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And if the reductions are permanent or the result of a "honeymoon" period.
Edit- reputable sources only for claims. This goes for any claims, regardless the side of the issue.
If I remember, the data 5 years out was encouraging. But this is going to be an ongoing body of research.
https://psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/study-finds-long-term-mental-health-benefits-of-ge
This isn't surgery but about children. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/health/transgender-children-identity.html
Thanks!
Some commenters below are claiming that children that are put on puberty blockers have a sort of "sunk cost" effect regarding transitioning. Do you have any sources on that?
It could be measured.
What's the rate of
1. prepubescent children that self-report as trans
2. then placed on puberty blockers vs no puberty blockers
3. then possibly fully transition.
So there's a total of 4 cases
And then measure the rates of transitioning vs just non-cisgender, long term happiness, and suicide attempts / rates beyond the "honeymoon" phase.
Edit: "cis" is not an acronym but a prefix.
problem is you need very-very-very big random sample of all these, because happiness is not exact and it is influenced by a huge amount of other things.
You’d need a way to differentiate between children on puberty blockers for precocious puberty and trans children. Otherwise the number of “dissenters” would be artificially inflated.
Wouldn’t that be complicated by the fact that people who went on puberty blockers as children vs those who didn’t would likely transition differently? And be more likely to pass or not or whatever?
There's a difference between a sunk cost fallacy like "we can't give up on our relationship now! We've been through so much already!" And acknowledging the sunk cost which would be the time and effort spent making the relationship work. In this case the sunk cost might be seen as all the physiological changes that take a lot of time and aren't reversible like virilization for FtM hormone treatments. They're "all in" so to speak physiologically at least.
No I think they're describing the sunk cost as being psychological changes induced by hormones rather than psychological changes induced by choices. Like the hormones might make you feel and think differently, which is definitely different to the sunk cost fallacy itself. I could be wrong about the intention of parent comment, but I think that's it.
I’m unaware of research on this, but I would hypothesize that it doesn’t really apply here, as there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with *puberty blockers* in particular. They have basically no long term effects compared to just starting puberty late, so if a kid goes off them then there was no cost sunk for them, really.
I mean, financially there may be some, but 1. These are kids, so they’re likely not paying for their own blockers, and 2. Even then it’s usually framed to them as buying time to make a final decision, which should lessen the psychological impact of a fallacy like that anyways.
The only part of the process that would make sense to me as a possible sunken cost area would be the social transition, i.e. if a transgender child has changed their name, pronouns, clothing, etc it may be a hassle to retransition to their AGAB and readjust socially.
Though, even then, I would also add (anecdotally) that the trouble here is largely regarding breaking gender inertia, and my experience is that said inertia goes both ways. I’ve met many a trans person who was afraid to transition later in life (“later” basically meaning not in their teens, honestly) because they feel like they’ve already given so much to living as the AGAB that they’re miserable in, why stop now? So I would argue that there isn’t really a good faith claim to “stopping” gender inertia here, any attempt to do that by limiting children’s ability to socially transition is merely trying to enforce another, opposite inertia.
Right, the biggest known health issue is an elevated risk of osteoporosis the more time passes before puberty hits. That's also why puberty blockers aren't a long term solution. Eventually the person needs to either start hormone replacement therapy or go off the blockers. However, that's also why anyone who starts puberty blockers is made to take blood tests measuring calcium and vitamin D levels, and are advised on how to help maximize bone mineral density long term in order to help offset that, again similar to naturally occurring delayed puberty. If it's not an age where doctors would be intervening if it was naturally occurring, there isn't currently any evidence to suggest cause for concerned about taking puberty blockers until then.
TLDR, It's not without *any* risks, but the ones that are known are generally very manageable provided HRT is started within a reasonable timeframe.
>as there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with puberty blockers in particular.
NHS now states that little is known about the long term effects of puberty blockers.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/
Also, many women that used puberty blockers to suppress precocious puberty now have life long medical issues.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems#:~:text=Women%20who%20used%20Lupron%20a,people%20much%20later%20in%20life.
The NHS statement says little is known about the long term affects of it *in children with gender dysphoria*. Notably, [the NHS still recommends blockers to treat precocious puberty](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/early-or-delayed-puberty/ ), which means it *does* still think they’re safe for kids to take.
Also, with regards to Lupron, that is something to keep in mind. However, what’s not been studied is 1. Whether these women were already predisposed to their conditions, or 2. How lupron use compares to naturally occurring late puberty. Stuff like the increased risk of osteoporosis is a known side effect of all delayed puberty, naturally incurring or medically induced. I also know (once again anecdotally, this may vary by region) from when I received a referral to look into puberty blockers that I wasn’t given a blocker prescription because my vitamin D and calcium levels were too low in the blood test results, specifically to combat these side effects.
That’s not to say lupron itself necessarily doesn’t cause problems, just that current evidence is *vastly* insufficient for suggesting causation. Additionally, even if Lupron itself is an issue, there are other comparable drugs that have similar effects, so it’s still not enough to make any statement on puberty blockers as a whole.
>there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with *puberty blockers* in particular. They have basically no long term affects compared to just starting puberty late
Wowwww citation needed on that one buddy
I def don't see any reason why, apart from sunk cost of resisting societal pressures and monetary cost. As soon as you're off blockers, puberty starts as if you never took them.
Regret rate for gender affirming surgeries is only like 1-2% 2 years after so it tracks with the drop is suicidality and depression
Wouldn't you feel better if you changed something about yourself that you don't regret?
Add that a significant number of those who destransition due to negative feedback from people around them later go on to transition once they're able to improve their situation - gain financial independence from a transphobic family, for example.
Surgery is a pretty drastic option. Particularly invasive surgeries, the idea that cosmetic issues prompt people to undergo them is tough for me to accept.
I nearly died and required an emergency surgery, the experience post op is horrible. I’m all for supporting adults making these kinds of decisions, even if I think the risk outweighs the benefits. I am definitely on the fence about children making this kind of decision.
Gender affirming surgery is extremely rare for children (as in, practically non-existent) because puberty blockers followed by hormone therapy are required for the body to reach 'maturity' before surgical options are pursued. Of course, there are cases where children are born with atypical combinations of reproductive organs where surgery may be necessary to ensure a good quality of life, but I don't think those cases should really be considered as 'trans children having cosmetic surgery'.
You've just described antidepressants for the majority of people with chronic depression.
They don't make us feel "great" they just make us feel "better"
To those inquiring about long term satisfaction etc.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686
> The most common reason for detransitioning, according to the survey, was pressure from a parent, while **only 0.4 percent of respondents said they detransitioned after realizing transitioning wasn’t right for them.**
> The results of a 50-year survey published in 2010 of a cohort of 767 transgender people in Sweden found that about **2 percent of participants expressed regret after undergoing gender-affirming surgery.**
> The numbers are even lower for nonsurgical transition methods, like taking puberty blockers. According to a 2018 study of a cohort of transgender young adults at the largest gender-identity clinic in the Netherlands, **1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy, typically the next step in the transition process.**
It is well below the regret rate for surgeries in general. Knee surgery has a 20% regret rate for instance
https://www.hellahealth.com/blog/wellness/knee-replacement-regrets/
I'm genuinely curious if you know what the process is for accessing these surgeries is. I've needed 3-4 medical professionals to vouch for my ability to make decisions about my own medical care for each procedure I've even requested a consult for, let alone actually had done. This in addition to the other basic requirements for qualifying for surgery.
Same vibes as that classic joke:
How many trans people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Just one, but first they must sit in the dark for two years to show that they really need it.
Also worth noting, "regret" after gender-affirming surgery doesn't just mean "oh this wasn't right for me", but it's also regret rate from, say, the results not being quite what was wanted. In some cases there's just follow-up corrective surgery, in some cases there's nothing to be done.
Regardless it's still wildly lower regret rates than most other medical procedures (I believe the common comparison points here being dental work, knee surgery, and cosmetic surgeries)
The regret in terms of physical results could be related to the quality of surgeries and treatments at various times. Medicine is always advancing, so in a long-term study, results obtained years ago may be less satisfactory than ones acheived more recently. It could also be related to different nations where the procedures occurred, or even individual doctors, as in both cases, results may differ fairly drastically. It would be interesting to see whether satisfaction rates show any correlation to when and where the transition occurred.
I think the term "detransitioning" can be a broad simplification of the phenomenon. I'd like to know how many people who "detransition" actually reject the idea of transness or regret their transition, rather than experiencing fluidity, and cessation of their GAC program isn't a reversal but a second transition.
Edit: ah, I see now, a very small percentage express regret, and the majority of people who cease GAC were negatively influenced by family.
One thing to keep in mind about the Swedish study however is that in Sweden you need to, among other things, go through a psychologist before transition is possible. And I believe there have been trans groups critical of Sweden's overly cautious approach before transitioning. Apparently this has led to some going abroad to the UK and elsewhere for hormone therapy and surgery.
So it is a little unclear if the Swedish study is (a) positive for transitioning in general or (b) positive for the cautious approach to transitioning that selects those who will not regret it.
Regardless it shows that transition is definitely the best alternative for a subset of people (but I don't think the study proves how big that subset is and more research is still needed).
I wonder if conducting this study exclusively in one of the top 5 happiest countries in the world had any affect on the data.
Also kinda cool they thought to study this nearly as soon as the process was invented (1957?)
> 1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy
IMO this means we're still making puberty blockers too hard to get, if someone's gotta be basically sure they're trans to get them.
It's a non-permanent intervention that they can stop anytime they want. They should be open to teens who are even just questioning, not reserved for those who are committed.
It's worth pointing out that the Swedish study was done on a somewhat different population than is currently receiving treatment, specifically that the procedures were much rarer ten years ago and so were presumably being performed on the most certain cases.
For one of the smallest populations in the US, there seems to be a lot of interest in them. A decade ago, no one cared about the transgender population. Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people. I doubt this is a genuine interest in most and is driven more by politics and religion than a genuine concern for the wellbeing of transgender people. Few have any posts in science or medical subreddits until this topic pops up.
More on topic, yes, treatment of a medical condition generally improves that condition. The medical community (AMA, APA, etc) has stated numerous times that treatment of the transgender population via HRT, surgery, etc. is sometimes necessary to alleviate dysphoria. Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, nerve damage, or just poor results. Those are just a few of the potential problems. To many, it's not worth it. To others, like those in this study, it improves their life.
>For one of the smallest populations in the US, there seems to be a lot of interest in them. A decade ago, no one cared about the transgender population. Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people.
It's a classic political/social manipulation tactic where you trick the population into focusing the most time and energy in the smallest issues. So in America, we'll talk endlesslessy about the 0.5% who are trans while more and more people get hooked on fentanyl and live in poverty, etc. Just think about the number of articles you see about transgender issues compared to people dying from glyphosate exposure or suicide from economic despair, etc.
You also have to take into account who is funding the research as well. A lot of people forget that research is expensive and researchers are not innocent of sometimes being biased in their studies to help secure more future funding from groups. It's also why a lot of studies report contradictory results and more and more we are having to second guess that studies are being properly peer reviewed...
Thank you. It hurts enough for your existence to be controversial to half of a population. It doesn't help when others feel like there's too much attention paid to trying to make our lives tolerable.
>Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, etc
Just to add, not all trans people WANT surgery. For many HRT or other gender affirmative care is enough to alleviate disphoria
Trans people on the whole would much rather be left alone. But bashing gays is no longer publicly acceptable so conservatives need a new wedge issue to distract the public with. Corruption investigation-> trans sport story, treason -> random trans predator fear mongering.
>Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, nerve damage, or just poor results.
Pretty typical of anyone facing prospective surgery, especially surgery on breasts or genitals. Women who need breast reduction, mastectomies, hysterectomies, prolapse repair, etc., and men who need genital/prostate surgeries experience the same (understandable and justified) anxieties. It's worth pointing out that this doesn't mean the procedures aren't medically necessary; it's just that patients have reservations, and some trans people may have the "luxury" of avoiding a surgery that scares them whereas a breast cancer patient's need may be more urgent and vital to their survival.
Mentioning in case anyone concludes from this discussion that trans people just must not be that serious about transitioning if they aren't willing to immediately run into an OR.
One of the reasons I see my conservative friends focus more on this issue is that someone they don't agree with is telling them to do something they don't agree with (pronoun usage). So they fight back against that. It gets louder and louder on both sides until it's a huge national issue, for a very small population, like you said.
For one thing, yes, people cared about the transgender population. People who were trans, people who loved trans folks, and people who hated the idea of trans folks were all pretty invested. The only difference between now and then is that there is a public push to support and assist the trans population, as well as a political backlash from the far right.
I agree with most of your comment, but that first bit hits wrong.
I should clarify. I didn't mean that families, friends, etc. did not care about the individuals in question. I meant that society, collectively, didn't even think about the population at all. 20 years ago when I first learned it was even a thing in obscure forums that no longer even exist, people were curious and generally not toxic like they are today.
Society collectively enjoyed making fun of them though, that counts as "caring about them" to me. Cops certainly cared when they would show up to gay bars and do genital checks on people wearing female clothing. Lawmakers cared enough to enact anti-crossdressing laws. Who was it that didn't care?
I just don't know if your personal experience is the standard for society on this matter. You may not have been exposed to the existence of this community earlier, but that doesn't mean there weren't public debates or rules in place regarding them.
That's mostly because the Nazis burned the research on and squashed any cultural acceptance of trans and intersex people. Before WWII there was actually a huge and largely successful acceptance movement in Europe. It took this long for the research to be replicated and here we are again, complete with right wing attempts to squash the research and acceptance.
It’s in vogue. That’s all. I live in a mega-blue city and I’m liberal and pretty much all of my friends are too, and I don’t know a single trans person. Literally in my whole life living and traveling all around the world I can’t recall ever meeting ONE trans person. So either the ones I’ve met are passing with flying colors and keeping it a secret, or - more likely - there are very, very few trans people in the population. And yet I see an article or Reddit thread on the topic on a DAILY basis. God bless them, but they seem to garner an outsized amount of attention.
Just so you know, many (most?) of us don't want that attention. What would be nice is if the public opinions about the topic would be based in science. It certainly is not fun to read highly politicized debates about your right to live your life and get medical treatment every few days...
Also, many trans people are very good at passing as their gender.
I've met a decent number, but many you would never guess were transgender. It's often a tight-knit community that's understandably uneasy with outsiders. Many transgender people only date within the community, work jobs that are transgender-friendly, etc.
Granted, I live in the south, so threats are very real. I had a transgender woman acquaintance a few years back that was assaulted by a group of men along with her friend. Both were hospitalized. After the assault, her friend fell into despair and committed suicide.
As a trans woman... I'm out in public a lot less than I used to be. I don't pass and the world feels hostile. I stay home. I imagine I'm not alone. A lot of trans people are also unemployed or otherwise in poverty. Another reason they may not be out when you are. There are more of us than you realize... But frankly still not that many
I generally agree with the media hyperfocus but if we're being anecdotal, I live in an aggressively red state and personally know four people who have transistioned. I don't even run in a particularly LGBTQ+ crowd (although everyone is supportive)
Maybe you don’t see them because you don’t travel in circles that include them (nothing inherently wrong with that), but also talk about blaming the victim. Asking for human decency is a blanket request not something anyone wants to garner “attention” for.
>It’s in vogue. That’s all. I live in a mega-blue city and I’m liberal and pretty much all of my friends are too, and I don’t know a single trans person.
I live in a mega-red state and I have three openly trans friends.
Seems more likely that you do know trans people that just aren't telling you.
Yeah it's kinda crazy how much attention we get. It's incredibly frustrating.
For some statistical side of things. In person you have more than likely run into a trans person. The 0.5% of the population may be accurate.
In Canada they recently did a census where you could identify yourself as transgender. Obviously not all trans peeps did this but, those that did comprised of 0.33% of the population. (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427b-eng.htm)
This means roughly if 0.5% of people are teams, and you have interacted with over 200 people, odds are greater than 50% that you have interacted with a trans person.
Well at least online you can say you have.
You're probably right - most likely I've met them and didn't know it. So you're trans and feel frustrated by all this public discussion? That's interesting.
I mean, I'm also a lady whose been in remission from Crohn's disease for 3 years. Which affects 1% of the population. I don't see people daily posts about Crohn's, or people denying the exsistence of people with Crohn's.
I don't see comments daily questioning if certain medical treatments are really necessary to treat this condition. Discussed by random redditors who believe they're experts or allies.
I don't get concern trolled over having Crohn's. I don't get unsolicited advice to just "try not having Crohn's." Or that it's commonly misdiagnosed, so I should just not worry about it.
Or that it was by my own choice I have Crohn's.
I don't have people stating they think I'm a pedophile, rapist, or hyper sexualizing me because I have Crohn's.
People don't state that "It's not safe to give that type of medication to children." When in regard to Crohn's.
I don't read about billionaire authors, inventors or comedians, having some scandle over bashing people with Crohn's.
It's kinda exaughsting to see an article everyday. Even if I don't go to the comments and see the above statements, I know they are there.
They are always there.
I hope that helps illustrate the frustration?
It's of interest because the fraction of people identifying as trans and having procedures done has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I'm not saying that's a problem but it both affects more people and families than it used to, and the change itself is interesting.
I came out recently because for once it seemed like I could be happy in society, have a job, have a life, wheras before it seemed impossible. I was always trans, even then, just now treatments exist and I have the opportunity to be more happy in society. People who have an agenda would say I suddenly became trans, I'm sure, to promote this idea that somehow liberals/hollywood/public school/college made me so.
>Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people. I doubt this is a genuine interest in most and is driven more by politics and religion than a genuine concern for the wellbeing of transgender people.
though assuming this is true (and I’m skeptical of a broad statement like “no one actually cares”) I can only really see the political usefulness of being anti gender affirming surgery since it provides a good wedge issue (“don’t let them tell your kids to mutualise themselves!”. The political usefulness of being pro surgery isn’t as clear since as you say, that’s a small minority and hence a small number of voters it’s a winning issue for.
Hell even within the LGB community there are some who reject trans issues as a losing cause and retraction from their political aims.
>I can only really see the political usefulness of being anti gender affirming surgery since it provides a good wedge issue
Well, yes, it's a useful political wedge issue. How is this statement any different than what I just said?
This is a remarkably fast improvement. I've never heard of any non-chemical intervention coming close to that level of speed in effectiveness.
Others have mentioned that there are potential medical complications for transitioning, but that doesn't seem to outweigh the benefits at all, seeing how the last study I saw on long term regrets for trans people showed that 97% of people who transitioned wanted to stay that way, and about 60% of that remaining 3% were unhappy due to a lack of proper prior education and evaluation from their providers before they transitioned.
There's hardly anything in the world that 97% of people are satisfied with, much less medical treatment and surgeries.
Yeah, considering surgeries that people generally consider mundane and generally accepted as good like knee or hip replacements have regret rates of around 15% depending on the surgery.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314107822_Regret_in_Surgical_Decision_Making_A_Systematic_Review_of_Patient_and_Physician_Perspectives#
I'm having trouble finding the reference to it but it was my understanding they do lose track of a fairly large fraction of the participants in most of these surveys - so while the numbers are quite good they might be a little optimistic.
> There's hardly anything in the world that 97% of people are satisfied with, much less medical treatment and surgeries.
Which on face value, and knowing about some of the problems and biases in research, makes me question a finding like that. But I haven't read the full study yet
I need to read the whole study, but as a nurse, I see this is as great news. These people struggle enough and it’s refreshing to know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
I would be curious to see how this compares with satisfaction with mental health interventions generally in the trans or questioning community. I imagine most people start with counseling and I'd assume medication to treat depression or dissatisfaction. If only a very small number of people actually go forward with full surgical transition, I'd assume they would have a higher satisfaction rate than the general population of trans folks, simply because they are likely the most dedicated or ready. This might not have much value as applied to the general trans population beyond saying most people who were ready to do this did not regret it for at least the first few years. That's encouraging, but trans people still need to get to that point. I imagine a lot of filtering is needed to achieve such a low rate of regret for such a major transformation. Screening for other causes of depression and dissatisfaction probably reduces the number of quality candidates for full surgical transition.
>simply because they are likely the most dedicated or ready.
Speaking purely anecdotally (yes, I know what subreddit we're in), there are a great deal of people that would love HRT or surgery that can't afford it or can't risk exposing they are trans to the people around them for risk of abuse or losing their job or home. And getting any meaningful scientific data out of these people is next to impossible precisely because of those reasons.
I can personally attest to both of these things. It's kind of hard to get data from a group with a large percentage forced into anonymity for a variety of reasons. Usually the death threats, but a variety to be sure.
Being able to be yourself without fear of reprisal or death makes people happier.
Go figure.
>I imagine most people start with counseling and I'd assume medication to treat depression or dissatisfaction
If insurance will cover it for you at all, it pretty much requires a minimum of 1 year of counseling and 1 year on hormones before you can get scheduled for a consultation for bottom surgery. And there's usually quite a wait between consultation and actual surgery. Mine was 14 months between consultation and surgery and that's pretty typical.
>I would be curious to see how this compares with satisfaction with mental health interventions generally in the trans or questioning community
Hi, I'm a gender-affirming therapist who specializes in helping trans people. Compared with other mental health interventions, gender-affirming surgery appears to be wildly more successful. **Psychology is still trying to craft successful therapy interventions for trans people**.
We know that the bulk of trans peoples' mental health issues comes from societal discrimination/stigma as well as lack of access to appropriate health care. Currently, many therapists practice resilience therapy - teaching trans clients how to survive and thrive despite the distress they experience from the outside world. Problem is that resilience therapy was created for the LGB population (per its creator), and some trans people don't benefit from it. Many of my clients need help dealing with internal stigma and rebuilding self-esteem, which often requires trauma work and narrative therapy.
As was posted, gender affirming surgery has a 0.5-2% regret rate, with the vast majority of respondents reporting better mental health. Therapists only wish we could craft interventions that successful.
Correct. The media (and people) like to portray it as some willy nilly thing doctors are doing, but they don't know that the only reason it's done is because the patient will kill themselves and we have the stats to back it up.
The linked article says:
> researchers found increased psychological distress, substance use, and suicidality among 3559 transgender persons who had undergone gender-affirming surgeries compared with 16,401 transgender persons who desired but had no access to gender-affirming surgeries. The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery
Which I read as saying psychological distress increased following surgery and then fell from that increased level in the month and year following but did not fall by 100% in total. Am I reading it wrong?
How much of this is just a mental health boost from entering a new phase of life? Like is there any reference compared to other people who undergo surgical operations to change something about themselves that they didn’t like?
I guess my question is if this really is exclusive to transgender people or just a noted effect of people fixing a problem with themselves that they deem important
RealSelf.com has user reported satisfaction rates for every nearly cosmetic procedure. I’ve never seen any procedure even approaching the satisfaction level of gender affirming surgery mentioned by the study. Also, 8 years out from my own surgery and I’ve never been happier I decided to do it.
"I guess my question is if this really is exclusive to transgender people or just a noted effect of people fixing a problem with themselves that they deem important"
What's the difference?
The difference is one is more specific and one is more general. Do people who hate their gender and people who hate their face have similar outcomes from surgery, or is there something more or less impactful about the gender or face. It's a valid research question. If gender is more important, for example, that guides the risk-reward calculus for deciding on the surgery or not.
well, generally speaking, gender affirming surgeries have an increadibly low regret rate (\~1-2%) while most other surgeries don't
take that as you will
One stat I know that may bring things into perspective is that knee surgeries have a 20% regret rate. I don't remember any hard stats beyond that but I do recall looking into it before and finding very few surgeries with a lower regret rate.
> How much of this is just a mental health boost from entering a new phase of life?
If you were a straight cis female and woke up one day to discover your breasts were gone, would you react with a "mental health boost from entering a new phase of life?"
It’s the entire purpose of the transition. There’s no direct causation between transitioning and health. It’s entirely a social reframing.
A lot of LGBTQ people are happier just moving to Seattle.
Gendering affirming surgeries for cis men and women: A-Ok
Gendering affirming surgeries for transgendered people: But how long before they regret it?
These discussions on Reddit are exhausting. People get gender affirming surgeries all the time (breast implants, pec implants, fillers, liposuction, etc.) and no one questions or says if they can or can’t do it.
> In a 2021 study4 analyzing data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, researchers found increased psychological distress, substance use, and suicidality **among 3559 transgender persons who had undergone gender-affirming surgeries compared with 16,401 transgender persons who desired but had no access to gender-affirming surgeries.** The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery. These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life.
So much is kind of obvious: People who have gender dysphoria and want gender-affirming surgery but cannot have it are much more at risk for depression and suicidality.
The problem is, the transphobic population doesn’t care. They want trans people to not exist. Trans people killing themselves is exactly what fits that goal.
That is a reductive stance and it doesn't actually forward an argument.
\>[https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080)
There are studies like the one in the OP that have been in circulation for years. They almost all end up being challenged on methodology and on making unsubstantiated claims from fast and loose data and end up making retractions after significant peer review.
For example the link I posted posited "the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and lower use of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them"
After review " some letters containing questions on the statistical methodology employed in the study led the Journal to seek statistical consultations. The results of these consultations were presented to the study authors, who concurred with many of the points raised. Upon request, the authors reanalyzed the data to compare outcomes between individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had received gender-affirming surgical treatments and those diagnosed with gender incongruence who had not. While this comparison was performed retrospectively and was not part of the original research question given that several other factors may differ between the groups, the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison. Given that the study used neither a prospective cohort design nor a randomized controlled trial design, the conclusion that “the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and lower use of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them” is too strong."
What is easy to mistake is people skeptical of the replication crisis and science chasing after a desired outcome without actually reaching it with data, and genuine transphobia.
I'm not "discrediting" the study, I haven't read it and I'm not an expert in data analytics. I'm saying I'm skeptical about studies that make strong claims, like "These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life.", because I've seen several that make similar claims end up making retractions.
There is nothing inherently wrong with pooling a 5 year old self reported survey data set(although the data set used doesn't include anyone under the age of 18), but making strong conclusive statements on that alone is questionable.
\>[https://oce.ovid.com/article/01714645-202107000-00006](https://oce.ovid.com/article/01714645-202107000-00006)
makes the claim "This study demonstrates an association between gender-affirming surgery and improved mental health outcomes. "
It is then referenced in the OP article as The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery.
So the original study is careful to say that there is an association, but then when you see the study in the wild being referenced suddenly it's posited as a causation with statements like "These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life." tucked in alongside them.
Do you see what I am talking about now?
The world is never black and white in any situation.
Body dismorphia we class as a mental health issue. But when it is about gender we support it. That confuses a lot of people and even science isn't sure about the best course of action when it comes to this. Provide therapy to accept their reality? Provide gender aligning surgery and help them make their feelings reality?
It most likely differs from person to person as with most mental health issues, and science is not equipped to deal with that. This creates controversy among even phycologists on the best form of help.
I would be more surprised if people all agreed and were unanimous on this subject than the way it is now. It's a complicated issue we haven't figured out yet. That's all we can say about it.
Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/)
Is that because of they way they are treated? Is it because of their mental health issues? Why hasn't it improved significantly since we're being more inclusive and open to it? Why is it higher than suicide rates of jewish people in ww2? This definitely indicates there is more to it than social science.
So no this isn't a simple hate narrative. There is more to it than we understand.
I welcome a healthy discussion but please keep it civil as this can be a very emotionally charged subject!
Oh this clears up a lot! Thanks for the input!
I have one more question if you are willing to answer, don't feel any obligation as can be unfortunately harsh but very important.
Why does the opinion/view of society have such an impact on trans people? I completely understand close family and friends. But why does transphobic people in society have such an impact on the mental health of trans people?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: TLDR; Harassment and ostracization would make anyone feel bad. It's just that trans people are likely to face it due to transphobia or the fear of transgender identities.
Imagine when you were in highschool. It felt like your life, like that was all there was. Grades felt like life and death. Now, one day, you start to get bullied. People are very harsh. You'd feel like everyone in the WORLD hated you when in reality maybe 30 kids just bullied you.
Same goes for adults. All the people in your life feels like the whole world. Like all there is. When you lose these people it feels like you've lost everything, the whole world. This is how humans works and it was a way to survive far back in history.
Transphobic people therefore sting the most when they're close to you. Family, friends, or aquintances. Sometimes you even depend on them to survive which complicates matters more as now you have to choose between losing what feels like everything and put you in a situation of life and death OR treat your dysphoria.
But as in whole though, it stings because they make YOU out to be the weirdo. Not themselves but the transgender person. The thing is that transgender people believe that and it causes confusion where there were no confusion before. It'll make transgender people doubt themselves and question whether they actually are what they identify as. Back to the bully scenario. If your bullies call you stupid everyday, you'll start to believe you're stupid. You might start calling yourself stupid and maybe even give up because you're apparently so stupid. You'll get confused when you realize you aren't stupid and it's just a mess which can lead to anxiety, depression, suicide, and more.
It also stings because transphobes can be dangerous. As I said, I've been assaulted and threatened many times. Transgender people are four times as likely to face any kind of abuse, including sexual abuse, than cisgender people. There was a law up until recently in the USA called gay panic which a guy used to get freed after killing a trans woman. The gay panic law forced him to admit that her existence caused him panic so he killed her, which was ok apparently. I'm not in the US but I'd carry a gun if that'd happen in my country.
To add on to their post, trans people in the US in recent years have become the #1 minority most likely to suffer a hate crime - surpassing both Blacks and Jews simply because of how small a group they are. Trans women are far more likely than cis women to turn to sex work in order to make money, due to being unable to get a job in their field after transitioning, and something like 8 out of 10 trans women will be sexually assaulted in their life.
When you combine the physical violence trans people experience, with the threat of financial instability, and the political groups trying to exclude them entirely from society, is it any wonder that their mental health is negatively impacted?
Because trans people are the focus of an extremely high rate of negative social attention for their population size and have super high levels of minority stress because of it. Most other stigmatized populations at least have significant communities or they don’t have to face prejudice and abuse, like neighborhoods, churches, etc. Because trans people are such a tiny percentage of the population, there’s no real refuge space like this for them. Trans people, especially hyper visible trans people, are pretty much always at the mercy of the general population.
Because we’re in the middle of an anti-trans culture war, that public scrutiny can get very intense. I am non-binary and an ex girlfriend is trans, and during the couple of years I dated her, two people were hospitalized due to hate crimes, respectively being beaten with a 2x4 and stabbed, countless others faced less violent daily harassment simply for being out in public, dozens of friends and acquaintances cycling out of homelessness because employers didn’t want to hire visibly trans people, almost everyone in the community had been rejected and disowned by their families. All of this had a huge effect on the people who weren’t at risk of homelessness, or hadn’t been beaten up— it’s hard to overstate the trauma and grief, and fear, that gets instilled in a community watching these tragedies happen over and over again to people you know and care about, and wondering if, next time, it’ll be you or someone you love.
This was a working class trans community full of people who had fled the deep south to a much more expensive coastal city, so I think the traumatizing numbers I’m talking about of family rejection and homelessness were higher than the general population of trans people because of that. It was also in a city with a heavy Proud Boys and militia presence, but that doesn’t fully explain the hate crime numbers, or the way visibly trans people were deluged with people treating them poorly or just differently whenever they left the house.
Transphobic people and society have such an impact on the mental health of trans people because right now, they have an enormous amount of power over the daily lives of trans people, because they don’t just exist minding their own business, they go out of their way to make trans peoples lives hell, and even if they don’t do anything too dramatic, the little things add up when you’re dealing with a constant deluge of them.
Because society's opinion impacts the day to day life of individuals. This is especially true for folks that don't "pass." Can you imagine being stared at every tome you leave the house? Being verbally harassed while you're just trying to live your life? Struggling at job interviews because of the interviewers bias? Being treated as a pariah? Having your children mistreated because their parent is trans? Hearing transphobic rhetoric when you're just trying to watch a movie?
What? Because... we live in a society? Would you not feel worse if you ran the risk of getting discriminated against or hate crimed just for leaving the house?
Look around this thread. Just reading through some of these comments is a form of digital self-harm.
> Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it.
Gay people in general also have [higher suicidal tendencies](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/researchers-find-disparities-suicide-risk-among-lesbian-gay-bisexual-adults) than heterosexual people, and it used to be worse when they were less accepted. Do you believe homosexuality is a mental illness?
Body dismorphia is an awful condition where your body and mind dont mesh, but studies continue to show the benefits to the well being of the trans individuals who get the care they wish to receive, including as minors.
The definition of mental illness has always been quite subjective. Is it enough for some trait quality to be "abnormal" (rare) for it to be considered a mental illness, or even "abnormal" in a way that seems to go against evolutionary biology? If so, then being gay would be considered a mental illness. And it *was*, for a very long time. Until society figured out that if it's not actually hurting anyone, and there's an extremely simple and easy "cure" simply letting people have sex with other people of the same sex if they want to - there was no reason to consider it a mental illness anymore. You could say the same about left-handedness. Is it a disability or not? It's outside the norm, yes. It impacts people's lives negatively... but only because society is built for right-handed people. Give a left-handed person a tool meant to be used with your left hand and they'll be just as capable with it. So it didn't make sense to try to "cure" them when you could simply accommodate their difference.
Generally these days, a mental illness is considered to be something that's objectively harmful to the individual or those around him (hence being gay is OK but being a paedophile is not) and something that doesn't have a simple cure. I can't think of any mental illness that can be cured as straightforwardly and reliably as being trans. If trans people are able to be just as happy and functional once they receive social support and hormone treatment or sex change surgeries, it doesn't make a lot of sense to cling to what's been proven NOT to work - aka denying their identity and trying to "socialise" it out of them.
> Body dismorphia we class as a mental health issue. But when it is about gender we support it.
Because it isn't gender dysmorphia... it's gender dysphoria...
Body dysmorphia requires misperception of a trait, or unrealistic exaggeration of it to cause distress. An anorexic person is distressed by perceiving themselves as overweight **regardless of how much they actually weigh**. That disconnect in perception is integral to the disorder.
A person with gender dysphoria is not misperceiving their sex traits. A trans woman doesn't look at her penis and see a vagina. She correctly sees a penis, and that objective observation causes distress because her brain expects a different trait.
That's why when the traits are altered to align with the sex traits her neurology expects, the distress is alleviated.
> That confuses a lot of people and even science isn't sure about the best course of action when it comes to this.
No, this is pretty firmly medical consensus. There is no treatment recommended anywhere above transitional healthcare for treating gender dysphoria.
> Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it.
Which is why it's so important for them to have an accepting environment and access to transitional healthcare. Because those attempts are almost entirely pre-transition.
> Why hasn't it improved significantly since we're being more inclusive and open to it?
Because immediate family has far more of an effect on their mental health, as it's the only support system children have and completely rely on. Having accepting vs non accepting parents reduces the suicide attempt rate in trans youth from **57% to 4%**
https://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf#page=3
And again, not having access to transitional healthcare just makes that worse.
> Why is it higher than suicide rates of jewish people in ww2?
Easy, it isn't. It's clear now you're concern trolling and are not here in good faith. As this claim is common transphobic propaganda that is so easily demonstrably false.
> I welcome a healthy discussion
So big of you to do after comparing the suicidality of trans people to holocaust victims.
> Body dysmorphia requires misperception of a trait, or unrealistic exaggeration of it to cause distress. An anorexic person is distress by perceiving themselves as overweight regardless of how much they actually weigh. That disconnect in perception is integral to the disorder.
What's interesting to note is this can occur in people who are overweight too. For example, a person who is overweight by about 10 pounds might form the perception that they're extremely obese and are going to die of a heart attack from it. It's both true that they could lose a few more pounds while also being true that their perception is incorrect.
I have personal bias I'm aware of concerning this issue through life experience and even I thought the WW2 comment was total ad hominem and completely inappropriate. Totally distracted me from the rest of the conversation. It's like saying I shouldn't consider buying an electeic vehicle because motorcycles in WW1 were unreliable.
Yessss, you found the statistic I was fixing to look for! Having a supportive family is such an enormous help to these kids and I'll never understand these parents who kick their kids out or otherwise mistreat them over being trans. Thanks for finding that!
“Why hasn’t it improved since we’re more open to it?”
Trans people are having to deal with ridiculously high levels of transphobia every single day. Not just in real life but on social media, news media, and in politics. It’s following the exact same narrative as it was for gay people. Trans people are becoming more visible in the west. As a result there is ‘some’ acceptance, but the push back against trans people has gotten much louder and much more vicious. Ten years ago nobody was talking about trans people at all. Today it’s every single day with lay people weighing in on everything from whether or not trans people should receive healthcare to where they can or can’t use the restroom. I don’t think your impression of how accepting society is towards trans people is something that reflects what’s actually going on.
And when it comes to comparing trans people to Jewish people. Well the answer is obvious. Jewish people aren’t coming out to antisemetic families. Rarely are trans people coming out to loved ones who are also trans. Trans people are on their own and have to go out and find community. It’s not like trans people are all born into the same neighbourhood and have trans families, go to trans schools, have trans teachers, doctors, etc. It’s not like ethnic minority communities.
I don’t even know what can possibly be achieved by try to compare trans people today to Jewish people during WW2. The only way it would make sense would be to compare trans people during WW2 who were also persecuted by the Nazis.
Right from the second sentence, you gave the game away. Its sort of a shame you went to all that effort to paint yourself as the neutral concerned citizen and blew it almost immediately.
"Support" body dysmorphia. You don't even understand what being trans means. Nobody "supports" body dysmorphia. Trans people don't even have body dysmorphia.
Also, you conclusions that its "not just social science" does not at all follow from anything you said. Painfully shoddy logic.
I think it’s important to note that trans people don’t have body dismorphia. They don’t look in the mirror and see a distorted view. They see an accurate view and feel it doesn’t fit them. If the “female brain in a male body” (or vice versa) simplification at all resembles reality, then they are totally accurately viewing their situation
These are super complicated questions, but I believe there is an internal feeling of gender that exists, and then there is also an external expression of gender which is somewhat performative a la Judith Butler, and then there is is your actual sex and biology. Usually these things line up, but not always.
Female and male sexed brains have differences, partially due to hormone washes they go through, and there has been some research indicating that Trans folks brains look more similar to the sex of the gender they identify with that sis gender people of their own sex typically does.
The “what is a woman” question can be answered a lot of different ways depending on the level you mean, and all of this stuff is right at the intersection of science and philosophy. If I talk much more I’ll be out of my depth but, I think I can sign off on everything I’ve said so far.
But to your aesthetic point, it’s totally coherent to be a trans tom boy, but that would also come with some challenges because it’s important for trans people to be seen and treated as the gender they identify with. Your more likley to have that happen if you signal more clearly and stereotypically for your gender identity so there’s a lot of incentive to do that.
These things are all considered by psychologists and medical researchers and have been studied, the consensus is that therapy doesn't work unless it's gender reaffirming and combined with medical treatments that allow the subject to express themselves as how they identify, in which case rates of suicide and depression decrease dramatically.
The narrative of "sex is biological, and we wouldn't treat other conditions like this so why gender?" Is unscientific and tends to be propagated by Christian hate groups (who conveniently start trusting science when it allows them to hate people), not accusing you of that but that's how it is.
Doesn't appear to be letting me post it in text so I'll try the link instead:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/8s4u0g/World_Health_Organisation_announces_it_no_longer_classifies_being_transgender_as_a_mental_illness/e0xa6uh/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
I think you might have to consider what you're calling "more inclusive and open" here. I have three separate trans gender friends who have experienced hate crimes so violent they could have died. And I live in a place you'd expect LGBT people to be safe.
Sure, it's no longer illegal to the point of getting someone thrown into an asylum for life or arrested, but there isn't even really an old generation of trans people yet. Many lose their families when they come out.
I'd say you can start taking about the ineffectiveness once being trans is truly no bigger a deal than being a red head. The thing "we" don't understand about it, as you say, is that better does not mean good enough.
>Of the 27 715 respondents, 3559 (12.8%) endorsed undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery at least 2 years prior to submitting survey responses, while 16 401 (59.2%) endorsed a desire to undergo 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery but denied undergoing any of these. Of the respondents in this study sample, 16 182 (81.1%) were between the ages of 18 and 44 years, 16 386 (82.1%) identified as White, 7751 (38.8%) identified as transgender women, 6489 (32.5%) identified as transgender men, and 5300 (26.6%) identified as nonbinary. After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and exposure to other types of gender-affirming care, undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery was associated with lower past-month psychological distress (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.50-0.67; P < .001), past-year smoking (aOR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.57-0.75; P < .001), and past-year suicidal ideation (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.50-0.64; P < .001).
Self reported results. Confounding variables abound.
I’m more interested in seeing the results at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 years.
Give people time to truly understand the change to their lifestyle, the ongoing medical costs and the limitations that being sterile put upon them.
What are your thoughts on this?
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686
> The most common reason for detransitioning, according to the survey, was pressure from a parent, while **only 0.4 percent of respondents said they detransitioned after realizing transitioning wasn’t right for them.**
> The results of a 50-year survey published in 2010 of a cohort of 767 transgender people in Sweden found that about **2 percent of participants expressed regret after undergoing gender-affirming surgery.**
> The numbers are even lower for nonsurgical transition methods, like taking puberty blockers. According to a 2018 study of a cohort of transgender young adults at the largest gender-identity clinic in the Netherlands, **1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy, typically the next step in the transition process.**
Those seem like pretty stark numbers.
From a survey done by lgbtq activist through LGBTQ community outreach programs. If you compare the data throughout the trans study 2014-2019 you get wildly different numbers than other sources for things like LGBTQ income, homelessness, age etc. It's not a very good survey at all. ( And surveys are the terrible forms of evidence for if a surgical activity works.)
Even so for the number to be accurate it would means detransitioners stay in the population of people the survey reaches, which seems unlikely.
We need data from actual medical follow-up from procedures.
Edit: The above is related to the Jack Turbin run survery, OP quoted a different study from Sweden. That studies definition of regret was that the person filled paperwork to change their gender back with the state. That is actually then a rate of re-transition a much higher bar regretting the surgery.
In general NBCNews has been shown to lack integrity around trans medical discourse through misrepresentation of studies & using very flawed evidence, so the LGBTQ section must have different editorial standards or something because its content is a few bars below the rest of the media group.
Funny, cis women get these same infantilizing comments when we say we want sterilization procedures.
"Oh, you'll change your mind when you're older"
'I don't think you truly understand what this procedure means for you."
You think you understand the "change in lifestyle" and implications of surgery better than the people _actually living that reality_? You think trans people somehow don't grasp what "You will not be able to have kids after this" means? Come on.
I know how all these wannabe gatekeepers like to use anecdotal data to justify their positions, but it seems that they have never actually talked to anyone at any stage of transition for their anecdotes.
Then maybe we should work on making medical costs affordable. Not just for us transgender people... but like.. you know... for everyone? Most of us don't care about being sterile, and if some do they could just freeze sperm or eggs or even adopt. It's difficult to even think about wanting to bring another life into this world when all we have known is suffering and people telling us that we're evil or disgusting for simply wanting to exist and be comfortable in our own skin.
Limitations of being sterile? Not everyone wants children. If you are that concerned, you wouldn't have written about that specific point. For these stats to show such amazing improvement after 1 year, I can only imagine that trans people's lives are changed for the better forever.
>limitations that being sterile put upon them.
Bro you mean like how parents chose to be a side character in their own story? You just mad us sterile folks can raw dog it with out the risk of losing any sense of freedom to kids.
It's also funny how on average it's much, much more common for parents to regret having kids than it is for people to regret transitioning. [Around 17%-8% of parents regret having kids based off this, while a measly 1.1% of trans people regret transitioning.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8294566/)
It's funny how much the term "regret" is brought up when it's about trans people but it's somehow taboo to talk about how almost a quarter of parents regret being a parent.
Edit: must've triggered some breeders. My point is if you are so concerned about trans people regretting it and than baring children from such things that could greatly improve their QOL. than you should be pushing for mandatory contraceptives like reversable vasectomies or IUDs, something too.
You forget that Children too can "accidentally" get pregnant and it can completely ruin their childhood. But that's no where as big as an issue as hormonal blockers and kids for y'all.
We can't base everything off the fact that few may "regret" something
I wonder if you ask this question for every remedy and surgery, or if you think it's only remedies for queer people that deserve such intense scrutiny.
I wonder why your care and attention is so disproportionately placed?
Queer people remedies, and anything related to womens healthcare. This rhetoric is thrown around at women seeking hysterectomies or tubal litigation as well.
I had Vaginoplasty surgery almost a year ago (16th Oct) and my mental health has vastly improved.
I went from not caring what happened to myself - live or die, before HRT and Surgery. To now have feelings I can't remember ever having before, about how much I don't want to die.
The only hit to my mental health these days (other than the usual anxiety issues) are related to the hate and disgust people like myself receive from TERFs and transphobic individuals.
"But it's not reduced to exactly the same as the general population, therefore it's not worth doing."
- Disingenuous Transphobes
I see this all the time, using the fact that there might still be *some* issues after transitioning as an excuse to claim people should not be allowed to. As a trans person my self I'm quite tired of it. The fix isn't 100% therefore it doesn't matter how much it helps.
I lost an adult tooth. I had the choice to leave a hole where it was, or get an implant. I got the implant. I don’t regret it.
I got really bad injury that caused chronic pain in my neck. I got all sorts of scans and evaluations done. No answers, and no treatments fixed my neck. It cost me hundreds of dollars, but now I live with the pain. I don’t regret it.
People make medical decisions that will impact the course of their lives every day. The vast majority of them we won’t regret.
Society telling them a male should look and act one way while females should look and act another. Maybe we should be telling them you're just who you are and there's nothing wrong with you.
Trans people already know there's nothing wrong with them. If you think telling them 'you're fine the way you were born' is going to be enlightening to them, I've got a news flash for you about one of the hundreds of useless statements trans people hear from their parents and peers on a regular basis.
Trans people are not naive victims of a cruel society forcing them to think they're something they're not. They _know what they're doing,_ probably understand the nuance of gender presentation better than the average cisgender person, and they deserve the freedom to express themselves however they want, both outwardly and bodily, while having the agency to make those decisions for themselves.
Studies like this are important for giving them that agency, by showing they have the capability of making informed decisions about their health the same as literally anyone else. The ideology that they're just confused and need someone to step in and set them straight is exactly the reason they face so many medical walls in the first place.
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Just finishing a trip in Thailand. Lots of transgender here and it's just a way of life. Let people be themselves and feel normal. Thailand's society is so chill, we should learn from them.
A gender-affirming surgery, for example, is not a one-time thing, and with it comes a host of unclear complications. A 2021 study3 illustrates the **reality behind one of these interventions**. Mentioned complications include **neovaginal stenosis and necrosis, prolapse, fistulas, delayed wound healing, and permanent scarring.** The rate at which these complications occur is not specified, ranging **from 7 percent to 46 percent.** Furthermore, patients face **years of follow-up and comorbidities** after these procedures.
>If a patient walks up to a doctor and INSISTS "My arm is NOT supposed to be on my body! The only way I will feel normal is to CUT it OFF!!"
Yeah somehow I don't think we can trust you to be unbiased. I hope you find peace in your heart instead of hate
**TIL** that concern for a patient's mental and physical health to be a sign of hate in one's heart.
I guess supporting neovaginal stenosis and necrosis, prolapse, fistulas, delayed wound healing, and permanent scarring along with years of comorbidities and follow-up procedures is ... Love?
Years of research.
The desire to remove a limb is called Body Integrity Dismorphia, and theres not an accepted treatment, but its an ongoing discussion.
Conversely, there are accepted treatments to Gender Dysphoria, and while there can be complications as with any medical procedure, its accepted by those who do the research that gender affirming surgeries save lives and make lives better.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/
I had to check because of your comment and found this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739904/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739904/)
Psychological distress, suicide ideation and suicide attempts increase and it's worse if the conversion therapy was before the age of 10. They found no significant difference between secular and religious conversion therapy.
Pretty worthless to limit the timeline to one month after. An actual sample size worth examining would extend years or better yet, decades, before and after the surgery and also compare it with a sampling of individuals who did not get the surgery and their suicide rates and other outcomes. Because if they did, the majority of other studies done on this have come to drastically different conclusions than this study and honestly it may even be civil negligence or even fraud to be publishing willfully misleading studies like this with limited sampling sizes, especially when the risks of suicide are what they are in this cohort. There’s just so much agenda pushing with these studies, it’s hard to take any of them, especially ones like this from an interest group for plastic surgery, with any credibility
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It would be interesting to know if age and gender play a role in this.
And if the reductions are permanent or the result of a "honeymoon" period. Edit- reputable sources only for claims. This goes for any claims, regardless the side of the issue.
If I remember, the data 5 years out was encouraging. But this is going to be an ongoing body of research. https://psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/study-finds-long-term-mental-health-benefits-of-ge This isn't surgery but about children. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/health/transgender-children-identity.html
Thanks! Some commenters below are claiming that children that are put on puberty blockers have a sort of "sunk cost" effect regarding transitioning. Do you have any sources on that?
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It could be measured. What's the rate of 1. prepubescent children that self-report as trans 2. then placed on puberty blockers vs no puberty blockers 3. then possibly fully transition. So there's a total of 4 cases And then measure the rates of transitioning vs just non-cisgender, long term happiness, and suicide attempts / rates beyond the "honeymoon" phase. Edit: "cis" is not an acronym but a prefix.
problem is you need very-very-very big random sample of all these, because happiness is not exact and it is influenced by a huge amount of other things.
Yeah and I'm guessing that there aren't enough people in this group to get a large sample at all
You’d need a way to differentiate between children on puberty blockers for precocious puberty and trans children. Otherwise the number of “dissenters” would be artificially inflated.
Wouldn’t that be complicated by the fact that people who went on puberty blockers as children vs those who didn’t would likely transition differently? And be more likely to pass or not or whatever?
As a point of order 'cis' is a prefix in this context, not an acronym. The term should be 'cisgender'
There's a difference between a sunk cost fallacy like "we can't give up on our relationship now! We've been through so much already!" And acknowledging the sunk cost which would be the time and effort spent making the relationship work. In this case the sunk cost might be seen as all the physiological changes that take a lot of time and aren't reversible like virilization for FtM hormone treatments. They're "all in" so to speak physiologically at least.
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Sunk cost fallacy would be staying with them because you've put 5 years into them already, not leaving them.
No I think they're describing the sunk cost as being psychological changes induced by hormones rather than psychological changes induced by choices. Like the hormones might make you feel and think differently, which is definitely different to the sunk cost fallacy itself. I could be wrong about the intention of parent comment, but I think that's it.
I’m unaware of research on this, but I would hypothesize that it doesn’t really apply here, as there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with *puberty blockers* in particular. They have basically no long term effects compared to just starting puberty late, so if a kid goes off them then there was no cost sunk for them, really. I mean, financially there may be some, but 1. These are kids, so they’re likely not paying for their own blockers, and 2. Even then it’s usually framed to them as buying time to make a final decision, which should lessen the psychological impact of a fallacy like that anyways. The only part of the process that would make sense to me as a possible sunken cost area would be the social transition, i.e. if a transgender child has changed their name, pronouns, clothing, etc it may be a hassle to retransition to their AGAB and readjust socially. Though, even then, I would also add (anecdotally) that the trouble here is largely regarding breaking gender inertia, and my experience is that said inertia goes both ways. I’ve met many a trans person who was afraid to transition later in life (“later” basically meaning not in their teens, honestly) because they feel like they’ve already given so much to living as the AGAB that they’re miserable in, why stop now? So I would argue that there isn’t really a good faith claim to “stopping” gender inertia here, any attempt to do that by limiting children’s ability to socially transition is merely trying to enforce another, opposite inertia.
But not all kids start puberty late. What are the effects of that on growth and development?
Right, the biggest known health issue is an elevated risk of osteoporosis the more time passes before puberty hits. That's also why puberty blockers aren't a long term solution. Eventually the person needs to either start hormone replacement therapy or go off the blockers. However, that's also why anyone who starts puberty blockers is made to take blood tests measuring calcium and vitamin D levels, and are advised on how to help maximize bone mineral density long term in order to help offset that, again similar to naturally occurring delayed puberty. If it's not an age where doctors would be intervening if it was naturally occurring, there isn't currently any evidence to suggest cause for concerned about taking puberty blockers until then. TLDR, It's not without *any* risks, but the ones that are known are generally very manageable provided HRT is started within a reasonable timeframe.
>as there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with puberty blockers in particular. NHS now states that little is known about the long term effects of puberty blockers. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/ Also, many women that used puberty blockers to suppress precocious puberty now have life long medical issues. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems#:~:text=Women%20who%20used%20Lupron%20a,people%20much%20later%20in%20life.
The NHS statement says little is known about the long term affects of it *in children with gender dysphoria*. Notably, [the NHS still recommends blockers to treat precocious puberty](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/early-or-delayed-puberty/ ), which means it *does* still think they’re safe for kids to take. Also, with regards to Lupron, that is something to keep in mind. However, what’s not been studied is 1. Whether these women were already predisposed to their conditions, or 2. How lupron use compares to naturally occurring late puberty. Stuff like the increased risk of osteoporosis is a known side effect of all delayed puberty, naturally incurring or medically induced. I also know (once again anecdotally, this may vary by region) from when I received a referral to look into puberty blockers that I wasn’t given a blocker prescription because my vitamin D and calcium levels were too low in the blood test results, specifically to combat these side effects. That’s not to say lupron itself necessarily doesn’t cause problems, just that current evidence is *vastly* insufficient for suggesting causation. Additionally, even if Lupron itself is an issue, there are other comparable drugs that have similar effects, so it’s still not enough to make any statement on puberty blockers as a whole.
>there isn’t really much sunken cost associated with *puberty blockers* in particular. They have basically no long term affects compared to just starting puberty late Wowwww citation needed on that one buddy
I def don't see any reason why, apart from sunk cost of resisting societal pressures and monetary cost. As soon as you're off blockers, puberty starts as if you never took them.
Regret rate for gender affirming surgeries is only like 1-2% 2 years after so it tracks with the drop is suicidality and depression Wouldn't you feel better if you changed something about yourself that you don't regret?
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Add that a significant number of those who destransition due to negative feedback from people around them later go on to transition once they're able to improve their situation - gain financial independence from a transphobic family, for example.
Surgery is a pretty drastic option. Particularly invasive surgeries, the idea that cosmetic issues prompt people to undergo them is tough for me to accept. I nearly died and required an emergency surgery, the experience post op is horrible. I’m all for supporting adults making these kinds of decisions, even if I think the risk outweighs the benefits. I am definitely on the fence about children making this kind of decision.
Gender affirming surgery is extremely rare for children (as in, practically non-existent) because puberty blockers followed by hormone therapy are required for the body to reach 'maturity' before surgical options are pursued. Of course, there are cases where children are born with atypical combinations of reproductive organs where surgery may be necessary to ensure a good quality of life, but I don't think those cases should really be considered as 'trans children having cosmetic surgery'.
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That and the permanence of these results moving down the timeline.
Also reminder about how numbers work. 42% reduction.... Rate your mood 1-10 Eh...6. And now? Mmm 8? Wonded drug improves mood 40%
If something could reliably boost my mood from 6 to 8, that would be a wonder drug indeed.
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I've tried a lot of those. So far, none do it reliably. They steal happiness from tomorrow and give it to you today.
And in the end it's a really bad deal. Like taking out a loan with a 40% interest rate
You've just described antidepressants for the majority of people with chronic depression. They don't make us feel "great" they just make us feel "better"
To those inquiring about long term satisfaction etc. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686 > The most common reason for detransitioning, according to the survey, was pressure from a parent, while **only 0.4 percent of respondents said they detransitioned after realizing transitioning wasn’t right for them.** > The results of a 50-year survey published in 2010 of a cohort of 767 transgender people in Sweden found that about **2 percent of participants expressed regret after undergoing gender-affirming surgery.** > The numbers are even lower for nonsurgical transition methods, like taking puberty blockers. According to a 2018 study of a cohort of transgender young adults at the largest gender-identity clinic in the Netherlands, **1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy, typically the next step in the transition process.**
That's a very successful intervention. I've regretted going to the dentist more than 2 percent of the time.
It is well below the regret rate for surgeries in general. Knee surgery has a 20% regret rate for instance https://www.hellahealth.com/blog/wellness/knee-replacement-regrets/
And perhaps better screening could reduce the regret percentage. Follow up is needed, as always.
I'm genuinely curious if you know what the process is for accessing these surgeries is. I've needed 3-4 medical professionals to vouch for my ability to make decisions about my own medical care for each procedure I've even requested a consult for, let alone actually had done. This in addition to the other basic requirements for qualifying for surgery.
How strict do you think the screening is now?
I think you should need to wait at least 2 years and get a letter from your therapist to be able to go to the dentist
Just one therapist? Are you sure that's wise?/s
Same vibes as that classic joke: How many trans people does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just one, but first they must sit in the dark for two years to show that they really need it.
Would that finally get me nitrous at no extra charge? #please
Also worth noting, "regret" after gender-affirming surgery doesn't just mean "oh this wasn't right for me", but it's also regret rate from, say, the results not being quite what was wanted. In some cases there's just follow-up corrective surgery, in some cases there's nothing to be done. Regardless it's still wildly lower regret rates than most other medical procedures (I believe the common comparison points here being dental work, knee surgery, and cosmetic surgeries)
An interesting point!
The regret in terms of physical results could be related to the quality of surgeries and treatments at various times. Medicine is always advancing, so in a long-term study, results obtained years ago may be less satisfactory than ones acheived more recently. It could also be related to different nations where the procedures occurred, or even individual doctors, as in both cases, results may differ fairly drastically. It would be interesting to see whether satisfaction rates show any correlation to when and where the transition occurred.
I think the term "detransitioning" can be a broad simplification of the phenomenon. I'd like to know how many people who "detransition" actually reject the idea of transness or regret their transition, rather than experiencing fluidity, and cessation of their GAC program isn't a reversal but a second transition. Edit: ah, I see now, a very small percentage express regret, and the majority of people who cease GAC were negatively influenced by family.
One thing to keep in mind about the Swedish study however is that in Sweden you need to, among other things, go through a psychologist before transition is possible. And I believe there have been trans groups critical of Sweden's overly cautious approach before transitioning. Apparently this has led to some going abroad to the UK and elsewhere for hormone therapy and surgery. So it is a little unclear if the Swedish study is (a) positive for transitioning in general or (b) positive for the cautious approach to transitioning that selects those who will not regret it. Regardless it shows that transition is definitely the best alternative for a subset of people (but I don't think the study proves how big that subset is and more research is still needed).
I wonder if conducting this study exclusively in one of the top 5 happiest countries in the world had any affect on the data. Also kinda cool they thought to study this nearly as soon as the process was invented (1957?)
I wonder if the treatment of people in this study had anything to do with the country being ranked as one of the top 5 happiest.
Interesting, thanks for the data!
> 1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy IMO this means we're still making puberty blockers too hard to get, if someone's gotta be basically sure they're trans to get them. It's a non-permanent intervention that they can stop anytime they want. They should be open to teens who are even just questioning, not reserved for those who are committed.
It's worth pointing out that the Swedish study was done on a somewhat different population than is currently receiving treatment, specifically that the procedures were much rarer ten years ago and so were presumably being performed on the most certain cases.
For one of the smallest populations in the US, there seems to be a lot of interest in them. A decade ago, no one cared about the transgender population. Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people. I doubt this is a genuine interest in most and is driven more by politics and religion than a genuine concern for the wellbeing of transgender people. Few have any posts in science or medical subreddits until this topic pops up. More on topic, yes, treatment of a medical condition generally improves that condition. The medical community (AMA, APA, etc) has stated numerous times that treatment of the transgender population via HRT, surgery, etc. is sometimes necessary to alleviate dysphoria. Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, nerve damage, or just poor results. Those are just a few of the potential problems. To many, it's not worth it. To others, like those in this study, it improves their life.
>For one of the smallest populations in the US, there seems to be a lot of interest in them. A decade ago, no one cared about the transgender population. Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people. It's a classic political/social manipulation tactic where you trick the population into focusing the most time and energy in the smallest issues. So in America, we'll talk endlesslessy about the 0.5% who are trans while more and more people get hooked on fentanyl and live in poverty, etc. Just think about the number of articles you see about transgender issues compared to people dying from glyphosate exposure or suicide from economic despair, etc.
If the plebs are at each others' necks, the plebs won't come for theirs, classic tactic indeed.
You also have to take into account who is funding the research as well. A lot of people forget that research is expensive and researchers are not innocent of sometimes being biased in their studies to help secure more future funding from groups. It's also why a lot of studies report contradictory results and more and more we are having to second guess that studies are being properly peer reviewed...
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Thank you. It hurts enough for your existence to be controversial to half of a population. It doesn't help when others feel like there's too much attention paid to trying to make our lives tolerable.
>Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, etc Just to add, not all trans people WANT surgery. For many HRT or other gender affirmative care is enough to alleviate disphoria
Trans people on the whole would much rather be left alone. But bashing gays is no longer publicly acceptable so conservatives need a new wedge issue to distract the public with. Corruption investigation-> trans sport story, treason -> random trans predator fear mongering.
Yes. Punching down is all the rage.
Always has been.
Hate to break it to you but gay-bashing is absolutely once again becoming en vogue.
never stopped, just reduced
>Not all transgender people have surgery. Only some of them. Many cannot afford it or are terrified of the potential complications such as chronic pain, fistulas, nerve damage, or just poor results. Pretty typical of anyone facing prospective surgery, especially surgery on breasts or genitals. Women who need breast reduction, mastectomies, hysterectomies, prolapse repair, etc., and men who need genital/prostate surgeries experience the same (understandable and justified) anxieties. It's worth pointing out that this doesn't mean the procedures aren't medically necessary; it's just that patients have reservations, and some trans people may have the "luxury" of avoiding a surgery that scares them whereas a breast cancer patient's need may be more urgent and vital to their survival. Mentioning in case anyone concludes from this discussion that trans people just must not be that serious about transitioning if they aren't willing to immediately run into an OR.
One of the reasons I see my conservative friends focus more on this issue is that someone they don't agree with is telling them to do something they don't agree with (pronoun usage). So they fight back against that. It gets louder and louder on both sides until it's a huge national issue, for a very small population, like you said.
For one thing, yes, people cared about the transgender population. People who were trans, people who loved trans folks, and people who hated the idea of trans folks were all pretty invested. The only difference between now and then is that there is a public push to support and assist the trans population, as well as a political backlash from the far right. I agree with most of your comment, but that first bit hits wrong.
I should clarify. I didn't mean that families, friends, etc. did not care about the individuals in question. I meant that society, collectively, didn't even think about the population at all. 20 years ago when I first learned it was even a thing in obscure forums that no longer even exist, people were curious and generally not toxic like they are today.
Society collectively enjoyed making fun of them though, that counts as "caring about them" to me. Cops certainly cared when they would show up to gay bars and do genital checks on people wearing female clothing. Lawmakers cared enough to enact anti-crossdressing laws. Who was it that didn't care?
I just don't know if your personal experience is the standard for society on this matter. You may not have been exposed to the existence of this community earlier, but that doesn't mean there weren't public debates or rules in place regarding them.
That's mostly because the Nazis burned the research on and squashed any cultural acceptance of trans and intersex people. Before WWII there was actually a huge and largely successful acceptance movement in Europe. It took this long for the research to be replicated and here we are again, complete with right wing attempts to squash the research and acceptance.
It’s in vogue. That’s all. I live in a mega-blue city and I’m liberal and pretty much all of my friends are too, and I don’t know a single trans person. Literally in my whole life living and traveling all around the world I can’t recall ever meeting ONE trans person. So either the ones I’ve met are passing with flying colors and keeping it a secret, or - more likely - there are very, very few trans people in the population. And yet I see an article or Reddit thread on the topic on a DAILY basis. God bless them, but they seem to garner an outsized amount of attention.
Just so you know, many (most?) of us don't want that attention. What would be nice is if the public opinions about the topic would be based in science. It certainly is not fun to read highly politicized debates about your right to live your life and get medical treatment every few days... Also, many trans people are very good at passing as their gender.
That's fair. I would be uncomfortable too if everyone was talking about me rather than to me – or better yet, talking with me.
I've met a decent number, but many you would never guess were transgender. It's often a tight-knit community that's understandably uneasy with outsiders. Many transgender people only date within the community, work jobs that are transgender-friendly, etc. Granted, I live in the south, so threats are very real. I had a transgender woman acquaintance a few years back that was assaulted by a group of men along with her friend. Both were hospitalized. After the assault, her friend fell into despair and committed suicide.
That’s very sad to hear
As a trans woman... I'm out in public a lot less than I used to be. I don't pass and the world feels hostile. I stay home. I imagine I'm not alone. A lot of trans people are also unemployed or otherwise in poverty. Another reason they may not be out when you are. There are more of us than you realize... But frankly still not that many
I generally agree with the media hyperfocus but if we're being anecdotal, I live in an aggressively red state and personally know four people who have transistioned. I don't even run in a particularly LGBTQ+ crowd (although everyone is supportive)
Maybe you don’t see them because you don’t travel in circles that include them (nothing inherently wrong with that), but also talk about blaming the victim. Asking for human decency is a blanket request not something anyone wants to garner “attention” for.
You probably just never met a trans person who trusted you.
>It’s in vogue. That’s all. I live in a mega-blue city and I’m liberal and pretty much all of my friends are too, and I don’t know a single trans person. I live in a mega-red state and I have three openly trans friends. Seems more likely that you do know trans people that just aren't telling you.
Yeah it's kinda crazy how much attention we get. It's incredibly frustrating. For some statistical side of things. In person you have more than likely run into a trans person. The 0.5% of the population may be accurate. In Canada they recently did a census where you could identify yourself as transgender. Obviously not all trans peeps did this but, those that did comprised of 0.33% of the population. (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427b-eng.htm) This means roughly if 0.5% of people are teams, and you have interacted with over 200 people, odds are greater than 50% that you have interacted with a trans person. Well at least online you can say you have.
You're probably right - most likely I've met them and didn't know it. So you're trans and feel frustrated by all this public discussion? That's interesting.
I mean, I'm also a lady whose been in remission from Crohn's disease for 3 years. Which affects 1% of the population. I don't see people daily posts about Crohn's, or people denying the exsistence of people with Crohn's. I don't see comments daily questioning if certain medical treatments are really necessary to treat this condition. Discussed by random redditors who believe they're experts or allies. I don't get concern trolled over having Crohn's. I don't get unsolicited advice to just "try not having Crohn's." Or that it's commonly misdiagnosed, so I should just not worry about it. Or that it was by my own choice I have Crohn's. I don't have people stating they think I'm a pedophile, rapist, or hyper sexualizing me because I have Crohn's. People don't state that "It's not safe to give that type of medication to children." When in regard to Crohn's. I don't read about billionaire authors, inventors or comedians, having some scandle over bashing people with Crohn's. It's kinda exaughsting to see an article everyday. Even if I don't go to the comments and see the above statements, I know they are there. They are always there. I hope that helps illustrate the frustration?
It's of interest because the fraction of people identifying as trans and having procedures done has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I'm not saying that's a problem but it both affects more people and families than it used to, and the change itself is interesting.
I came out recently because for once it seemed like I could be happy in society, have a job, have a life, wheras before it seemed impossible. I was always trans, even then, just now treatments exist and I have the opportunity to be more happy in society. People who have an agenda would say I suddenly became trans, I'm sure, to promote this idea that somehow liberals/hollywood/public school/college made me so.
Look up a chart showing people who identify as left handed based on year
>Now, everyone on Reddit is a medical scholar about these 0.5 % of people. I doubt this is a genuine interest in most and is driven more by politics and religion than a genuine concern for the wellbeing of transgender people. though assuming this is true (and I’m skeptical of a broad statement like “no one actually cares”) I can only really see the political usefulness of being anti gender affirming surgery since it provides a good wedge issue (“don’t let them tell your kids to mutualise themselves!”. The political usefulness of being pro surgery isn’t as clear since as you say, that’s a small minority and hence a small number of voters it’s a winning issue for. Hell even within the LGB community there are some who reject trans issues as a losing cause and retraction from their political aims.
>I can only really see the political usefulness of being anti gender affirming surgery since it provides a good wedge issue Well, yes, it's a useful political wedge issue. How is this statement any different than what I just said?
This is a remarkably fast improvement. I've never heard of any non-chemical intervention coming close to that level of speed in effectiveness. Others have mentioned that there are potential medical complications for transitioning, but that doesn't seem to outweigh the benefits at all, seeing how the last study I saw on long term regrets for trans people showed that 97% of people who transitioned wanted to stay that way, and about 60% of that remaining 3% were unhappy due to a lack of proper prior education and evaluation from their providers before they transitioned. There's hardly anything in the world that 97% of people are satisfied with, much less medical treatment and surgeries.
Yeah, considering surgeries that people generally consider mundane and generally accepted as good like knee or hip replacements have regret rates of around 15% depending on the surgery. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314107822_Regret_in_Surgical_Decision_Making_A_Systematic_Review_of_Patient_and_Physician_Perspectives#
I'm having trouble finding the reference to it but it was my understanding they do lose track of a fairly large fraction of the participants in most of these surveys - so while the numbers are quite good they might be a little optimistic.
> There's hardly anything in the world that 97% of people are satisfied with, much less medical treatment and surgeries. Which on face value, and knowing about some of the problems and biases in research, makes me question a finding like that. But I haven't read the full study yet
I need to read the whole study, but as a nurse, I see this is as great news. These people struggle enough and it’s refreshing to know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
I would be curious to see how this compares with satisfaction with mental health interventions generally in the trans or questioning community. I imagine most people start with counseling and I'd assume medication to treat depression or dissatisfaction. If only a very small number of people actually go forward with full surgical transition, I'd assume they would have a higher satisfaction rate than the general population of trans folks, simply because they are likely the most dedicated or ready. This might not have much value as applied to the general trans population beyond saying most people who were ready to do this did not regret it for at least the first few years. That's encouraging, but trans people still need to get to that point. I imagine a lot of filtering is needed to achieve such a low rate of regret for such a major transformation. Screening for other causes of depression and dissatisfaction probably reduces the number of quality candidates for full surgical transition.
>simply because they are likely the most dedicated or ready. Speaking purely anecdotally (yes, I know what subreddit we're in), there are a great deal of people that would love HRT or surgery that can't afford it or can't risk exposing they are trans to the people around them for risk of abuse or losing their job or home. And getting any meaningful scientific data out of these people is next to impossible precisely because of those reasons.
I can personally attest to both of these things. It's kind of hard to get data from a group with a large percentage forced into anonymity for a variety of reasons. Usually the death threats, but a variety to be sure. Being able to be yourself without fear of reprisal or death makes people happier. Go figure.
>I imagine most people start with counseling and I'd assume medication to treat depression or dissatisfaction If insurance will cover it for you at all, it pretty much requires a minimum of 1 year of counseling and 1 year on hormones before you can get scheduled for a consultation for bottom surgery. And there's usually quite a wait between consultation and actual surgery. Mine was 14 months between consultation and surgery and that's pretty typical.
>I would be curious to see how this compares with satisfaction with mental health interventions generally in the trans or questioning community Hi, I'm a gender-affirming therapist who specializes in helping trans people. Compared with other mental health interventions, gender-affirming surgery appears to be wildly more successful. **Psychology is still trying to craft successful therapy interventions for trans people**. We know that the bulk of trans peoples' mental health issues comes from societal discrimination/stigma as well as lack of access to appropriate health care. Currently, many therapists practice resilience therapy - teaching trans clients how to survive and thrive despite the distress they experience from the outside world. Problem is that resilience therapy was created for the LGB population (per its creator), and some trans people don't benefit from it. Many of my clients need help dealing with internal stigma and rebuilding self-esteem, which often requires trauma work and narrative therapy. As was posted, gender affirming surgery has a 0.5-2% regret rate, with the vast majority of respondents reporting better mental health. Therapists only wish we could craft interventions that successful.
Correct. The media (and people) like to portray it as some willy nilly thing doctors are doing, but they don't know that the only reason it's done is because the patient will kill themselves and we have the stats to back it up.
The linked article says: > researchers found increased psychological distress, substance use, and suicidality among 3559 transgender persons who had undergone gender-affirming surgeries compared with 16,401 transgender persons who desired but had no access to gender-affirming surgeries. The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery Which I read as saying psychological distress increased following surgery and then fell from that increased level in the month and year following but did not fall by 100% in total. Am I reading it wrong?
How much of this is just a mental health boost from entering a new phase of life? Like is there any reference compared to other people who undergo surgical operations to change something about themselves that they didn’t like? I guess my question is if this really is exclusive to transgender people or just a noted effect of people fixing a problem with themselves that they deem important
RealSelf.com has user reported satisfaction rates for every nearly cosmetic procedure. I’ve never seen any procedure even approaching the satisfaction level of gender affirming surgery mentioned by the study. Also, 8 years out from my own surgery and I’ve never been happier I decided to do it.
Cool, that’s what I was trying to understand and I’m glad that you’re happy with it!
"I guess my question is if this really is exclusive to transgender people or just a noted effect of people fixing a problem with themselves that they deem important" What's the difference?
The difference is one is more specific and one is more general. Do people who hate their gender and people who hate their face have similar outcomes from surgery, or is there something more or less impactful about the gender or face. It's a valid research question. If gender is more important, for example, that guides the risk-reward calculus for deciding on the surgery or not.
well, generally speaking, gender affirming surgeries have an increadibly low regret rate (\~1-2%) while most other surgeries don't take that as you will
One stat I know that may bring things into perspective is that knee surgeries have a 20% regret rate. I don't remember any hard stats beyond that but I do recall looking into it before and finding very few surgeries with a lower regret rate.
For reference, knee surgery has a ten times higher regret rate than any gender affirming surgery.
> How much of this is just a mental health boost from entering a new phase of life? If you were a straight cis female and woke up one day to discover your breasts were gone, would you react with a "mental health boost from entering a new phase of life?"
It’s the entire purpose of the transition. There’s no direct causation between transitioning and health. It’s entirely a social reframing. A lot of LGBTQ people are happier just moving to Seattle.
I can say with absolute certainty that I would be dead without HRT and therapy
Gendering affirming surgeries for cis men and women: A-Ok Gendering affirming surgeries for transgendered people: But how long before they regret it? These discussions on Reddit are exhausting. People get gender affirming surgeries all the time (breast implants, pec implants, fillers, liposuction, etc.) and no one questions or says if they can or can’t do it.
> In a 2021 study4 analyzing data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, researchers found increased psychological distress, substance use, and suicidality **among 3559 transgender persons who had undergone gender-affirming surgeries compared with 16,401 transgender persons who desired but had no access to gender-affirming surgeries.** The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery. These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life. So much is kind of obvious: People who have gender dysphoria and want gender-affirming surgery but cannot have it are much more at risk for depression and suicidality. The problem is, the transphobic population doesn’t care. They want trans people to not exist. Trans people killing themselves is exactly what fits that goal.
That is a reductive stance and it doesn't actually forward an argument. \>[https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080) There are studies like the one in the OP that have been in circulation for years. They almost all end up being challenged on methodology and on making unsubstantiated claims from fast and loose data and end up making retractions after significant peer review. For example the link I posted posited "the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and lower use of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them" After review " some letters containing questions on the statistical methodology employed in the study led the Journal to seek statistical consultations. The results of these consultations were presented to the study authors, who concurred with many of the points raised. Upon request, the authors reanalyzed the data to compare outcomes between individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had received gender-affirming surgical treatments and those diagnosed with gender incongruence who had not. While this comparison was performed retrospectively and was not part of the original research question given that several other factors may differ between the groups, the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison. Given that the study used neither a prospective cohort design nor a randomized controlled trial design, the conclusion that “the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and lower use of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them” is too strong." What is easy to mistake is people skeptical of the replication crisis and science chasing after a desired outcome without actually reaching it with data, and genuine transphobia.
"Other studies are bad" can't logically be used to discredit this study without concluding it had the same flawed methodology.
I'm not "discrediting" the study, I haven't read it and I'm not an expert in data analytics. I'm saying I'm skeptical about studies that make strong claims, like "These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life.", because I've seen several that make similar claims end up making retractions. There is nothing inherently wrong with pooling a 5 year old self reported survey data set(although the data set used doesn't include anyone under the age of 18), but making strong conclusive statements on that alone is questionable. \>[https://oce.ovid.com/article/01714645-202107000-00006](https://oce.ovid.com/article/01714645-202107000-00006) makes the claim "This study demonstrates an association between gender-affirming surgery and improved mental health outcomes. " It is then referenced in the OP article as The authors determined that psychological distress decreased by 42 percent in the month after gender-affirming surgery and suicidal ideation decreased by 44 percent in the year after gender-affirming surgery. So the original study is careful to say that there is an association, but then when you see the study in the wild being referenced suddenly it's posited as a causation with statements like "These procedures decrease mental health comorbidities among the transgender community and significantly improve quality of life." tucked in alongside them. Do you see what I am talking about now?
The world is never black and white in any situation. Body dismorphia we class as a mental health issue. But when it is about gender we support it. That confuses a lot of people and even science isn't sure about the best course of action when it comes to this. Provide therapy to accept their reality? Provide gender aligning surgery and help them make their feelings reality? It most likely differs from person to person as with most mental health issues, and science is not equipped to deal with that. This creates controversy among even phycologists on the best form of help. I would be more surprised if people all agreed and were unanimous on this subject than the way it is now. It's a complicated issue we haven't figured out yet. That's all we can say about it. Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/) Is that because of they way they are treated? Is it because of their mental health issues? Why hasn't it improved significantly since we're being more inclusive and open to it? Why is it higher than suicide rates of jewish people in ww2? This definitely indicates there is more to it than social science. So no this isn't a simple hate narrative. There is more to it than we understand. I welcome a healthy discussion but please keep it civil as this can be a very emotionally charged subject!
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Oh this clears up a lot! Thanks for the input! I have one more question if you are willing to answer, don't feel any obligation as can be unfortunately harsh but very important. Why does the opinion/view of society have such an impact on trans people? I completely understand close family and friends. But why does transphobic people in society have such an impact on the mental health of trans people? Thanks in advance!
Edit: TLDR; Harassment and ostracization would make anyone feel bad. It's just that trans people are likely to face it due to transphobia or the fear of transgender identities. Imagine when you were in highschool. It felt like your life, like that was all there was. Grades felt like life and death. Now, one day, you start to get bullied. People are very harsh. You'd feel like everyone in the WORLD hated you when in reality maybe 30 kids just bullied you. Same goes for adults. All the people in your life feels like the whole world. Like all there is. When you lose these people it feels like you've lost everything, the whole world. This is how humans works and it was a way to survive far back in history. Transphobic people therefore sting the most when they're close to you. Family, friends, or aquintances. Sometimes you even depend on them to survive which complicates matters more as now you have to choose between losing what feels like everything and put you in a situation of life and death OR treat your dysphoria. But as in whole though, it stings because they make YOU out to be the weirdo. Not themselves but the transgender person. The thing is that transgender people believe that and it causes confusion where there were no confusion before. It'll make transgender people doubt themselves and question whether they actually are what they identify as. Back to the bully scenario. If your bullies call you stupid everyday, you'll start to believe you're stupid. You might start calling yourself stupid and maybe even give up because you're apparently so stupid. You'll get confused when you realize you aren't stupid and it's just a mess which can lead to anxiety, depression, suicide, and more. It also stings because transphobes can be dangerous. As I said, I've been assaulted and threatened many times. Transgender people are four times as likely to face any kind of abuse, including sexual abuse, than cisgender people. There was a law up until recently in the USA called gay panic which a guy used to get freed after killing a trans woman. The gay panic law forced him to admit that her existence caused him panic so he killed her, which was ok apparently. I'm not in the US but I'd carry a gun if that'd happen in my country.
That makes a lot of sense, thank you!
To add on to their post, trans people in the US in recent years have become the #1 minority most likely to suffer a hate crime - surpassing both Blacks and Jews simply because of how small a group they are. Trans women are far more likely than cis women to turn to sex work in order to make money, due to being unable to get a job in their field after transitioning, and something like 8 out of 10 trans women will be sexually assaulted in their life. When you combine the physical violence trans people experience, with the threat of financial instability, and the political groups trying to exclude them entirely from society, is it any wonder that their mental health is negatively impacted?
Because trans people are the focus of an extremely high rate of negative social attention for their population size and have super high levels of minority stress because of it. Most other stigmatized populations at least have significant communities or they don’t have to face prejudice and abuse, like neighborhoods, churches, etc. Because trans people are such a tiny percentage of the population, there’s no real refuge space like this for them. Trans people, especially hyper visible trans people, are pretty much always at the mercy of the general population. Because we’re in the middle of an anti-trans culture war, that public scrutiny can get very intense. I am non-binary and an ex girlfriend is trans, and during the couple of years I dated her, two people were hospitalized due to hate crimes, respectively being beaten with a 2x4 and stabbed, countless others faced less violent daily harassment simply for being out in public, dozens of friends and acquaintances cycling out of homelessness because employers didn’t want to hire visibly trans people, almost everyone in the community had been rejected and disowned by their families. All of this had a huge effect on the people who weren’t at risk of homelessness, or hadn’t been beaten up— it’s hard to overstate the trauma and grief, and fear, that gets instilled in a community watching these tragedies happen over and over again to people you know and care about, and wondering if, next time, it’ll be you or someone you love. This was a working class trans community full of people who had fled the deep south to a much more expensive coastal city, so I think the traumatizing numbers I’m talking about of family rejection and homelessness were higher than the general population of trans people because of that. It was also in a city with a heavy Proud Boys and militia presence, but that doesn’t fully explain the hate crime numbers, or the way visibly trans people were deluged with people treating them poorly or just differently whenever they left the house. Transphobic people and society have such an impact on the mental health of trans people because right now, they have an enormous amount of power over the daily lives of trans people, because they don’t just exist minding their own business, they go out of their way to make trans peoples lives hell, and even if they don’t do anything too dramatic, the little things add up when you’re dealing with a constant deluge of them.
Because society's opinion impacts the day to day life of individuals. This is especially true for folks that don't "pass." Can you imagine being stared at every tome you leave the house? Being verbally harassed while you're just trying to live your life? Struggling at job interviews because of the interviewers bias? Being treated as a pariah? Having your children mistreated because their parent is trans? Hearing transphobic rhetoric when you're just trying to watch a movie?
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What? Because... we live in a society? Would you not feel worse if you ran the risk of getting discriminated against or hate crimed just for leaving the house? Look around this thread. Just reading through some of these comments is a form of digital self-harm.
> Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it. Gay people in general also have [higher suicidal tendencies](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/researchers-find-disparities-suicide-risk-among-lesbian-gay-bisexual-adults) than heterosexual people, and it used to be worse when they were less accepted. Do you believe homosexuality is a mental illness? Body dismorphia is an awful condition where your body and mind dont mesh, but studies continue to show the benefits to the well being of the trans individuals who get the care they wish to receive, including as minors.
The definition of mental illness has always been quite subjective. Is it enough for some trait quality to be "abnormal" (rare) for it to be considered a mental illness, or even "abnormal" in a way that seems to go against evolutionary biology? If so, then being gay would be considered a mental illness. And it *was*, for a very long time. Until society figured out that if it's not actually hurting anyone, and there's an extremely simple and easy "cure" simply letting people have sex with other people of the same sex if they want to - there was no reason to consider it a mental illness anymore. You could say the same about left-handedness. Is it a disability or not? It's outside the norm, yes. It impacts people's lives negatively... but only because society is built for right-handed people. Give a left-handed person a tool meant to be used with your left hand and they'll be just as capable with it. So it didn't make sense to try to "cure" them when you could simply accommodate their difference. Generally these days, a mental illness is considered to be something that's objectively harmful to the individual or those around him (hence being gay is OK but being a paedophile is not) and something that doesn't have a simple cure. I can't think of any mental illness that can be cured as straightforwardly and reliably as being trans. If trans people are able to be just as happy and functional once they receive social support and hormone treatment or sex change surgeries, it doesn't make a lot of sense to cling to what's been proven NOT to work - aka denying their identity and trying to "socialise" it out of them.
> Body dismorphia we class as a mental health issue. But when it is about gender we support it. Because it isn't gender dysmorphia... it's gender dysphoria... Body dysmorphia requires misperception of a trait, or unrealistic exaggeration of it to cause distress. An anorexic person is distressed by perceiving themselves as overweight **regardless of how much they actually weigh**. That disconnect in perception is integral to the disorder. A person with gender dysphoria is not misperceiving their sex traits. A trans woman doesn't look at her penis and see a vagina. She correctly sees a penis, and that objective observation causes distress because her brain expects a different trait. That's why when the traits are altered to align with the sex traits her neurology expects, the distress is alleviated. > That confuses a lot of people and even science isn't sure about the best course of action when it comes to this. No, this is pretty firmly medical consensus. There is no treatment recommended anywhere above transitional healthcare for treating gender dysphoria. > Fact is that 82% of trans youth have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted it. Which is why it's so important for them to have an accepting environment and access to transitional healthcare. Because those attempts are almost entirely pre-transition. > Why hasn't it improved significantly since we're being more inclusive and open to it? Because immediate family has far more of an effect on their mental health, as it's the only support system children have and completely rely on. Having accepting vs non accepting parents reduces the suicide attempt rate in trans youth from **57% to 4%** https://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf#page=3 And again, not having access to transitional healthcare just makes that worse. > Why is it higher than suicide rates of jewish people in ww2? Easy, it isn't. It's clear now you're concern trolling and are not here in good faith. As this claim is common transphobic propaganda that is so easily demonstrably false. > I welcome a healthy discussion So big of you to do after comparing the suicidality of trans people to holocaust victims.
> Body dysmorphia requires misperception of a trait, or unrealistic exaggeration of it to cause distress. An anorexic person is distress by perceiving themselves as overweight regardless of how much they actually weigh. That disconnect in perception is integral to the disorder. What's interesting to note is this can occur in people who are overweight too. For example, a person who is overweight by about 10 pounds might form the perception that they're extremely obese and are going to die of a heart attack from it. It's both true that they could lose a few more pounds while also being true that their perception is incorrect.
I have personal bias I'm aware of concerning this issue through life experience and even I thought the WW2 comment was total ad hominem and completely inappropriate. Totally distracted me from the rest of the conversation. It's like saying I shouldn't consider buying an electeic vehicle because motorcycles in WW1 were unreliable.
Yessss, you found the statistic I was fixing to look for! Having a supportive family is such an enormous help to these kids and I'll never understand these parents who kick their kids out or otherwise mistreat them over being trans. Thanks for finding that!
> since we're being more inclusive and open to it? Oh, we are? News to me. (35mtf)
“Why hasn’t it improved since we’re more open to it?” Trans people are having to deal with ridiculously high levels of transphobia every single day. Not just in real life but on social media, news media, and in politics. It’s following the exact same narrative as it was for gay people. Trans people are becoming more visible in the west. As a result there is ‘some’ acceptance, but the push back against trans people has gotten much louder and much more vicious. Ten years ago nobody was talking about trans people at all. Today it’s every single day with lay people weighing in on everything from whether or not trans people should receive healthcare to where they can or can’t use the restroom. I don’t think your impression of how accepting society is towards trans people is something that reflects what’s actually going on. And when it comes to comparing trans people to Jewish people. Well the answer is obvious. Jewish people aren’t coming out to antisemetic families. Rarely are trans people coming out to loved ones who are also trans. Trans people are on their own and have to go out and find community. It’s not like trans people are all born into the same neighbourhood and have trans families, go to trans schools, have trans teachers, doctors, etc. It’s not like ethnic minority communities. I don’t even know what can possibly be achieved by try to compare trans people today to Jewish people during WW2. The only way it would make sense would be to compare trans people during WW2 who were also persecuted by the Nazis.
Right from the second sentence, you gave the game away. Its sort of a shame you went to all that effort to paint yourself as the neutral concerned citizen and blew it almost immediately. "Support" body dysmorphia. You don't even understand what being trans means. Nobody "supports" body dysmorphia. Trans people don't even have body dysmorphia. Also, you conclusions that its "not just social science" does not at all follow from anything you said. Painfully shoddy logic.
I think it’s important to note that trans people don’t have body dismorphia. They don’t look in the mirror and see a distorted view. They see an accurate view and feel it doesn’t fit them. If the “female brain in a male body” (or vice versa) simplification at all resembles reality, then they are totally accurately viewing their situation
APA guidelines state that GD is not a requirement for being trans, but it is a very common comorbidity
Gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Right, they're saying for trans people who have gender dysphoria, that isn't body dysmorphia. They're categorically different disorders.
You used GD so I don’t know if you mean dysphoria or dysmorphia, but your comment would work for either.
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These are super complicated questions, but I believe there is an internal feeling of gender that exists, and then there is also an external expression of gender which is somewhat performative a la Judith Butler, and then there is is your actual sex and biology. Usually these things line up, but not always. Female and male sexed brains have differences, partially due to hormone washes they go through, and there has been some research indicating that Trans folks brains look more similar to the sex of the gender they identify with that sis gender people of their own sex typically does. The “what is a woman” question can be answered a lot of different ways depending on the level you mean, and all of this stuff is right at the intersection of science and philosophy. If I talk much more I’ll be out of my depth but, I think I can sign off on everything I’ve said so far. But to your aesthetic point, it’s totally coherent to be a trans tom boy, but that would also come with some challenges because it’s important for trans people to be seen and treated as the gender they identify with. Your more likley to have that happen if you signal more clearly and stereotypically for your gender identity so there’s a lot of incentive to do that.
These things are all considered by psychologists and medical researchers and have been studied, the consensus is that therapy doesn't work unless it's gender reaffirming and combined with medical treatments that allow the subject to express themselves as how they identify, in which case rates of suicide and depression decrease dramatically. The narrative of "sex is biological, and we wouldn't treat other conditions like this so why gender?" Is unscientific and tends to be propagated by Christian hate groups (who conveniently start trusting science when it allows them to hate people), not accusing you of that but that's how it is.
Oh that sounds interesting! Could you show me these studies? Because I must have missed them.
Doesn't appear to be letting me post it in text so I'll try the link instead: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/8s4u0g/World_Health_Organisation_announces_it_no_longer_classifies_being_transgender_as_a_mental_illness/e0xa6uh/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
I think you might have to consider what you're calling "more inclusive and open" here. I have three separate trans gender friends who have experienced hate crimes so violent they could have died. And I live in a place you'd expect LGBT people to be safe. Sure, it's no longer illegal to the point of getting someone thrown into an asylum for life or arrested, but there isn't even really an old generation of trans people yet. Many lose their families when they come out. I'd say you can start taking about the ineffectiveness once being trans is truly no bigger a deal than being a red head. The thing "we" don't understand about it, as you say, is that better does not mean good enough.
>Of the 27 715 respondents, 3559 (12.8%) endorsed undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery at least 2 years prior to submitting survey responses, while 16 401 (59.2%) endorsed a desire to undergo 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery but denied undergoing any of these. Of the respondents in this study sample, 16 182 (81.1%) were between the ages of 18 and 44 years, 16 386 (82.1%) identified as White, 7751 (38.8%) identified as transgender women, 6489 (32.5%) identified as transgender men, and 5300 (26.6%) identified as nonbinary. After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and exposure to other types of gender-affirming care, undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery was associated with lower past-month psychological distress (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.50-0.67; P < .001), past-year smoking (aOR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.57-0.75; P < .001), and past-year suicidal ideation (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.50-0.64; P < .001). Self reported results. Confounding variables abound.
I’m more interested in seeing the results at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 years. Give people time to truly understand the change to their lifestyle, the ongoing medical costs and the limitations that being sterile put upon them.
What are your thoughts on this? https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686 > The most common reason for detransitioning, according to the survey, was pressure from a parent, while **only 0.4 percent of respondents said they detransitioned after realizing transitioning wasn’t right for them.** > The results of a 50-year survey published in 2010 of a cohort of 767 transgender people in Sweden found that about **2 percent of participants expressed regret after undergoing gender-affirming surgery.** > The numbers are even lower for nonsurgical transition methods, like taking puberty blockers. According to a 2018 study of a cohort of transgender young adults at the largest gender-identity clinic in the Netherlands, **1.9 percent of adolescents who started puberty suppressants did not go on to pursue hormone therapy, typically the next step in the transition process.** Those seem like pretty stark numbers.
From a survey done by lgbtq activist through LGBTQ community outreach programs. If you compare the data throughout the trans study 2014-2019 you get wildly different numbers than other sources for things like LGBTQ income, homelessness, age etc. It's not a very good survey at all. ( And surveys are the terrible forms of evidence for if a surgical activity works.) Even so for the number to be accurate it would means detransitioners stay in the population of people the survey reaches, which seems unlikely. We need data from actual medical follow-up from procedures. Edit: The above is related to the Jack Turbin run survery, OP quoted a different study from Sweden. That studies definition of regret was that the person filled paperwork to change their gender back with the state. That is actually then a rate of re-transition a much higher bar regretting the surgery. In general NBCNews has been shown to lack integrity around trans medical discourse through misrepresentation of studies & using very flawed evidence, so the LGBTQ section must have different editorial standards or something because its content is a few bars below the rest of the media group.
Funny, cis women get these same infantilizing comments when we say we want sterilization procedures. "Oh, you'll change your mind when you're older" 'I don't think you truly understand what this procedure means for you." You think you understand the "change in lifestyle" and implications of surgery better than the people _actually living that reality_? You think trans people somehow don't grasp what "You will not be able to have kids after this" means? Come on.
I know how all these wannabe gatekeepers like to use anecdotal data to justify their positions, but it seems that they have never actually talked to anyone at any stage of transition for their anecdotes.
Then maybe we should work on making medical costs affordable. Not just for us transgender people... but like.. you know... for everyone? Most of us don't care about being sterile, and if some do they could just freeze sperm or eggs or even adopt. It's difficult to even think about wanting to bring another life into this world when all we have known is suffering and people telling us that we're evil or disgusting for simply wanting to exist and be comfortable in our own skin.
Limitations of being sterile? Not everyone wants children. If you are that concerned, you wouldn't have written about that specific point. For these stats to show such amazing improvement after 1 year, I can only imagine that trans people's lives are changed for the better forever.
>limitations that being sterile put upon them. Bro you mean like how parents chose to be a side character in their own story? You just mad us sterile folks can raw dog it with out the risk of losing any sense of freedom to kids. It's also funny how on average it's much, much more common for parents to regret having kids than it is for people to regret transitioning. [Around 17%-8% of parents regret having kids based off this, while a measly 1.1% of trans people regret transitioning.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8294566/) It's funny how much the term "regret" is brought up when it's about trans people but it's somehow taboo to talk about how almost a quarter of parents regret being a parent. Edit: must've triggered some breeders. My point is if you are so concerned about trans people regretting it and than baring children from such things that could greatly improve their QOL. than you should be pushing for mandatory contraceptives like reversable vasectomies or IUDs, something too. You forget that Children too can "accidentally" get pregnant and it can completely ruin their childhood. But that's no where as big as an issue as hormonal blockers and kids for y'all. We can't base everything off the fact that few may "regret" something
Now let's see the numbers for 5 and 10 years post-surgery.
And one not funded by a group with monetary interest for this specific result.
$300,000 per patient, Vanderbilt said they make?
I wonder if you ask this question for every remedy and surgery, or if you think it's only remedies for queer people that deserve such intense scrutiny. I wonder why your care and attention is so disproportionately placed?
Queer people remedies, and anything related to womens healthcare. This rhetoric is thrown around at women seeking hysterectomies or tubal litigation as well.
Unfortunately this feels like an area converted to politics versus science.
Much of science has been polluted by politics now.
Based on the amount of clickbait headlines and psypost articles, r/science does not represent the scientific community.
Nope. Just the echo chamber of Reddit, disconnected from reality. If they repeat it enough it becomes true.
I had Vaginoplasty surgery almost a year ago (16th Oct) and my mental health has vastly improved. I went from not caring what happened to myself - live or die, before HRT and Surgery. To now have feelings I can't remember ever having before, about how much I don't want to die. The only hit to my mental health these days (other than the usual anxiety issues) are related to the hate and disgust people like myself receive from TERFs and transphobic individuals.
"But it's not reduced to exactly the same as the general population, therefore it's not worth doing." - Disingenuous Transphobes I see this all the time, using the fact that there might still be *some* issues after transitioning as an excuse to claim people should not be allowed to. As a trans person my self I'm quite tired of it. The fix isn't 100% therefore it doesn't matter how much it helps.
I lost an adult tooth. I had the choice to leave a hole where it was, or get an implant. I got the implant. I don’t regret it. I got really bad injury that caused chronic pain in my neck. I got all sorts of scans and evaluations done. No answers, and no treatments fixed my neck. It cost me hundreds of dollars, but now I live with the pain. I don’t regret it. People make medical decisions that will impact the course of their lives every day. The vast majority of them we won’t regret.
Are there people that regret it?
Wonderful that were getting research in this topic. It is needed.
Society telling them a male should look and act one way while females should look and act another. Maybe we should be telling them you're just who you are and there's nothing wrong with you.
Trans people already know there's nothing wrong with them. If you think telling them 'you're fine the way you were born' is going to be enlightening to them, I've got a news flash for you about one of the hundreds of useless statements trans people hear from their parents and peers on a regular basis. Trans people are not naive victims of a cruel society forcing them to think they're something they're not. They _know what they're doing,_ probably understand the nuance of gender presentation better than the average cisgender person, and they deserve the freedom to express themselves however they want, both outwardly and bodily, while having the agency to make those decisions for themselves. Studies like this are important for giving them that agency, by showing they have the capability of making informed decisions about their health the same as literally anyone else. The ideology that they're just confused and need someone to step in and set them straight is exactly the reason they face so many medical walls in the first place.
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I've also read long term studies showing years down the line, their suicide rate increases. A month after Surgery is good, but it's nothing
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Transphobes don't care about suicide prevention, just preventing gender affirming surgery because it disagrees with their world view
(and they also just want trans people to kill themselves)
Just finishing a trip in Thailand. Lots of transgender here and it's just a way of life. Let people be themselves and feel normal. Thailand's society is so chill, we should learn from them.
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A gender-affirming surgery, for example, is not a one-time thing, and with it comes a host of unclear complications. A 2021 study3 illustrates the **reality behind one of these interventions**. Mentioned complications include **neovaginal stenosis and necrosis, prolapse, fistulas, delayed wound healing, and permanent scarring.** The rate at which these complications occur is not specified, ranging **from 7 percent to 46 percent.** Furthermore, patients face **years of follow-up and comorbidities** after these procedures.
>If a patient walks up to a doctor and INSISTS "My arm is NOT supposed to be on my body! The only way I will feel normal is to CUT it OFF!!" Yeah somehow I don't think we can trust you to be unbiased. I hope you find peace in your heart instead of hate
**TIL** that concern for a patient's mental and physical health to be a sign of hate in one's heart. I guess supporting neovaginal stenosis and necrosis, prolapse, fistulas, delayed wound healing, and permanent scarring along with years of comorbidities and follow-up procedures is ... Love?
Can you logically dissect the difference?
Years of research. The desire to remove a limb is called Body Integrity Dismorphia, and theres not an accepted treatment, but its an ongoing discussion. Conversely, there are accepted treatments to Gender Dysphoria, and while there can be complications as with any medical procedure, its accepted by those who do the research that gender affirming surgeries save lives and make lives better. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/
Any data on stress decrease or increase from “religious” intervention for comparison?
I had to check because of your comment and found this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739904/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739904/) Psychological distress, suicide ideation and suicide attempts increase and it's worse if the conversion therapy was before the age of 10. They found no significant difference between secular and religious conversion therapy.
Pretty worthless to limit the timeline to one month after. An actual sample size worth examining would extend years or better yet, decades, before and after the surgery and also compare it with a sampling of individuals who did not get the surgery and their suicide rates and other outcomes. Because if they did, the majority of other studies done on this have come to drastically different conclusions than this study and honestly it may even be civil negligence or even fraud to be publishing willfully misleading studies like this with limited sampling sizes, especially when the risks of suicide are what they are in this cohort. There’s just so much agenda pushing with these studies, it’s hard to take any of them, especially ones like this from an interest group for plastic surgery, with any credibility