.
To illustrate the point, if you were doing a research project Post Traumatic Stress after childbirth and asked whether MNetters felt they had been able to make informed decisions during childbirth without undue duress, you wouldn't request a control group to determine whether those women who said they didn't feel they were able to consent freely were liars or ignorant.
The mere presence of a certain percentage of women feeling like this, even if it were small, should create pressure and raise questions about the nature of the medical condition they were presenting with.
This is about whether symptoms are a product of policy and treatment and whether those processes can be improved so that children are not harmed and parents can have more confidence and trust in the system.
THAT is ultimately the intent of doing the study in the first place. Its about how you go about improving treatment for young people particularly females. And that does include the involvement of parents.
Comments about the need for a control group are therefore straw man arguments in this context.