Number of transpeople reversing their ops on the increase

[LittleRaven]

Of course we're seeing more people detransition. We're seeing more people transition. Way, WAY more. Orders of magnitude more. It would be impossible NOT to see an increase in the number of people who detransition.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't have a real problem with young people choosing to transition for the wrong reasons. We might. It just means we don't have the data to make that call yet. But if we DO have a problem, then it's one that the trans community is well aware of. Hang out in that community for any length of time and you'll see the issue of "transtrenders" come up, which is basically the idea that transitioning is being sold as a cure-all to all kinds of teenage angst, and that people are transitioning not because they experience gender dysphoria but because they want to be one of the cool kids. The trans community at large has very mixed feelings about this. Obviously, they are happy to see their community grow and want to encourage young people in pain to seek relief, but a lot of them DO worry that many young people are choosing to transition for the wrong reasons, and that this may produce a backlash when their transitions fail, as any transition that is based on a false premise eventually will.

Time will tell.

[CmdrKing]

So for context, here’s some numbers from what long-term studies of trans regret have been done (page 42 of the document and page 63 of the pdf)

https://epath.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Boof-of-abstracts-EPATH2019.pdf

TLDR; it’s a small sample but the rate is under 2% long term.
Now, due to factors like increased knowledge of gender diversity and questioning of one’s gender being more common/socially acceptable amongst the youth, that number will surely rise over time under current conditions.

Since the Sky piece is more of a human interest story than anything else, they don’t really delve into the hows and whys of detransition in this instance, and I doubt the subject even knew the answers of the other, much younger people she had been in contact with. So speculating on the size of the problem from her story wouldn’t be fruitful and going to basic principles would make more sense.

A trouble the UK specifically has is the sheer lack of available care: waiting times between referral from GP and seeing a gender specialist are rapidly approaching 3 years last I knew, conditions are primed for rushing things and getting hormones, surgeries and everything else scheduled with minimum deliberation, although it may be that the adolescent system is different.

Beyond that, there seems to be a very rigid set of benchmarks the NHS rushes you through in order to gel with the legal steps in transition. And I strongly suspect that, as much as anything, this is contributing to some of the detransitioners in the article: they may well be trans or otherwise gender divergent, but *arent* binary and pursuing the same hormone and pills/or surgical steps as binary trans men (lestwise the article mentioned mostly AFAB people had contacted the subject of the article) was pushing them back into dysphoria after being happier at intermediary stages.

And of course the same reason most people “detransition” historically: the sheer weight of transphobia, never reaching a level of “passing” they were happy, or tangible legal issues due to transition (eg losing child custody rights) caused them to stop. And often later in life transition again.

Anyway, steps to recognize non-binary identities, speed up the existing access to gender services, create more flexible ranges of therapies as related to above, and smoothing out the legal aspect of transition would do a lot to reduce the number of erroneous treatments and more accurately assess those in the system.

[jadenova]

Of course we're seeing more people detransition. We're seeing more people transition. Way, WAY more. Orders of magnitude more. It would be impossible NOT to see an increase in the number of people who detransition.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't have a real problem with young people choosing to transition for the wrong reasons. We might. It just means we don't have the data to make that call yet. But if we DO have a problem, then it's one that the trans community is well aware of. Hang out in that community for any length of time and you'll see the issue of "transtrenders" come up, which is basically the idea that transitioning is being sold as a cure-all to all kinds of teenage angst, and that people are transitioning not because they experience gender dysphoria but because they want to be one of the cool kids. The trans community at large has very mixed feelings about this. Obviously, they are happy to see their community grow and want to encourage young people in pain to seek relief, but a lot of them DO worry that many young people are choosing to transition for the wrong reasons, and that this may produce a backlash when their transitions fail, as any transition that is based on a false premise eventually will.

Time will tell.

Kind of like people not eating gluten. There are some who do it for health reasons because they have to and others are doing it because it seems like the trendy thing to do.