The authors of this paper from 1991 say:

It is believed that the father has as significant a role as the mother in contributing to his son’s gender identity difficulties and that in future research on families of boys with GID, both parents need to be studied. In this study, the clinical impression of the few fathers who have been evaluated suggests that they too have difficulties with affect regulation and possibly with alcoholism.

Yet they chose to focus exclusively on finding

psychopathology in mothers of boys with GID.

And they looked at a very small number:

The subjects of this study were 16 mothers of boys with GID and 17 mothers of normal boys.

(Throughout the paper, the boys without GID are called "normal," implying the boys with GID are "abnormal." With attitudes like that, my hunch is that contact with these researchers was not beneficial to the self-esteem of boys with GID or their mothers.)

Over half of the sample mothers of sons with GID met the criteria either for the clinical diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, as measured by the DIB [Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines] or had symptoms of depression as measured by the BDI [Beck Depression Inventory].

This intentionally obscurant language makes it sound like more than 50% of these mothers have serious mental illness. But it seems strange to me that instead of simply giving the actual numbers of women found to meet the clinical criteria for BPD and who "had symptoms of depression" in a straightforward, clear way, the authors instead chose to say vaguely that "over half" the 16 women have either one or the other condition (though a deeper dive into what they say suggests that at least one and perhaps some women had both).

The actual numbers seem less alarming than the authors' odd choice of language initially suggests:

While none of the mothers in the comparison group obtained scores in the borderline range of psychopathology, 25% of mothers of boys with GID did so.

25% of 16 is 4. So when assessed according to the checklist used, 4 of the mothers "obtained scores in the borderline range."

To muddy the waters further, the authors add

Even when the mothers in the latter group did not obtain scores in the borderline range, many of them nevertheless obtained higher, and more pathological, scores than the mothers of normal boys.

Again, why not just state the actual number of the women meant here? Subtracting the 4 found to be "in the borderline range," we're left with 12 mothers. Of that 12, what number constitutes the "many" found to be "more pathological" than "mothers of normal boys"?

The number of the 16 mothers suffering from "symptoms of depression" is hard to figure out as well:

Forty-six percent of mothers of boys with GID versus 6% of mothers in the comparison group had scores falling within the clinical range as defined by the BDI.

My calculator says 46% of 16 = 7.36 and 6% of 17 = 1.02. (Can someone check this? Numbers aren't my strong suit; when dealing with digits I tend to transpose them and get bleary-eyed, LOL.) When counting humans, how does anyone end up with numbers like 7.36 and 1.02? The first figure has to be either 7 or 8 mother, not nearly 7.5 mothers; the second has to be 1 mother, not slightly more than 1. Right?

Considering the BDI and DIB together, 53% of the mothers of boys with GID and 6% of the controls scored either in the clinical range on the DIB or had symptoms of depression on the BDI.

My calculator says 53% of 16 = 8.48. Again, how can you have 8.48 women? And what's with all the use of percentages in this paper anyway? The numbers involved in this small study sample are so tiny they can be counted on one's hands. The total number of mothers with sons with GID the authors looked at can be counted on the fingers and toes of a single person.

Also, note how the authors sow confusion by reversing the sequence of what they are talking from the first clause to the second in the same sentence. They start off saying "considering the BDI and DIB together," then report their findings for the two conditions in reverse order.

One thing that isn't spelled out but seems to be is that there is some overlap between the women with "scores in the borderline range" and "symptoms of depression," with one or perhaps some more of the four women labelled as "in the borderline range" also showing "symptoms of depression." Can anyone figure out exactly what these numbers are?

Another issue that's not clear to me as a lay person is exactly how the BPD diagnoses of these women were made other than "a semistructured diagnostic interview" using a checklist or inventory of 123 questions was involved. But it's not clear how long the clinicians spent with these women before diagnosing and labelling them. Used to be, responsible clinicians were wary about slapping diagnoses on people based on one test/interview and very little face-to-face contact and observation. Also, as the literature on the topic shows, there has always been a lot of controversy about the diagnostic procedures used to designate persons as "borderline" and no single diagnostic schedule is considered "the gold standard."

Also, is having "symptoms of depression" supposed to be taken to mean the same as "is clinically depressed"?

I also noticed that an unusually large number of the other papers cited as references in this paper were authored by one of the authors of this one, Coates. One entire long paragraph is devoted to describing a theory Coates put forward in a previous paper. But weirdly, the authors of this paper do not acknowledge that the person whose work is repeatedly cited as a main source and discussed at such length is one of the authors of the current paper.

Several passages in this paper begin with statements that use the passive voice and have no sentient subject:

It is is believed that

Should read: We and some others believe that

The pilot data reported here

Should read: The pilot data we report

The findings of this pilot study are sufficiently strong to call for a comprehensive study of psychopathology in parents of children with GID.

Would be better if it read something like this: Based on what we found in this pilot study, we believe there's sufficient reason to do further research using large(r) numbers of participants and more reliable methodology to establish whether parents of children with GID do indeed have higher rates of psychopathology than other parents, which particular kinds of pathologies occur most commonly in parents of children with GID, and to explore the role of particular forms of parental psychopathology in the etiology of childhood-onset GID.

To sum up: in 1991, two PhDs in psychology specializing in "gender" issues found that 25% or 4 out of 16 mothers whose young sons were diagnosed with GID met the clinical criteria for BPD according to one assessment method, which means 75% or three-quarters of the 16 mothers did not have BPD. They also found that 46% or 7.36 of the 16 mothers had "symptoms of depression," which means 54% - or to use the term favored by these authors, "more than half" - did not have "symptoms of depression."

But there must have been overlap between the two groups, coz the total of women with BPD and/or "symptoms of depression" overall was 53% or 8.48 in number - which is only than the 46% and 7.36 in number said to have "symptoms of depression." If the two groups were separate, the percentage with BPD - 25% - would be added to the percentage - 46% - with "symptoms of depression" for a total of 71%, right? Or am I missing something glaringly obvious that everyone else can easily see?

In any event, the takeaway and headline for this paper could just as easily - and accurately - been written as: "Majority of mothers of boys with GID found not to have either borderline personality disorder or "symptoms of depression"

BTW, I find it significant that the authors make no mention of the fact that if the general population were assessed according to the the Beck Inventory, a significant proportion of people not otherwise regarded as evincing "psychopathology" probably would be found to have "symptoms of depression."

My take on this paper is that it's further proof that misogyny and mother-blaming are rife in psychiatry and psychology. Not surprisingly, these traits are prominent in the views and work of those who study and treat "gender identity disorder" and "gender dysphoria" - conditions that can only be diagnosed, experienced and promulgated by persons who hold rigidly sexist beliefs and embrace regressive sex stereotypes.

My take on this paper is also that it is an excellent example of the sloppy thinking, questionable methods and shoddy data put forward as hard "science" by many esteemed experts in fields like psychiatry, psychology and sociology. If I'd been asked to edit or respond to this paper - something I did as a sideline in the 1980s and 1990s, including for some of the leading lights in psychiatry and psychology at the very universities/medical centers these authors worked at - I would've given the same feedback I've given here and sent the paper back to the authors for a major rewrite.