Detransition is rare, but it’s driving anti-trans policy anyway

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

Detransition is rare, but it's driving anti-trans policy anyway

https://www.advocate.com/politics/detransition-anti-transgender-policies 🔗

Orion Rummler (12 Nov 2025)

In their campaign for gender-affirming care bans, Republican lawmakers have enlisted a small group of detransition activists — and they have become the public face of these efforts. State laws and proposed congressional bills to restrict gender-affirming care are named after them and they have also traveled the country to share their stories of regret.

These detransitioners are speaking out against gender-affirming care in states where they have never lived or accessed the care, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy. At legislative hearings, their arguments often overpower those of local residents testifying about the benefits of gender-affirming care for themselves or their patients. It's largely because what they say reinforces preconceived ideas about a slice of medical care that is not only poorly understood, but has also been so maligned.

"People who detransition are part of the community and that is part of the experience. Some people do that. And that is more than okay," said Casey, who is transgender. "But the broader issue here on the policy level is the idea of banning health care entirely out of the experiences of an extraordinarily small group of folks."

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) describes detransition as "proportionally rare" and notes that as more adults identify as trans, it's expected that more people will also look to halt or reverse their transition.

[Lori Dee ✅]

National Library of Medicine
Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8099405/ 🔗
Mar 19, 2021

A systematic review of several databases was conducted. Random-effects meta-analysis, meta-regression, and subgroup and sensitivity analyses were performed.

Results:
A total of 27 studies, pooling 7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of GAS, were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1% ... Overall, 33% underwent transmasculine procedures and 67% transfemenine procedures. The prevalence of regret among patients undergoing transmasculine and transfemenine surgeries was <1% ... and 1% ..., respectively.

Bustos, V. P., Bustos, S. S., Mascaro, A., Corral, G. D., Forte, A. J., Ciudad, P., Kim, E. A., Langstein, H. N., & Manrique, O. J. (2021). Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, 9(3), e3477. https://doi.org/10.1097/GOX.0000000000003477 🔗

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This study was revisited in 2022 with no changes to the results.