“In almost every single case, the reason was anti-trans discrimination in the form of pressure to ‘detransition’ from one’s family, friends, or community.”
Erin @sophiazoekilmer on Instagram here. A fellow LGBTQ activist, attorney, and politician. You and your wife are an inspiration to the entire trans community. Also this survey is spot on gender affirming care is life saving care, but part of that care is being allowed to socially transition while being shown compassion, empathy and humanity from those around us. When our loved ones the very people we expect to hold us up reject us that can be earth shattering. So many trans people face an impossible choice of being our authentic self while completely alone and abandoned in this world or live the lie with the cookie cutter life they want us to have while slowly killing ourselves anyway we can.
Any of us could have predicted the results. I know a number of trans folks in our local community Who are detransitioning listening or considering it seriously. A couple of months ago, I reported on substack that our entire community is being racked by gender dysphoria right now. Even those of us who have not been troubled much by dysphoria since transitioning. The toxicity of our current environment is way beyond anything i've experienced in my 67 years. Trans people are starting to attack each other as well. Our community is cracking under pressure. Be aware, be safe, and help others. We will endure.
I can identify with so much of this although I have not stopped HRT etc. due to family pressure I have certainly slowed things a lot particularly as far as my public presentation of myself. It's not easy sometimes when your family is putting the pressure on but I'm healthier and happier then I was before and for me there is no fully returning to the former me.
It's always nice to have "hard numbers" to point to, even if transmisiacs won't care (just as the corresponding mentality can blithely deny real research on global warming, vaccine value, and so on). As a scientist, this warms my heart.
As a creative writer and transgender woman who lived through the days when it was something almost no one dared speak of unless one knew without doubt that they could remain incognito, I recommend my novel, published two years ago (in Pride Month!). Let's do all we can to keep from not going back to those days.
Thanks, Erin, for sharing what comes as little surprise to most of us in the gender spectrum community. It is probably worth remembering that this study's conclusions are probably also no surprise to gay and lesbian Americans who until this century grappled with a similar predicament - the struggle to survive as gay people in a heteronormative environment that too often devalued and demeaned them. Trans-Americans should take solace from this bit of Queer history and continue to fight for gender equality under the law and greater acceptance in American society. To surrender to bigotry and hate is to lose a life worth living.
My original comment was off the cuff, and that was a mistake; I should taken more time to explain and be careful in my wording. An explanation is below, and individual responses to the replies are forthcoming.
I first want to say that haven’t read the new report. Also, I am not a detransitioner/re-transitioner, so I don’t have personal experience to draw on. Also, I consider myself very lucky, as I have not had to detransition myself at any point. My understanding of detransition comes primarily from reading and listening to the accounts of a rather small number of (almost entirely trans-positive) detransitioners, as well as articles describing research about detransitioners.
In my understanding, the evidence does suggest that most people who detransition do so because of transphobia. My understanding is also that the percentage of people who begin medically transitioning, and later no longer believe they are transgender, is quite small. I was just concerned that the U.S. Transgender Health survey, which was targeted at trans people, was not going to have a representative sample of detransitioners, because 1) it wasn’t targeted specifically at detransitioners, and 2) the survey was targeted at people who currently are/consider themselves to be transgender, so the respondents who have detransitioned will most likely have done so because of some reason other than no longer considering themselves to be trans. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the survey isn’t useful, and if it did happen to capture a representative sample of detransitioners, it may well have come to a similar conclusion anyway.
______________
Original comment 6/11:
I feel like there’s got to be significant self-selection bias at play here. I imagine most detrans people wouldn’t participate in a trans survey on the first place.
They were allowed to take the survey they just got fewer questions. I also remember back when it was being boosted, a number of detrans accounts on twitter tried to get people to take it. Not saying there's no bias but at the very least, it shows a large number of people detrans temporarily due to transphobia.
Erin, thanks for replying to my comment. You’re certainly right, it does show that many who detransition do so temporarily and because of external factors.
You feel like there has to be selection bias because why?
I don’t have to invoke anything like selection bias to arrive at these numbers. The state of Florida couldn’t find a single de-transitioner to testify before their legislature so they brought in Chloe Cole. Cole single-handedly accounts for a majority of the detransitionjng testimony across the entire country.
Maybe, as the data suggest, de-transitioning (aside from doing so because of transphobia) is incredibly rare? Just maybe!
As for detransitioning being hard, I’m sure it is but at least if you are willing to go public there are wealthy conservative groups willing to pay you a salary and to fly you all over the country.
That's the argument I was worried about. But I plan on reading it myself. Typically research papers have a methods section. For example, the ROGD paper asked a bunch of groups that think their kid suddenly became trans if their kid suddenly became trans. There was an effort to widen the scope, but then again they asked 0 trans people. The paper says more about nonaccepting parents than the kids of those parents
Hey, late to this. Detransitioned cis person here. Thanks for acknowledging this. I thought the same thing when I saw us listed as .36% of trans* people. That’s notably less than the at least 1 or 2% I’ve seen elsewhere in my light web-browsing on this topic.
While I can’t personally prove significant self-selection here, I can speak personally that I’ve backed out of participation of a follow up of a trans survey I was previously involved in. I admit I didn’t even check if there were options for people who had re/detransitioned. It just felt wrong of me to be involved.
Lastly (and on a different topic) I want to mention that it was in mostly through the support and acceptance I received from trans & gender diverse spaces & groups that I realized & accepted I’m cis. The acceptance & affirmation I found there gave me the emotional room to truly question and then accept who I really am. Which, well, turned out to be a cisgender guy.
So that’s to say that the acceptance & liberation of Transgender & Gender-Non-Comforming people ultimately helps re/detransitioners too.
I wondered if the detailed reporting off the raw data might have somehow been defunded due to Trump orders. I am pleased that it hasn't. The raw numbers make the survey powerful evidence, internationally as well as for the US. I know mere facts won't change the minds of ideological zealots hell-bent on purging trans people from public life but they should give us the confidence in ourselves to challenge them by whatever means it takes to defeat them.
Today in news that is shocking to literally no one with a brain...
It’s so obvious!
Erin @sophiazoekilmer on Instagram here. A fellow LGBTQ activist, attorney, and politician. You and your wife are an inspiration to the entire trans community. Also this survey is spot on gender affirming care is life saving care, but part of that care is being allowed to socially transition while being shown compassion, empathy and humanity from those around us. When our loved ones the very people we expect to hold us up reject us that can be earth shattering. So many trans people face an impossible choice of being our authentic self while completely alone and abandoned in this world or live the lie with the cookie cutter life they want us to have while slowly killing ourselves anyway we can.
Any of us could have predicted the results. I know a number of trans folks in our local community Who are detransitioning listening or considering it seriously. A couple of months ago, I reported on substack that our entire community is being racked by gender dysphoria right now. Even those of us who have not been troubled much by dysphoria since transitioning. The toxicity of our current environment is way beyond anything i've experienced in my 67 years. Trans people are starting to attack each other as well. Our community is cracking under pressure. Be aware, be safe, and help others. We will endure.
What is the only thing lower than the regret rates for gender affirming care?
The odds that the New York Times will report on those rates accurately and without bias.
Other Totalitarian regimes are up front about falling into line behind whatever cockamamie dogma the strong man likes. Fine. No one pretends.
But in America, the so-called "land of the free and home if the brave", it's conform or suffer.
Anything the media voice with a grade 5 education does not understand does not deserve to exist.
When did freedom get defined as the freedom to be like everybody else?
So great to read the huge number of folks who overwhelmly state to the surveys what we knew in our hearts. Bravo
I can identify with so much of this although I have not stopped HRT etc. due to family pressure I have certainly slowed things a lot particularly as far as my public presentation of myself. It's not easy sometimes when your family is putting the pressure on but I'm healthier and happier then I was before and for me there is no fully returning to the former me.
It's always nice to have "hard numbers" to point to, even if transmisiacs won't care (just as the corresponding mentality can blithely deny real research on global warming, vaccine value, and so on). As a scientist, this warms my heart.
As a creative writer and transgender woman who lived through the days when it was something almost no one dared speak of unless one knew without doubt that they could remain incognito, I recommend my novel, published two years ago (in Pride Month!). Let's do all we can to keep from not going back to those days.
https://www.bedazzledink.com/hannas-ascent.html#/
And the GOP and the current administration will ignore all of this.
There are not enough shocked Pikachu faces in existence to react to this properly.
Thanks, Erin, for sharing what comes as little surprise to most of us in the gender spectrum community. It is probably worth remembering that this study's conclusions are probably also no surprise to gay and lesbian Americans who until this century grappled with a similar predicament - the struggle to survive as gay people in a heteronormative environment that too often devalued and demeaned them. Trans-Americans should take solace from this bit of Queer history and continue to fight for gender equality under the law and greater acceptance in American society. To surrender to bigotry and hate is to lose a life worth living.
Edit 6/14:
My original comment was off the cuff, and that was a mistake; I should taken more time to explain and be careful in my wording. An explanation is below, and individual responses to the replies are forthcoming.
I first want to say that haven’t read the new report. Also, I am not a detransitioner/re-transitioner, so I don’t have personal experience to draw on. Also, I consider myself very lucky, as I have not had to detransition myself at any point. My understanding of detransition comes primarily from reading and listening to the accounts of a rather small number of (almost entirely trans-positive) detransitioners, as well as articles describing research about detransitioners.
In my understanding, the evidence does suggest that most people who detransition do so because of transphobia. My understanding is also that the percentage of people who begin medically transitioning, and later no longer believe they are transgender, is quite small. I was just concerned that the U.S. Transgender Health survey, which was targeted at trans people, was not going to have a representative sample of detransitioners, because 1) it wasn’t targeted specifically at detransitioners, and 2) the survey was targeted at people who currently are/consider themselves to be transgender, so the respondents who have detransitioned will most likely have done so because of some reason other than no longer considering themselves to be trans. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the survey isn’t useful, and if it did happen to capture a representative sample of detransitioners, it may well have come to a similar conclusion anyway.
______________
Original comment 6/11:
I feel like there’s got to be significant self-selection bias at play here. I imagine most detrans people wouldn’t participate in a trans survey on the first place.
They were allowed to take the survey they just got fewer questions. I also remember back when it was being boosted, a number of detrans accounts on twitter tried to get people to take it. Not saying there's no bias but at the very least, it shows a large number of people detrans temporarily due to transphobia.
Erin, thanks for replying to my comment. You’re certainly right, it does show that many who detransition do so temporarily and because of external factors.
You feel like there has to be selection bias because why?
I don’t have to invoke anything like selection bias to arrive at these numbers. The state of Florida couldn’t find a single de-transitioner to testify before their legislature so they brought in Chloe Cole. Cole single-handedly accounts for a majority of the detransitionjng testimony across the entire country.
Maybe, as the data suggest, de-transitioning (aside from doing so because of transphobia) is incredibly rare? Just maybe!
As for detransitioning being hard, I’m sure it is but at least if you are willing to go public there are wealthy conservative groups willing to pay you a salary and to fly you all over the country.
No one is doing that for trans people!
That's the argument I was worried about. But I plan on reading it myself. Typically research papers have a methods section. For example, the ROGD paper asked a bunch of groups that think their kid suddenly became trans if their kid suddenly became trans. There was an effort to widen the scope, but then again they asked 0 trans people. The paper says more about nonaccepting parents than the kids of those parents
That’s interesting. Can you dumb it down for me? Explain more?
Hey, late to this. Detransitioned cis person here. Thanks for acknowledging this. I thought the same thing when I saw us listed as .36% of trans* people. That’s notably less than the at least 1 or 2% I’ve seen elsewhere in my light web-browsing on this topic.
While I can’t personally prove significant self-selection here, I can speak personally that I’ve backed out of participation of a follow up of a trans survey I was previously involved in. I admit I didn’t even check if there were options for people who had re/detransitioned. It just felt wrong of me to be involved.
Lastly (and on a different topic) I want to mention that it was in mostly through the support and acceptance I received from trans & gender diverse spaces & groups that I realized & accepted I’m cis. The acceptance & affirmation I found there gave me the emotional room to truly question and then accept who I really am. Which, well, turned out to be a cisgender guy.
So that’s to say that the acceptance & liberation of Transgender & Gender-Non-Comforming people ultimately helps re/detransitioners too.
🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
Confirms my 20 years of clinical experience.
I wondered if the detailed reporting off the raw data might have somehow been defunded due to Trump orders. I am pleased that it hasn't. The raw numbers make the survey powerful evidence, internationally as well as for the US. I know mere facts won't change the minds of ideological zealots hell-bent on purging trans people from public life but they should give us the confidence in ourselves to challenge them by whatever means it takes to defeat them.
This we knew. Those who don't want to know never will.
How best do we beat them is the only question.