Detransitioners are people who revert to identifying with their birth sex after initially identifying as transgender and going through medical sex-trait modification procedures, including hormones and surgeries. How much do you know about detransitioners? Can you identify which of these statements are true?
A. Detransitioners are a diverse group of people with a diverse range of beliefs.
B. Sex-trait modification (medical transition) procedures are difficult or impossible to reverse.
C. The rate of sex-trait modification (medical transition) regret is low.
Let’s take these statements one at a time:
A. TRUE! Detransitioners have often been painted as being conservative Christian propagandists in the mainstream media—and while some detransitioners do identify as conservative Christians, many don’t. In a 2023 Washington Post article titled, “‘Detransitioners’ wield influence in shaping conservative transgender laws,” Independent Women ambassador and detransitioner Prisha Mosley, contrary to the title of the article, called herself “politically homeless,” and stated she “no longer politically align[s] with any party’s ideas.” One male “desister”—someone who identified as transgender for a time but never underwent medical treatment—calls himself an “actual liberal.” Jamie Reed, who blew the whistle at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, identifies as a “queer woman…to the left of Bernie Sanders.” She is married to Roxanne “Tiger” Reed, who spent 13 years identifying as transgender before detransitioning.
B. TRUE! Many sex-trait modification procedures, especially surgeries, are irreversible. For instance, when a woman undergoes a mastectomy, she cannot get her breasts back. While proponents of transition claim that she can simply get plastic breast implants if she regrets the surgery later, plastic breast implants are not real breasts, do not contain real breast tissue, and will not allow her to breastfeed if she ever has a child. A man who undergoes orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) or vaginoplasty (the creation of a “neo-vagina” which involves the removal of the penis) can never get his testicles or penis back.
Cross-sex hormonal interventions and puberty blockers, depending on how long they have been prescribed and taken, can be easier to reverse than surgeries—since the patient can simply stop taking them—but still carry with them long-term consequences. For transgender-identifying women who are prescribed testosterone, vaginal atrophy, vaginal lacerations, clitoral enlargement, facial hair growth, and menstrual and fertility problems are common side effects, many of which can and do persist after stopping testosterone. Transgender-identifying men who are prescribed estrogen are at higher risk of venous thromboembolism (i.e., blood clotting). The Daily Caller recently reported that a transgender-identifying man died at the age of 26 after a pulmonary embolism that was likely caused by an estrogen prescription for a “more female appearance.”
Moreover, while health insurers usually cover the cost of transition procedures, they often don’t cover the costs of detransition procedures. The New York Post called the medical status quo of sex-trait modification procedures a “‘Hotel California’ nightmare”—like the Eagles’ song, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” when it comes to medical transition.
C. LIE! While the New York Times, among others, has claimed that detransitioners “likely only make up 2% to 13% of the trans community,” that estimate is based on a debunked study that only took into consideration those who currently identify as transgender—which says essentially nothing about people who have actually detransitioned. Because of partisan studies like this, we don’t know what the real transition regret rate is, or what the real detransition rate is.
Bottom Line: The very existence of detransitioners shows the unfortunate truth that medical transition is frequently a permanent or semi-permanent, risky, and regrettable “solution” to what is very often a temporary problem of gender dysphoria, one which can be treated more effectively (and without irreversible side effects) through talk therapy. Elective sex-trait modification medical interventions in the name of “transition” that can cause lifelong medical complications and regret, at minimum, should not be performed on children.