ListAdapter's items aren't refreshed if RecyclerView has hidden visibility

Question

I have a ListAdapter implementation of a very basic title-subtitle info items. When I update items or clear the list using submitList(items), the changes are applied and everything works normally.

But, if the RecyclerView is hidden, ListAdapter refreshes the items only when I make RecyclerView visible again. This causes a half-second blink between old and new items.

Here's a pseudo-code version¹ of what I am doing:

suspend fun fetchItems() {
  adapter.submitList(null)
  showLoadingIndicator(); hideRecyclerView() // View.GONE

  val result = api.fetchItems() // coroutine
  adapter.submitList(result.items)
  hideLoadingIndicator(); showRecyclerView()
}

If I don't update RecyclerView's visibility, there's no blink or transition between items. I can see that the items are cleared and then, after some time, they are shown.

If I hide RecyclerView for the duration of API call, it feels like adapter.submitList(null) didn't work. When API returns result, old data is shown for half a second, then gets switched with the data from the API.

Why is this happening? I guess it might be a performance improvement to not update Views when they are View.GONE.

How can I make it so that it doesn't blink like that?

¹ I am using LiveData and MVVM to update UI and ListAdapter.