Regrets.

I have a lot of regrets that I have accumulated over the seventy plus years but one of them isn’t that I transitioned. But some have and the latest high profile detransitionor was the former Chris Beck who is now the poster child for the right-wing media.

Today I want to discuss detransitioning and regrets.

First off…

The medical term for transgender is “Gender Dysphoria” and the DSM 5 TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) ) defines it as...

The DSM-5-TR defines gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults as a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender, lasting at least 6 months, as manifested by at least two of the following:

A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)

A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)

A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender

A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)

A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)

A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)

The code for Gender Dysphoria is 302.6 Gender Identity Disorder in Children and 302.85 Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents and Adults.

[Side Bar:

There is a lot of misunderstanding of about the DSM, some people say it is a list of “mental disorders” it IS NOT! It is a list of “stuff” a therapist might want to bill an insurance company.

Suppose a client comes in saying “I am so embarrassed that I wet my bed at night that I’m afraid of going on sleepovers with my friends.”

Is that a “mental disorders,” no it is not but it is something that you might want to talk about talk about with your therapist. So the therapist pulls out their trusty copy of the DSM and looks in to it and finds 307.6 and it is even broken down to during the day or while sleeping. So the therapist sends a bill to the insurance company saying my client is suffering from 307.6.

That is the purpose of the DSM. (Of course now that I Googled searched for this I am getting all types of ads for incontinence products.]

The therapist listens and ask question, a therapist does not steers the client in any direction they are a guide. So when you say that “I’m trans” he or she should ask probing questions to help them diagnose you properly. If the therapist is trying to steer you in one direction or another get another therapist.

There have been some studies on detranistioning. 

The Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study (1972–2015): Trends in Prevalence, Treatment, and Regrets
The Journal of Sexual Medicine
Volume 15, Issue 4, April 2018


Background

Over the past decade, the number of people referred to gender identity clinics has rapidly increased. This raises several questions, especially concerning the frequency of performing gender-affirming treatments with irreversible effects and regret from such interventions.

Aim

To study the current prevalence of gender dysphoria, how frequently gender-affirming treatments are performed, and the number of people experiencing regret of this treatment.

[…]

Conclusion

The number of people with gender identity issues seeking professional help increased dramatically in recent decades. The percentage of people who regretted gonadectomy remained small and did not show a tendency to increase.

PubMed the online research website for the U.S, National Institute of Health has a 2021 study, Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence and they found that,

Results:

A total of 27 studies, pooling 7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of GAS, were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1% (95% CI <1%–2%). Overall, 33% underwent transmasculine procedures and 67% transfemenine procedures. The prevalence of regret among patients undergoing transmasculine and transfemenine surgeries was <1% (IC <1%–<1%) and 1% (CI <1%–2%), respectively. A total of 77 patients regretted having had GAS. Twenty-eight had minor and 34 had major regret based on Pfäfflin’s regret classification. The majority had clear regret based on Kuiper and Cohen-Kettenis classification.

Conclusions:

Based on this review, there is an extremely low prevalence of regret in transgender patients after GAS. We believe this study corroborates the improvements made in regard to selection criteria for GAS. However, there is high subjectivity in the assessment of regret and lack of standardized questionnaires, which highlight the importance of developing validated questionnaires in this population.

All surgeries have patients that have regrets, gallbladder surgery has about 1% of the patients that report regrets. While plastic surgery has regrets in the 60 to 65% range but you don’t hear legislators trying to ban those types of surgeries.

But still the right-wing conservative media holds up these people who have detransitioned as being common among trans people.

I have personally know three or four people who detransitioned and read about some other and I came up with three reasons why trans people detransition.

1.     Transitioning wasn’t right for them.
2.     Family and social pressures, including religious pressure.
3.     Economic pressure, they can’t find a job.

Let's go back and look at the definition of Gender Dysphoria… “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender at birth,” Now ask yourself do you think those who have detransitioned no longer have Gender Dysphoria? Or is it because the gender bug wasn’t strong enough in them to transition?