I appreciate the study, but I think it’s fairly predictable that many young people will deeply regret having mutilated bodies, being sterile, being lifetime medical patients, and giving up sexual intimacy for life. Most people I know, including myself, didn’t truly grow to be comfortable in our skin until our mid-thirties with some life experience, a family, personal accomplishments, personal agency, and a sense of community of our own building. As both social and sexual creatures, it doesn’t take a super-genius to see many will regret losing out on the opportunity to build those things, or at least have the option, for themselves.
I’ve also never met a child or teenager or adult for that matter that truly confirms to rigid stereotypical gender norms, nor is it common to meet humans genuinely comfortable in their own skin before adulthood. This isn’t a medical condition that needs hormones and surgery and pronouncements of made up academic intersectionality identity groups. Discomfort is a natural part of the human experience of growing up. And making it to adulthood with people to love is the reward, and one hell of an amazing reward it is.
I say shut the whole "trans" circus down immediately. This abomination never should have gotten off the ground to begin with. The sooner we end this appalling program of poison, slice and dice, the better.
With so few well-conducted studies of treatment outcomes associated with gender affirmative care, it is good to see one that addresses regrets about transitioning. We need a lot more information about all aspects of gender dysphoria, patients requesting gender treatment, and optimal treatments for subgroups with differing needs.
I sometimes think, however, that the focus on whether patients regret transitioning gets disproportionate attention by both the gender treatment professionals and by critics of the use of invasive medical strategies in treating adolescents claiming trans gendered status. Questions that are neglected pertain to whether gender affirmative care is medically necessary for any adolescent. If so, what conditions are being treated? Advocates of gender affirmative care have said that they are treating suicidality. On other occasions they say that attributing mental illness to patients claiming a trans identity is "hate speech." So are they being treated for a major psychiatric disorder or aren't they? If they have no mental disorder then what is the motivation for taking opposite sex hormones and cutting off body parts. Is this really just cosmetic surgery on demand. It certainly appears to be. If male patients can request the addition of a vagina to their existing male genitals, and the surgeon agrees to construct one, that is certainly cosmetic surgery on demand. I assume that one of the primary interests of cosmetic surgeons is for patients to be happy with how they look post-surgery, so patients' satisfaction or regrets with the surgery is the top priority. If, on the other hand, medical treatments are claimed to be medically necessary, it means that the patient will not be okay without the surgery, and in fact, the gender treatment community has claimed that patients will die if they don't receive the medical interventions. Gender activists have also claimed that refusing to provide them with medical transitioning is equivalent to genocide, meaning that if they don't transition they will be murdered. This claim obviously reflects the presence of a mental disorder or a behavioral problem.
The most common motive for suicide is depression. If the gender clinics' patients are presenting severe depression, are they being treated according to standards of care for that condition? The standards do not include hormones or surgery, although testosterone has antidepressant properties.
Based on the minimal level of knowledge we now have about the mental disorders experienced by trans-identified people, they probably do have a higher suicide rate than normal for matching members of the general population (e.g., middle aged males or adolescent girls). This indicates that psychiatric treatment is medically necessary. It is quite possible that many trans-identified people are unable to use psychotherapy or antidepressants to decrease their suicidality, but it is difficult to imagine that getting cosmetic surgery will be more helpful. A patient who has transitioned but continues to experience severe depression would not necessarily regret medically transitioning. Asking this person if sh/he regrets having undertaken body modification does not get to the heart of the matter, which is, "Was the treatment appropriate for the problem, and did it succeed in resolving it?"
The bottom line is that immature human brains do not have the capacity to comprehend an abstract concept like gender, to understand what sterility and loss of ability to achieve orgasm could mean and they lack the foresight to picture a life of experimental drugs and surgery, side effects and a shortened life span.
These higher brain functions don't even become possible until age 16 at the earliest, and some people never develop them at all. It is impossible for a child to form consent.
Groups like SEGM (Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine - "gender medicine"? - what the hell is that?) that make statements like "no one is tracking how many people regret transition" imply that some children actually benefit from these mutilating surgeries. Even if that were true, no study in the world could predict prospectively whic ones would. No child's body should be irreversibly altered -- surgically or hormonally -- based on their feelings and self-identifiation. Full stop.
Did we really need a "study" to prove lobotomies were unhelpful and regretful? Of course not. Anyone with common sense knows that an irreversible medical intervention based solely on the feelings of a CHILD is insanity.
Who is behind "The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine" and what is "Gender Medicine"? Medical treatment based on stereotypical feelings? What kind of evidence could ever justify surgical and hormonal interventions on physically healthy children. We don't need any more evidence or studies to conclude that there needs to be an immediate mortorium on the transgender pediatric industry. These clinics should be shut down without delay.
Thanks, Lisa. "Furthermore, adolescents and young adults might not be mature enough to appreciate the long-term consequences of their decisions about the irreversible medical interventions used to achieve “embodiment goals,” and/or their capacity to give informed consent may be limited by comorbid mental health problems or neurodevelopmental challenges." I have a problem with "better informed consent" from young adolescents, who by their very immaturity and abundant evidence of tendencies to make bad decisions are really INCAPABLE of making informed consent, especially in systems that are replete with "coaches" and therapists committed to one-way decision-making. That is why we need a professional and legislative mandate to eschew both pharmacologic and surgical "therapies" before age 18 years.
As a woman who endured many years of tangential association with my cross-sex ideating ex-husband, including 2 years during the marriage, when he fluctuated back and forth, neglected our young sons' emotional needs as well as their physical safety, I can speak to the psychiatric illness not cured by hormones and surgeries. The path to mental and emotional wellness, taking the individual to a place where they have the capacity to care for others and grow away from extreme narcissistic behavior involves at least these 5 actions: 1. Close down all internet and social media activity for several months and then back on only on a restricted schedule. 2. Quality psychotherapy with homework involving focus on those surrounding the patient, to unlearn the narcissism. Deal with the childhood trauma/sexual abuse/physical abuse/bullying experiences with productive analysis and acquisition of relaxation strategies for panic attacks and vagus nerve overstimulation. 3. Focused mind/body work in a form such as Feldenkrais physical therapy or acupressure chiropractic. The Veterans Administration youtube channel has the latter demonstrated. 4. Personal research on desisters and detransitioners who describe the flaws in the "affirmative care" they participated in. The knowledge that most of these practitioners make it up as they go along is important. 5. Engagement in nature through gardening, hiking, birdwatching, &etc. For an idea of mind/body connection through movement for calming the vagus nerve:
Like many I follow some detransitioners on social media. Ones heart breaks just listening.
I don't understand how we've got to this state of 'treatment' but just wish we had a world where genitals don't define s person and trans people can live in their natural bodies. This should surely be the norm - and adult choice to have surgery be a last resort after expert advice?
And haven't we been told that 95% of men who ID as female still have intact male genitalia?
This makes the unnecessary physical 'medical' damage already done to a number of people even more appalling.
It's all a mess. Does extreme trans activism really express what trans people feel? Where are the measured trans opinions - obviously absent from the government debate on the Equality Act last Monday?
Is it possible to isolate the few men who, frankly, are playing with this ideology for sinister and dangerous abusive activities against women?
How can we ever get to accurate mental diagnosis with everyone shouting at each other?
I think the many disparate strands of the debate need carefully teasing apart, and separating , and the detransitioner voices amplified to top volume until everyone knows what is happening - and are as appalled as we all commenting here are.
But pretending most trans people are predators is cruel and not true.
And then there are lots of the public, often younger people, who deny there is a problem at all.
Glad that we detransitioners/desistors are starting to get attention, even if it is coming in at a trickle. Still, it's a move in the right direction.
I hope society embraces the fact that there is no "wrong" or "right" way to be a man/woman. You're only born as one and get to decide how you want to live and express yourself from there. There shouldn't be these rigid expectations for being a man or woman, but unfortunately, these stereotypes are parroted by both conservatives and "liberals." They want to put us in boxes.
I hope that one day, no kid has to through what me and tons of other detransitioners/desistors went through, and are still going through. Glad this article came along during "Pride Month," a month I personally loathe.
I read studies such as this one, and I am reminded of one of my favorite medical books: "The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" (Mukherjee, 2010). As I read the accounts of some of many of the surgical attempts to get rid of a person's cancer, I couldn't help but ask myself, "what were they thinking?" I suspect that in the future, people will be asking that same question about what is happening today.
I used to be on board with the idea that transition, for those those adults with diagnosed gender dysphoria, would be a beneficial therapeutic process aiming to reduce the affects of the dysphoria. I was never comfortable with the "born in the wrong body" concept since that seems to indicate some kind of mystical knowledge about one's gendered soul existing in a body that's not the right match for them. I was never comfortable with the idea that "a trans woman IS a woman", since that's factually not true. I've now arrived at a point where I'm of the opinion that transition, as a practice, should be stopped period. I think the core issue for me comes down to treating what is ostensibly a mental condition by bringing the physical into alignment with the mental. I cannot think of any other situation where someone with a mental illness is affirmed in their mental illness. So then why gender of all things? My only conclusion is that the philosophies of feminism and queer theory have enabled people to consider sex and gender as a mutable category that one can become a man or become a woman, or that they are not one if they don't fit strict definitions. Of course those that hold that transition is a therapeutic for those people with gender dysphoria have, in many institutions, lost that battle. Colin Wright has shown that many organizations essentially have open up the definition of trans to include all manner of other things. This then makes me oppose it even more, since I cannot support such a drastic set of measures as transition for those that are doing it merely on aesthetic or identity grounds.
In the end transition doesn't seem, to me, to be a beneficial therapeutic. Since it's moved beyond that it's really become an aesthetic masquerading as a therapeutic in order to garner a positive public opinion. Frankly, if you're an adult and want to do this, go ahead, but the rest of society shouldn't applaud it or be forced to go along with it.
I appreciate the study, but I think it’s fairly predictable that many young people will deeply regret having mutilated bodies, being sterile, being lifetime medical patients, and giving up sexual intimacy for life. Most people I know, including myself, didn’t truly grow to be comfortable in our skin until our mid-thirties with some life experience, a family, personal accomplishments, personal agency, and a sense of community of our own building. As both social and sexual creatures, it doesn’t take a super-genius to see many will regret losing out on the opportunity to build those things, or at least have the option, for themselves.
I’ve also never met a child or teenager or adult for that matter that truly confirms to rigid stereotypical gender norms, nor is it common to meet humans genuinely comfortable in their own skin before adulthood. This isn’t a medical condition that needs hormones and surgery and pronouncements of made up academic intersectionality identity groups. Discomfort is a natural part of the human experience of growing up. And making it to adulthood with people to love is the reward, and one hell of an amazing reward it is.
I say shut the whole "trans" circus down immediately. This abomination never should have gotten off the ground to begin with. The sooner we end this appalling program of poison, slice and dice, the better.
With so few well-conducted studies of treatment outcomes associated with gender affirmative care, it is good to see one that addresses regrets about transitioning. We need a lot more information about all aspects of gender dysphoria, patients requesting gender treatment, and optimal treatments for subgroups with differing needs.
I sometimes think, however, that the focus on whether patients regret transitioning gets disproportionate attention by both the gender treatment professionals and by critics of the use of invasive medical strategies in treating adolescents claiming trans gendered status. Questions that are neglected pertain to whether gender affirmative care is medically necessary for any adolescent. If so, what conditions are being treated? Advocates of gender affirmative care have said that they are treating suicidality. On other occasions they say that attributing mental illness to patients claiming a trans identity is "hate speech." So are they being treated for a major psychiatric disorder or aren't they? If they have no mental disorder then what is the motivation for taking opposite sex hormones and cutting off body parts. Is this really just cosmetic surgery on demand. It certainly appears to be. If male patients can request the addition of a vagina to their existing male genitals, and the surgeon agrees to construct one, that is certainly cosmetic surgery on demand. I assume that one of the primary interests of cosmetic surgeons is for patients to be happy with how they look post-surgery, so patients' satisfaction or regrets with the surgery is the top priority. If, on the other hand, medical treatments are claimed to be medically necessary, it means that the patient will not be okay without the surgery, and in fact, the gender treatment community has claimed that patients will die if they don't receive the medical interventions. Gender activists have also claimed that refusing to provide them with medical transitioning is equivalent to genocide, meaning that if they don't transition they will be murdered. This claim obviously reflects the presence of a mental disorder or a behavioral problem.
The most common motive for suicide is depression. If the gender clinics' patients are presenting severe depression, are they being treated according to standards of care for that condition? The standards do not include hormones or surgery, although testosterone has antidepressant properties.
Based on the minimal level of knowledge we now have about the mental disorders experienced by trans-identified people, they probably do have a higher suicide rate than normal for matching members of the general population (e.g., middle aged males or adolescent girls). This indicates that psychiatric treatment is medically necessary. It is quite possible that many trans-identified people are unable to use psychotherapy or antidepressants to decrease their suicidality, but it is difficult to imagine that getting cosmetic surgery will be more helpful. A patient who has transitioned but continues to experience severe depression would not necessarily regret medically transitioning. Asking this person if sh/he regrets having undertaken body modification does not get to the heart of the matter, which is, "Was the treatment appropriate for the problem, and did it succeed in resolving it?"
The bottom line is that immature human brains do not have the capacity to comprehend an abstract concept like gender, to understand what sterility and loss of ability to achieve orgasm could mean and they lack the foresight to picture a life of experimental drugs and surgery, side effects and a shortened life span.
These higher brain functions don't even become possible until age 16 at the earliest, and some people never develop them at all. It is impossible for a child to form consent.
The science is coming quite unsettled
Groups like SEGM (Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine - "gender medicine"? - what the hell is that?) that make statements like "no one is tracking how many people regret transition" imply that some children actually benefit from these mutilating surgeries. Even if that were true, no study in the world could predict prospectively whic ones would. No child's body should be irreversibly altered -- surgically or hormonally -- based on their feelings and self-identifiation. Full stop.
Did we really need a "study" to prove lobotomies were unhelpful and regretful? Of course not. Anyone with common sense knows that an irreversible medical intervention based solely on the feelings of a CHILD is insanity.
Who is behind "The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine" and what is "Gender Medicine"? Medical treatment based on stereotypical feelings? What kind of evidence could ever justify surgical and hormonal interventions on physically healthy children. We don't need any more evidence or studies to conclude that there needs to be an immediate mortorium on the transgender pediatric industry. These clinics should be shut down without delay.
Thanks, Lisa. "Furthermore, adolescents and young adults might not be mature enough to appreciate the long-term consequences of their decisions about the irreversible medical interventions used to achieve “embodiment goals,” and/or their capacity to give informed consent may be limited by comorbid mental health problems or neurodevelopmental challenges." I have a problem with "better informed consent" from young adolescents, who by their very immaturity and abundant evidence of tendencies to make bad decisions are really INCAPABLE of making informed consent, especially in systems that are replete with "coaches" and therapists committed to one-way decision-making. That is why we need a professional and legislative mandate to eschew both pharmacologic and surgical "therapies" before age 18 years.
As a woman who endured many years of tangential association with my cross-sex ideating ex-husband, including 2 years during the marriage, when he fluctuated back and forth, neglected our young sons' emotional needs as well as their physical safety, I can speak to the psychiatric illness not cured by hormones and surgeries. The path to mental and emotional wellness, taking the individual to a place where they have the capacity to care for others and grow away from extreme narcissistic behavior involves at least these 5 actions: 1. Close down all internet and social media activity for several months and then back on only on a restricted schedule. 2. Quality psychotherapy with homework involving focus on those surrounding the patient, to unlearn the narcissism. Deal with the childhood trauma/sexual abuse/physical abuse/bullying experiences with productive analysis and acquisition of relaxation strategies for panic attacks and vagus nerve overstimulation. 3. Focused mind/body work in a form such as Feldenkrais physical therapy or acupressure chiropractic. The Veterans Administration youtube channel has the latter demonstrated. 4. Personal research on desisters and detransitioners who describe the flaws in the "affirmative care" they participated in. The knowledge that most of these practitioners make it up as they go along is important. 5. Engagement in nature through gardening, hiking, birdwatching, &etc. For an idea of mind/body connection through movement for calming the vagus nerve:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt-KmNui9LA&t=9s
Like many I follow some detransitioners on social media. Ones heart breaks just listening.
I don't understand how we've got to this state of 'treatment' but just wish we had a world where genitals don't define s person and trans people can live in their natural bodies. This should surely be the norm - and adult choice to have surgery be a last resort after expert advice?
And haven't we been told that 95% of men who ID as female still have intact male genitalia?
This makes the unnecessary physical 'medical' damage already done to a number of people even more appalling.
It's all a mess. Does extreme trans activism really express what trans people feel? Where are the measured trans opinions - obviously absent from the government debate on the Equality Act last Monday?
Is it possible to isolate the few men who, frankly, are playing with this ideology for sinister and dangerous abusive activities against women?
How can we ever get to accurate mental diagnosis with everyone shouting at each other?
I think the many disparate strands of the debate need carefully teasing apart, and separating , and the detransitioner voices amplified to top volume until everyone knows what is happening - and are as appalled as we all commenting here are.
But pretending most trans people are predators is cruel and not true.
And then there are lots of the public, often younger people, who deny there is a problem at all.
Glad that we detransitioners/desistors are starting to get attention, even if it is coming in at a trickle. Still, it's a move in the right direction.
I hope society embraces the fact that there is no "wrong" or "right" way to be a man/woman. You're only born as one and get to decide how you want to live and express yourself from there. There shouldn't be these rigid expectations for being a man or woman, but unfortunately, these stereotypes are parroted by both conservatives and "liberals." They want to put us in boxes.
I hope that one day, no kid has to through what me and tons of other detransitioners/desistors went through, and are still going through. Glad this article came along during "Pride Month," a month I personally loathe.
I read studies such as this one, and I am reminded of one of my favorite medical books: "The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" (Mukherjee, 2010). As I read the accounts of some of many of the surgical attempts to get rid of a person's cancer, I couldn't help but ask myself, "what were they thinking?" I suspect that in the future, people will be asking that same question about what is happening today.
I used to be on board with the idea that transition, for those those adults with diagnosed gender dysphoria, would be a beneficial therapeutic process aiming to reduce the affects of the dysphoria. I was never comfortable with the "born in the wrong body" concept since that seems to indicate some kind of mystical knowledge about one's gendered soul existing in a body that's not the right match for them. I was never comfortable with the idea that "a trans woman IS a woman", since that's factually not true. I've now arrived at a point where I'm of the opinion that transition, as a practice, should be stopped period. I think the core issue for me comes down to treating what is ostensibly a mental condition by bringing the physical into alignment with the mental. I cannot think of any other situation where someone with a mental illness is affirmed in their mental illness. So then why gender of all things? My only conclusion is that the philosophies of feminism and queer theory have enabled people to consider sex and gender as a mutable category that one can become a man or become a woman, or that they are not one if they don't fit strict definitions. Of course those that hold that transition is a therapeutic for those people with gender dysphoria have, in many institutions, lost that battle. Colin Wright has shown that many organizations essentially have open up the definition of trans to include all manner of other things. This then makes me oppose it even more, since I cannot support such a drastic set of measures as transition for those that are doing it merely on aesthetic or identity grounds.
In the end transition doesn't seem, to me, to be a beneficial therapeutic. Since it's moved beyond that it's really become an aesthetic masquerading as a therapeutic in order to garner a positive public opinion. Frankly, if you're an adult and want to do this, go ahead, but the rest of society shouldn't applaud it or be forced to go along with it.