What Percentage of Transgenders Regret Surgery?
A phrase we hear all too often in today’s world is “you do you.” In essence, what people imply by this is that people should do whatever they want – as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. This mentality flies in the face of love for our fellow human beings, for it doesn’t take into account the hurt that people can inflict upon themselves. This is all too clear in the recent transgender movement.
Politicians, organizations, and activists teach that people should be able to do what they want with their bodies. This includes changing their sex by either living as the opposite sex or by ingesting hormones to suppress the natural functioning of their bodies. But what happens when a person has transitioned and wants to change his or her mind? As we see below, the regret is real.
Real-life stories
A June 2022 New York Post story tells the devastating story of Chloe. It states:
When Chloe was 12 years old, she decided she was transgender. At 13, she came out to her parents. That same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake – all by the time she was 16 years old.
Chloe, who has since detransitioned, states, “I was failed by the system. I literally lost organs.” And now she wants people to know her story, so they don’t make the same mistake she did.
Eva is a woman who lived as a transgender male as a teenager. Though she did not medically transition, she determined – as an adult – that she no longer wanted to live as a man. She states that she felt “misled” by both family members and doctors. According to an article about her, “Eva, now 24, is part of a controversial cohort known as detransitionsers and desisters, transgender people who come to rethink their decision, often having already undergone drug and surgical treatments.”
In October 2020, Eva began a group called Detrans Canada, which she hopes can help people who feel “ostracized” for their decision to detransition. According to the site, the group’s “objectives are to examine how individuals experience changes to how they experience their sex and gender, transition and detransition processes (social, legal, medical), and to identify detransition-related healthcare and social support needs. We also aim to develop better guidance for care providers who work with trans, nonbinary, gender-fluid, detrans/retrans, and other gender diverse populations who change the direction of their transitions.”
In a similar story, Charlie Evans, a woman in the UK who detransitioned and stopped taking hormone therapy, has said that “hundreds” of people have contacted her since she made it public that she was detransitioning. According to Charlie, “I’m in communication with 19- and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it. They don’t know what their options are now.”
The article states:
The number of young people seeking gender transition is at an all-time high but we hear very little, if anything, about those who may come to regret their decision. There is currently no data to reflect the number who may be unhappy in their new gender or who may opt to detransition to their biological sex. Charlie detransitioned and went public with her story last year – and said she was stunned by the number of people she discovered in a similar position.
Sky News tells the story of a woman named Ruby (pseudonym) who had undergone testosterone therapy and lived as a male, first identifying as male at 13. However, she changed her mind about transitioning to a male before she was scheduled to have a double mastectomy. Ruby states: “I didn’t think any change was going to be enough in the end and I thought it was better to work on changing how I felt about myself, than changing my body…I’ve seen similarities in the way I experience gender dysphoria, in the way I experience other body image issues.”
The Statistics
A transgender survey was conducted in 2022, but the results have not been published yet (set for late 2023). So, we must look to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (page 111) for the most updated statistics. The survey claims that 11% of female respondents reverted back to their original sex. Transgender men had a reversion rate of 4%.
Those who chose to revert cited a variety of reasons. Five percent of those who detransitioned realized that a gender transition was not what they wanted. Other people cited family pressure and difficulty getting a job as reasons to detransition.
Authors of a 2021 article in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery conducted a systematic review of several databases to determine the rate of regret for those who had undergone surgery. According to the article, “7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of [gender-affirmation surgeries] were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1% (95% CI <1%-2%).” However, the article goes on to state that there was “high subjectivity in the assessment of regret and lack of standardized questionnaires, which highlight the importance of developing validated questionnaires in this population.”
Despite these low numbers and any possible issues with the format of the questionnaire, those who have lived life as a transgender male or female and who have detransitioned claim that the numbers are much higher and that people are afraid to speak out.
That’s why the people discussed above want others to hear their stories – and they want them to hear the stories before they transition.
Those who do transition and who want to detransition and live as their biological sex need help and support. There are loving and compassionate groups who can help.
Support is Available
The Rainbow Redemption Project is a Christian group that helps people who want to detransition. Its mission is to provide “resources for detransitioners, with the ultimate goal of fully redeeming their lives through the transformative power of Jesus Christ.”
Sex Change Regret offers personal testimonies, resources, and guidance for those who are regretting changing their sex and who want to detransition.
Focus on the Family offers articles and resources for counseling on its site.
Catholic Charities and local parishes will also offer resources.
Help is out there. There are so many people who want to help those who are confused about their sexuality, confused about who they are, and confused about who they want to be.
And as stewards of our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is our job to treat all people with empathy, understanding, and compassion. It is our job to help them see the inherent dignity in themselves. And in both love and charity, it is our job to assist them as they seek help in moving forward.
This article was most recently updated July 2023 by Susan Ciancio.
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Susan Ciancio has a BA in psychology and a BA in sociology from the University of Notre Dame, with an MA in liberal studies from Indiana University. Since 2003, she has worked as a professional editor and writer, editing both fiction and nonfiction books, magazine articles, blogs, educational lessons, professional materials, and website content. Fourteen of those years have been in the pro-life sector. Currently Susan writes weekly for HLI, edits for American Life League, and is the editor of its Celebrate Life Magazine. She also serves as executive editor for the Culture of Life Studies Program, an educational nonprofit program for k-12 students.
Oppressed people always have mental, emotional and addictive behavior issues. I’m glad you said to approach people experiencing dysphoria with love and compassion.
Maybe god wants us to learn from people who don’t fit the gender binary. Otherwise, assuming no errors, god wouldn’t create intersex individuals–it may be only one in every 2000 people, but that’s something.
My personal belief is that all the chemicals in our environment are affecting us and our gender. For example, we use oxybenzone in sunscreens. It’s a synthetic estrogen. Another synthetic estrogen, DES, was widely touted until it was used long enough that we found female offspring would require hysterectomies in their 20s.
I have to add that the transwomen and transmen who I know are pretty happy with their transition…but generally they have undergone a lot of therapy to determine if gender dysphoria or other issues are at the root of their discomfort and unhappiness.
“[A]ssuming no errors, god wouldn’t create intersex individuals–it may be only one in every 2000 people, but that’s something.”
You could use this logic to state that all sorts of issues and abnormalities people are born with (from the merely irregular to the horrific and painful) are simply “how God made them,” but that’s a common misunderstanding of God’s will. Things are not as they should be, due to the disorder of sin on the cosmos; in the mystery of His will God apparently permits and works through all of it, but we need not say He actively wills it as simply a normal diversity in the species. At the same time He desires our well-being, and that normally through the medium of the sciences (medicine, therapy, etc.)
“pretty happy with their transition” v “our hearts are restless until they rest in thee’. I think judging the happiness of others is in God’s perspective not our superficial experience of others.
I personally believe that, since there are about 500+ differences in the Helixical structure of the DNA strands, as well, as how men and women process thoughts; men are concerned with practicality, generally, whereas women are concerned with how it feels, how they feel, what feelings will ensue, etc. Though any individual all along this spectrum may tend to lean more in one direction or another, generally, these descriptions apply to men, and women.What, I believe is fluid, is not sex/gender; but, instead sexual preference. I’ve read of stories about how, a boy dated only girls, as a teen; but, as an adult, dated only other men. This, in popular lingo is known as “coming out of the closet,” or shortened, “coming out.” What I disagree with is this idea, that you are different as a child, than as an adult. But, what is obviously different is the sexual preference you choose, as you age, mature, and investigate a lifestyle alternative to the one you used to. Some adults even desire sex with men, and women, or some other version, different from the experiences they preferred as teens. So, though I don’t accept gender fluidity, I do accept a diversity of sexual preferences, in just one lifetime, based upon desires to explore one you might never have tried, or, only tried once. I do believe you reinforce the choice, every tme you choose to re-experience that variety of sexual expression; and, that this continual same selection can open you up further to pursuing that particular lifestyle, responding only to that stimulation, and abandoning any other option. Conversely, you can see that choice as just one of several options, like bisexuals do. I don’t think true love comes as a result of anything but a “sacred” marriage between a man and a woman. Any other combination is NOT sacred. It is, first sexual, then emotional, then intellectual, and then anatomical, or physical. It is an inauthentic copy of a sacred marriage, duplicating a true sacred relationship, vowing to each other before God, and witnesses, being pronounced by an attendant minster, priest, rabbi, or imam. I hace always believed there are only two sexes, male and female, and, there are no permutations of either, though some try to claim an unnatural, unprovable, untenable variation, for which there still is no scientific evidence in any confirmative method employed by researchers. These claimers of such always quote Alfred E. Kinsey, from the 1950’s who actually had no researcher’s credentials, and was a botanist, and an entomolgist; that is a plant, and insect scientist, whose theories have long since, been discredited, when it was found that his samples were very small, and he used himself as a subject. No reputable scientist ever does that. So, that is where most of the ideas, moderns who embrace them, came from originally; from a non-medical(not even an MD) amateur researcher without credentials as such, got these ideas from. He also created the idea that babies are sexually aroused, can have orgasms, and a whole lot of other nonsense, for which his conclusions are invalid, for the same reasons already stated. This tries to justify pedophilia. This will be the next step in the abbreviation of these folks, LGBTQ+P, and all the other now, affiliations, that are constantly being added to. Watch out folks, God is watching.
Sorry, lots of inaccuracies here. Sex and Gender are NOT interchangeable. Sex is physical. Gender is mental. As is sometimes crudely stated, sex is between your legs and gender is between your ears.
The correct reference is sexual orientation, not preference. Preference suggests that there is some question, but the reality it that there isn’t.
Whatever people do sexually as young people compared to what they do as older people sounds like an answer looking for a question. Remember that there is A LOT of societal pressure to conform to what society sees as the “proper” arrangement of sexuality and gender identity. Obviously you have never felt that as a cisgender heterosexual male. But, just because YOU have not experienced this does not mean that it doesn’t exist.
If you read what gay and trans people have written about their lives, it is clear that they knew something was different about them from very early ages. At the time, they had no vocabulary and no sense of what it meant. In many cases, they were punished severely, but that didn’t really change anything. All it did was cause them to suppress their true selves.
True love only between a man and a woman? No. I know gay men and gay women who have take care of their seriously ill partners tirelessly for years. Conversely, there are many heterosexual couples where one person abandons the relationship due to the serious illness of the other person. I have read many accounts of this kind of abandonment. Obviously you have not.
If you believe that there are only 2 sexes, then how you you explain intersex people?
Personally I have to laugh when people always want to trot out Walt Heyer. Statistically he is irrelevant. Where is the army of people to prove the point? Also, you have to understand that he mislead his therapist and he has admitted that.
Finally, if Anderson and Dr. McHugh were correct, doesn’t it stand to reason that there would be a high degree of agreement among doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists? The truth is the Anderson and McHugh are outliers without much support.
Your logic of the highlighted cases being outliers and statistically irrelevant is ironic considering that all trans folk put together are rarer outliers when compared to non-trans folk than people living with transitioning-regret (or detransitioned) are when compared to people who have transitioned successfully.
And this is not even considering the attacks anyone even considering detransitioning face. There is so much effort put towards preventing people from detransitioning when compared to getting people to transition.
We just sat in on a trial for a young boy whose mother claims he is transgender. The psychiatrist and endocrinologists claim it is a mental issue, not medical.
I think a lot of the transgender problems are societies binary attitude for gender behavior. If it becomes known that a boy likes to wear girls clothes he will be ostracized by his family, friends and possible be beat to a pulp by the alpha males in his life. If boys who demonstrated classically female behavior were not so savagely attacked by friends, family and acquaintances they would not feel that they needed to change sex.
I have a teenage daughter who came home from school proclaiming there are now seven officially recognized “genders”. Her best fried is a male to female transgender. He “came out” to her first because he felt secure in their friendship and indeed she has been readily accepting of his dysphoric nature and refuses to consider that it may be more harmful in the long-run to encourage his rejection of his God given anatomy. She (like many young people today) see it as cruel and homophobic to not be supportive of the idea of gender fluidity. We don’t as a society normally encourage people iwith psychological disorders to embrace that disorder as some kind of evolutionary development. I think in time society will look to the current social hysteria as a time of group insanity. I absolutely believe it is more harmful to dismiss the idea of gender dysphoria as a dis-order,and discourage psychiatric treatment while we applaud the notion that we can simply choose to transition via dangerous experimental surgeries and toxic chemical therapies. That is truly social insanity. I must wonder then what forces are behind this whole movement and to what end? I cannot accept that homosexual behavior is biblically endorsed yet I likewise do not think that homosexuality itself is some treatable disease. I believe that people are born with a wide variety of illnesses and disabilities both physical and psychological in nature. I leave judgement of the soul to the only entity with the authority to judge. I am certain there will be practicing homosexuals accepted into heaven as there will be self appointed judges who honestly believe that cruelty and rejection are acceptable means of treatment for those they deem unworthy of love. The Christian ideal of loving one’s fellow man, of having compassion for the suffering of others and rejecting violence is what our Messiah is ALL about.
My daughters best friend is a gender-dysphoric boy who we have all come to love. At first I wanted to make Jacob feel accepted and loved the way he is so I went along with calling him the female name he prefers (Joanna) and allowing him to dress up as a woman. I still want to do what is best by him because he is a sweet young man that I have come to love dearly. Then I listened to a web chat about the issue of gender dysphoria by a man who transitioned decades ago but later regretted the descisionandnow runs an organization dedicated to helping people with regrets over transitioning. I also listened to a variety of people on the whole issue of our new social embrace of same sex marriage, same sex married couples raising children. I have a niece who married another woman a couple years ago. They now have a daughter due to artificial insemination. I did not attend the wedding because that would be hypocritical of me. I did recently attend the child’s first birthday party because children however conceived are gifts from our Creator. There were a couple folks who spoke out against same sex parents, they later felt they didn’t have a “whole”family and felt pressured as children to say nothing critical about their home environments. We have all been sheparded into this new social construct where all things are okay and dissention is not tolerated. There is no room for expressing criticism, even acknowledging the blatant errors in our new social order. The bullying of any and all critics of the far left LGBTQ agenda is akin to the past bullying of LGBTQ people. Thanks to our uber politically correct social order, tolerance has been confused with endorsement. We are bullied into silence and required to express only endorsement of the new agenda.
Well we can’t say we weren’t warned. There is a final book in our scriptures that spoke of such a time.
Great points all, Maureen!
“God given sex”….. I didn’t realize this was a satirical website.
I share this view of the issue.
Hey Kitty Kay I see what you said!
I’m a transgender woman, and I feel truly sorry for you. Your an ignorant bigot who ignores the scientific literature to cling to your Bronze Age mythology. As a writer and researcher I cannot believe you would put your name on such trashy articles. You need to look at the unbiased research that is available.
Paul R. McHugh M.D. has been discredited by John Hopkins University as well as the whole of the scientific community. Walt Heyer has been on a campaign of misinformation to attack the transgender community. .
Nah bro, you’re still and will forever be a dude
I noticed a pattern! As you pointed out, Paul R. McHugh M.D. has been discredited. The scientist who claimed that vaccines cause autism was also discredited. A lot of the scientists people use to support these kinds of views aren’t legitimate scientists. Btw you are a perfectly real and valid woman no matter what anyone on this site says.
You can never change your DNA. You are still a man… Sorry but you can look like a woman but your DNA is XY.
XY vs XX is not how sex is determined. If someone is XY but missing the SRY gene they develop as a woman, look like a woman, mensturate, and can have children.
Who knows how many other toggles there are in our genes.
You think she is still a man, but she knows that she is a woman. Who is right? She is much more intelligent than you!
“Bronze Age mythology” I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the truth had an expiration date.
No, but apparently brains do as is the case with you.
How can you respond this way to a respectful article, that is aiming for nothing but the best solution for people identifying as transgender? Your response is extremely demeaning. No one should be called an ignorant bigot for stating what they believe in. What I don’t understand is how people who claim to be a victim of disrespect, can be so utterly disrespectful and even aggressive to others themselves.
It is incredibly ironic that you are calling this individual disrespectful when the article itself is disrespectful to the individual, and then being disrespectful to the individual yourself.
Invalidation of someone’s identity that is the opposite of what reputable studies and medical advice say (hint: none of which is represented well in the article)? Oh, that’s okay. But call someone a bigot? Oh no, that crosses the line!
Come on.
what if you stated that you believed in bigoted ideas? could you be called an ignorant bigot then?
Yes but just it also said out of the 8% overall that switched back, 62% only reverted temporarily so presumably didn’t regret it for long. And “only 5% of those who had de-transitioned reported that they had done so because they realized that gender transition was not for them, representing 0.4%” overall. The rest of the 8% was due to pressure or harassment from family, spouses or employers.
Shame on you!!
After all your education you resort to ‘we as christian’
You need help!
This article is not transphobic at all. The article does not hate transgenders purely because of who they are. Stop throwing the word „transphobic“ around. You don’t even know what it means.
Aw, to be 17 and the most intelligent person in the room….
I’m a guy in 30’s with gender dysphoria since the age of 3, always felt something wrong with me. I honestly doubt that many would want to revert back to their gender. If you truly have this problem, you would never really want to change back. Well perhaps some would… maybe less than 1% want to change back.
If you don’t have this problem, you cannot imagine how agonizing and mentally painful it is. I have not changed my gender only due to the cost and my tall manly outlooks 6.3 ~191 cm tall. Deep inside I know I’m a woman and feel very sad about this. Hate absolutely everything about masculinity, manly things, doing manly things, being put into wrong roles. I think…act..am into all the things a woman would be.
I see it’s a religious website so I might as well say that I spend many hours a day reading scriptues and in prayer, it’s the only thing that has kept me somewhat sane. Still every single day of my life, I wish the same thing… if only I could change my gender, not be so tall, look feminine and be a girl.
Thank you for writing this.
I feel deep pain from your statements. I also believe you are doing the right thing turning to read the Scriptures and be in prayer. I regret the agonizing and mental pain that you are suffering. I know that Paul asked the Lord to take away an issue that he was dealing with, and the Lords answer was “my grace is sufficient”. The Lord never did take away whatever was ailing Paul, but Paul‘s behavior shows us the right attitude. And I would like to praise your right attitude.I will pray for you Helena that you may find some peace which ever way you decide to go.
I think that our society puts too much emphasis on the way we look. Too bad! There are so many narcissists out there. I think most people do not understand the LGBTQ community. May God give them more insight and therefore tolerance of people that are different from them.
People in the LGBTQ community are misunderstood. My God help others be more understanding and tolerant.
Why cant you still, even without surgery, let go of traditional male roles? In reality, you can be and do whatever you want. Many men and women have rejected traditional roles and live life accordingly. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of surgery…then again, that’s not my call. Good luck to you! <3
I’m so glad that you mentioned the alarmingly high rates of suicide that trans people face. As Catholics I’m sure you greatly value the human life, and wish to preserve it in any way you can. Although I’m not religious, I completely agree that we should work towards lowering these confronting statistics. Perhaps a way that this could be done is by allowing trans people to exist freely without pitting them against “gods will” and making them feel like they are abominations. It seems strange to me that you focus on the plight of the 4-11% of people who regret there transition, as opposed to the 40% of people who are suicidal. Surely if you were wishing to improve the quality of life for people and ease their suffering- the larger proportion would be the starting point?
Simple biology of chromosomes don’t determine sex assigned at birth. Hormones play a large role.
Totally agree!
Thank you for your valuable information!
Your article provides very important information for my work. Thank you!
I am doing lots of research on gender issues. Thank you for your helpful information! Take courage and keep up your good work. Don’t mind all the negative comments.
Thank you for your information. I wish to turn my ideas, my researchs, and all my works to better understand this issue that I am struggling with.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Lord Jesus please help me to follow YOU the giver of the true life. I want to turn away from my way of transgender to YOUR way.
Because of my study in this area, your article provides very important information. We all need to learn more about it. Thank you.
You have given us very important information. Thank you for speaking out the truth. May the truth set us free from the lie and bondage of transgender. Our hope is in Jesus Christ
Thank you for your website information. This is very valuable for our organization.
Thank you for your website. I fully support your work. Please pray I change how I best help my patients.
Jesus please help me stop believing lies in transgender.
How do you get in touch with the person who is having an organization helping detransitioned persons?
Lord Jesus, please help me turn away from my sin of transgender lies. I want to follow you. You are the way, the truth and the life. Please pray for me.
Thank you so much for your work! I support you 100%
Thank you for your website! Please keep me informed. My work needs your help and needs this very important information.
Thank you, Li. If you have specific questions or need additional information, please reach out to us at hli@hli.org and we’ll make sure your question gets to our Director of Research for an answer.
I think that is a very good point Daniel!
And not to mention the fact that 62% of all of those people transition back again. So cut these by 2/3 and you have the real number.
God is not real and science should not be political.
I agree!!
I stopped reading after you said “god given sex”. You can’t even prove a god or gods exist, let alone make a ridiculous assertion like this. What a nonsensical article. You’re a joke.
Very wsll said!
You know you won’t make it to your 20th birthday without removing your breasts? Stop and think for a moment, does this sound like a statement made of someone with sound mind? This article is far from bigoted. This article shows far more compassion for people with your struggle than the mainstream narrative. I truly hope you find your peace. You’re perfect just the way you are.
Thank you for this excellent article. We are all being deluged with the misinformation and lies of the media and our poor children are being indoctrinated in school about this “gender dysphoria”. Why so, when this type of mental illness affects such a small percentage of our population? The true statistics of the heightened future problems of those who transition either pharmaceutically or surgically need to be widely circulated to the entire population. People must begin to realize that the lies they are being fed are NOT the truth, and that we do need to love these affected people, as God loves them. We, as a nation as well as a world need to come up with a better plan to help our brothers and sisters. And the media and the governments need to realize that we are not the hateful people they have made us out to be. May God show us the way!
Thank you so much for your wonderful information! Please keep up your good work. Please pray for me.
“The Hill recently reported on a 2020 survey that polled more than 15,000 American citizens aged 18 years or older. According to the survey, ‘Within Generation Z, the youngest adult demographic who are aged between 18 to 23 in 2020 … two percent identified as gay, lesbian, or transgender.'”
That is clearly incorrect. I don’t know why pollsters can’t figure this out, but when you ask people outright if they are gay, they almost always say ‘no’. No one wants to admit it in person. This may be doubly true for the younger generation because kids have been using the word “gay” to mean “stupid” for a couple decades now, so young gay people don’t want to be associated with that word.
My estimate is that the percentage of the population which is exclusively gay is somewhere between 6% and 8%, and that another 5% to 10% of straight men will allow themselves to be gratified by a man (less for straight women).
Human Life International: DON’T put me on your mailing list.
Thank you for this excellent article!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Though I d like to get my GRA surgery, some scary thoughts of regretting it come to my mind from time to time
Thank you so much for your research!
I am writing to you on behalf of a group of detransitioned women regarding Dr Jack Turban. We are deeply concerned with Dr Turban’s disparagement of psychiatric intervention and exploratory psychotherapy, his singular endorsement of affirmative therapies for people with gender dysphoria, and his dismissive and derogatory treatment of those of us who detransitioned due to transition regret.
We are but a few of many that have been the victims of this type of cavalier attitude. We all suffered from gender dysphoria at one point (and some still do), and were led to believe that our best chance of treating our dysphoria was to medically transition. As it turned out, this was not the case. As a result, we now have to live with bodies and voices that have been irreversibly changed (and in some cases damaged) by hormones and surgeries, when what we needed was a compassionate and thoughtful exploration of our gender distress through talk therapy. Some of us will now never be able to have children and many of us live with great distress and regret every day.
Not only did physicians like Dr Turban fail us by sending us down a singular path of transition, they are now letting us down once again by disparaging our experiences and even our existence, when they should be providing us with support to help us heal from our unnecessary medical transitions. The fact that Dr Turban is a psychiatrist at Stanford and uses his credentials to promote his reckless approach is especially troubling, as he has been granted a large and influential media platform. As we see more and more distressed young people following in our footsteps of a rushed medical gender transition, in a few years, we fear the consequences of Dr Turban’s activism will be catastrophic and visible to all.
Dr Turban does not hide his disregard for the role of psychotherapy in treating gender distress, and his singular belief in medical and surgical approaches to treating gender dysphoria, whatever its cause may be. Appearing on the GenderGP Podcast episode ‘Exploring Detransition with Dr Jack Turban’ (2021), hosted by Dr Helen Webberley, a UK physician criminally-convicted for running an illegal clinic, Dr Turban says:
“There’s no psychiatric intervention for gender dysphoria. There are medical interventions for gender dysphoria, if you will. And it’s not the rule like right, how the psychiatrist’s going to treat gender dysphoria, they’re not like they’re not going to make that go away. …. The only way that it’s ever been proposed that psychiatry can do that was through conversion therapy, which obviously doesn’t work:”
As you will read later in this letter, many detransitioners report that they strongly wish they had received exploratory psychotherapy rather than affirmation, thus Dr Turban’s insinuation that this would be tantamount to conversion therapy is highly disturbing.
Dr Turban describes detransition, in the GenderGP podcast, as having “become this really awful word… I feel like 90% of the time when you read it, it’s really being weaponized.” The claim that discussing detransition is problematic due to the topic being “weaponized” has been used to shame and silence detransitioners who try to tell our stories. This bullying of a very vulnerable group is unacceptable, and we find it incredibly worrying that Dr Turban would participate in the accusation that detransition is “being weaponized,” furthering the bullying of detransitioned individuals. This is not only a matter of rhetoric. Many of us are unable to receive any meaningful support from the mental health community. Instead of helping us heal, many mental health professionals informed by the likes of Dr. Turban continue to steer us toward medical transition, unable to accept our lived experience. There are more and more people like us sharing their stories of transition regret openly online, and we implore you to look these up.
Dr Turban goes on to say:
“when you say detransition people usually think that means like transition regret. It brings up this idea that somebody transitioned, then realize like, oh my god, that was a huge mistake. I’m actually cisgender, I regret every domain of gender affirmation I’ve ever had. And as I’m sure you know, that’s not the reality of the situation.”
Dr Turban is, again, completely dismissing those of us who have experienced transition regret. As detransitioned woman, we are deeply hurt that Dr Turban would find it appropriate to suggest that our pain and distress is not a reality. We do, in fact, regret every domain of gender affirmation we ever had and the irreversible changes that medical transition did to us that we must now live with for the rest of our lives. It is, therefore, highly unprofessional and deeply offensive to see comments like this from a fellow at Stanford.
At the same time as Dr Turban dismisses our existence, he also claims to represent us in research, but his bias is clear: the goal is to minimize detransition because it contradicts Dr. Turban’s professional aspirations to promote transgender medical and surgical interventions. In the GenderGP podcast he also says:
“We have a paper that hopefully is coming out soon, where we took the data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey. So this was a survey of over 27,000 transgender adults in the United States. And we found that of those who had transitioned in some way, don’t quote me on that exact number, but it’s something like 13% of them said that at some point in their life, they had detransitioned. And when we looked at why they did that, the vast majority of them, like close to 90%, I think, had detransitioned due to some external factor.”
We bring to your attention that the 2015 USTS survey that Dr Turban repeatedly uses for his research is an online convenience survey that was promoted by transition advocacy sites. We believe in and support transgender rights and trans people, but respectfully submit that this survey, subtitled “Injustice at Every Turn,” which is full of biased questions that promote a political agenda, serves as a poor base for respectable research. Dr Turban previously attempted to use this survey to claim that psychotherapy leads to suicide; his problematic analysis and conclusions were thoroughly outlined in a rebuttal by Roberto D’Angelo et al. in ‘One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender Dysphoria’ (2020), to which Dr.Turban never replied, even through he had the chance to do so. Instead, he attacked the researchers on Twitter. Dr Turban also used the same survey to attempt to show that puberty blockers saved lives. Another rebuttal showed just how flawed that piece of research was (‘Puberty Blockers and Suicidality in Adolescents Suffering from Gender Dysphoria’ (2020) by Michael Biggs). Dr Turban failed to respond to that critique in the scientific area, but did go on media circuit to promote his deeply flawed conclusions.
Most recently, Dr Turban misused this problematic sample to discredit detransition experiences in his research, ‘Factors Leading to “Detransition” Among Transgender and Gender Diverse People in the United States: A Mixed-Methods Analysis’ (2021). Dr. Turban did not seem troubled by the fact that 100% of the respondents were transgender-identified and did not identify as detransitioners. This is an expert from his study:
These [detransition due to internal factors] experiences did not necessarily reflect regret regarding past gender affirmation, and were presumably temporary, as all of these respondents subsequently identified as TGD, an eligibility requirement for study participation.
Dr. Turban’s conclusions were that detransition is largely a temporary phenomenon, happens in response to external pressures, and does not really represent a problem for those who detransitioned. These conclusions are highly flawed and ignore those of us who have detransitioned due to transition regret, and who were excluded from the survey for no longer being transgender-identified.
In comparison, recent detransition research conducted within the actual detransition community (‘Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey’ (2021) by Elie Vandenbussche) found very different results: that most of us detransition due to the internal realization that transition was not what we needed, that transition did not help and can actually make things worse for us, and that we found other non-invasive ways to alleviate our dysphoria. Further, the research showed that detransitioners expressed the need to find alternative treatments to deal with their gender dysphoria, but reported that it was nearly impossible to talk about it within LGBT+ spaces and in the medical sphere.
Vandenbussche found that most detransitioners currently are in dire need of psychological support on matters such as gender dysphoria, co-morbid conditions, feelings of regret, social/physical changes and internalized homophobic or sexist prejudices. The research confirmed that detransitionres experience prejudice when working with medical and mental health systems, which Dr. Turban’s vocal activism directly emboldens and reinforces.
We feel it important to add that in May 2021, the Karolinska Hospital in Sweden issued a new policy statement regarding the treatment of gender-dysphoric minors. This policy has ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-dysphoric patients under the age of 18. Finland also revised its treatment guidelines in June 2020, prioritizing psychological interventions and support over medical interventions. Major changes are also underway in the UK, as the NHS has convened a “Cass Review” to examine the practice of transition for young people and the evidence that underlies it.
Thus, it seems evident that there is a growing concern over the proliferation of medical interventions that have a low certainty of benefits, while carrying a significant potential for medical harm. It is worrying that Dr Turban does not seem to demonstrate the professional curiosity to rethink his endorsement of medical transition for minors and his dismay at psychotherapy and its role in the care of gender dysphoric individuals of all ages.
We are also deeply concerned by Dr Turban’s activism to suppress the debate on the proper care for gender dysphoria in the public arena. On May 25, 2021, Dr Turban tweeted the following:
“When I spoke with @60Minutes about their “detransition” story and asked where they found the people to profile – they refused to tell me and became defensive. We still don’t know if they searched for people on TERF forums, and transparency would be appreciated.”
We bring to your attention that “TERF” (an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”) is a pejorative term, and that Dr Turban’s use of it to smear and dismiss the experiences of the detransitioners who appeared on 60 Minutes is incredibly hurtful. That a fellow at Stanford would criticise 60 Minutes for having a brief segment featuring detransitioners has many of us very concerned that, should one of his patients experience transition regret and subsequently decide to detransition, Dr Turban would be unfit to help them due to his hostility towards the subject.
Therefore, we are deeply concerned with how Dr Turban may practice as a clinician, specifically how he may treat a transgender person struggling with transition regret or a detransitioner seeking to discuss their regret or reverse their transition. His comments on the GenderGP podcast, his flawed use of the USTS, and his hostility towards any discussion of transition regret are all highly problematic and in need of addressing. We ask Stanford to speak out for more thoughtful approaches because, as it stands now, Stanford appears to be silently endorsing Dr Turban’s harmful claims that exploratory psychotherapy is tantamount to conversion therapy and that hormones and surgeries are the only appropriate treatment for people with gender dysphoria.
I received affirmative care at my gender clinic. I received no exploratory talk therapy. I injected myself with cross-sex hormones and underwent a double mastectomy. I now suffer from transition regret, and have detransitioned as a result. The distress and harm that I have endured because of the knee-jerk affirmative approach that people like Dr Turban advocates for has been immense. I implore you, on behalf of the detransitioned women who co-signed this letter and myself, to please consider its contents carefully – we wish only to help the many others like us.
Thank you for your brave reply!
“The LORD bless you and keep you, the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you, the LORD turn His face toward you and give you, EJS, peace.”Peace I leave you,My peace I give unto you..let not your heart be troubled.
Really hope those reading this biased article would also consider reading the survey it cites from 2015:
“Respondents who had de-transitioned cited a range of reasons, though only 5% of those who had de-transitioned reported that they had done so because they realized that gender transition was not for them, representing 0.4% of the overall sample.”
Most of the reasons for detransition were pressure from an external source, which some may see as a good thing (religious peeps) but the larger world would consider this very negative. We should be aiming for a world of compassion, where trans people can have access to transition and be accepted by all for who they are… love thy neighbour and all. There are very few treatments that have as large of a satisfaction as HRT (consider your BP meds, diabetes meds, etc., wouldn’t you rather be off them?). We have created a world that makes trans people feel hated, and then point at them when they stop being who they are because they feel horrible. What is your motive for reading these articles? To justify your religious position? Consider meeting/ reading accounts from transgender people and consider developing some empathy that you claim to have because of your faith.
The regret is real. The psychological issues are real. And by the way, the pronoun thing, I hate to inform you, but you are 1 not 2 as in they, them. There is no plural to one person, man, woman, man/woman. Give me a break, deal with your mental issues, whatever they may be. Please stop with the plural reference, you sound like an idiot.
Actually, the pronoun “they” can be used as a singular term. Sometimes, when speaking about someone, you won’t mention their gender identity. So, I could say, “I met someone at the store.” The word “someone” is a gender-neutral word, so it doesn’t tell you the gender of the person. It would be grammatically correct for you to respond with “What was their name?” because you do not know their gender identity, and it would be rude to assume. If this is grammatically correct, why would it not be grammatically correct to use these pronouns with people we know the gender identity of? Plus, the pronoun “they” is in multiple dictionaries as a singular pronoun. If you understand the English language, it is not hard to understand pronouns, so please be respectful of others’ pronouns.
Pray for our children!
E
908-239-8990
Unfortunately our current media for that last few years is promoting this insanity of pretending to be someone you are not and mutilating ones body to continue pretending. This article brings out the other side that the media does not tell us. The regret of having this done. Thank you Susan for writing this and giving helpful resources along with the truth. Thank you!!!