Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Regrets

Regrets are never talked about but they happen, just a small fraction of those who transitioned have regrets. But they do happen, however, they are usually the result of other factors like family or religious pressure and not because they are not transgender.
Myths About Transition Regrets
Huffington Post
By Brynn Tannehill
Posted: 11/18/2014

Recently there has been a spate of blog posts raising the specter of transgender people regretting transitioning. They cite their two favorite studies, without actually looking at what the actual studies said, and drag out some old anecdotes. In short, they try to muddy the waters the way climate-change deniers or creationists do by throwing up a cloud of chaff and hoping no one will look any closer. And then there's the fact that the authors of these blog posts also think that same-sex marriage will abolish all marriage.
She then goes on to list the myths one by one…
3. Regret is common.
Surgical regret is actually very uncommon. Virtually every modern study puts it below 4 percent, and most estimate it to be between 1 and 2 percent (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfafflin 2003, Kuiper & Cohen-Kettenis 1998, Pfafflin & Junge 1998, Smith 2005, Dhejne 2014). In some other recent longitudinal studies, none of the subjects expressed regret over medically transitioning (Krege et al. 2001, De Cuypere et al. 2006)...

4. But what about the people who had regrets?
Any surgery comes with a risk of regret. It just happens that the risk of regret for GCS is actually much lower than for many other surgeries. Indeed, the regret rate for GCS compares favorably with gastric banding.

When asked about regrets, only 2 percent of respondents in a survey of transgender people in the UK had major regrets regarding the physical changes they had made, compared with 65 percent of non-transgender people in the UK who have had plastic surgery…

5. The transgender community is intolerant of people who regret surgery.
No, we just really don't like it when people try to get between us and our doctors…
As the article points out the percentage of regrets are in-line with other surgeries and in research papers that I read many of those who had regrets said that they were rejected by family and friends or had problems finding employment. In other words those who followed the WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standard of Care (SoC v7) their regrets weren’t because they were not trans but rather because of societal pressures that they regretted having surgery.

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