#surgery regret

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Exclusive: Trump White House directs NIH to study ‘regret’ after transgender people transition

After cancelling nearly all NIH projects studying transgender health, Trump’s team instructs the US biomedical agency to study negative cons

Max Kozlov at Nature:

As the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to defund nearly every research project on transgender health, the White House has directed the agency to focus on studying “regret” after a person transitions to align their body with their gender identity. Several NIH employees, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed the directive to Nature. Two weeks ago, Matthew Memoli, who was acting NIH director at the time, sent an e-mail to the directors of several NIH institutes. It said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is the NIH’s parent agency, “has been directed to fund research on a few specific areas” related to what it calls “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and adults — a reference to gender-affirming care and surgery. “This is very important to the President and the Secretary” of the HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the e-mail added. Based on its priorities, the White House sometimes directs the NIH — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical science — to study certain broad topics, such as cancer or women’s health, but the latest directive’s specificity, inflammatory language and focus on a hyper-polarizing topic are unprecedented, the NIH employees say. Although the White House can sometimes “push us on various different things, we normally get to chart out the approach”, a staff member says. Many scientists, reeling from the abrupt cancellation of more than US$180 million in NIH funding for research on transgender health, slammed the proposed studies as ideologically driven. [...]

Shifting focus

Estimates suggest that 1.6 million people in the United States identify as transgender, and about one-quarter of them obtain gender-affirming surgeries. Research suggests1 that access to these procedures can reduce anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in transgender people. US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office on 20 January that directed the US government to stop acknowledging that gender can differ from sex at birth. The cancellation of many trans-health research grants quickly followed, and now the agency seems to be shifting the type of research it funds. The e-mail from Memoli, obtained by Nature, specifies two areas of research that the Trump administration wishes to fund about “social transition”, which is when a person changes how they express their gender to others — for example, by changing their name or appearance. These include “regret and detransition following social transition as well as chemical and surgical mutilation of children and adults” and “outcomes from children who have undergone social transition and/or chemical and surgical mutilation”, the e-mail says. [...]

Inflammatory language

The e-mail requesting the new research focus mirrors language in another of Trump’s executive orders about “protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation”, signed on 28 January. The order alleges that “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions”. The phrase ‘chemical and surgical mutilation’ is “scientifically unsound” and will “provoke fear and stigma” among the trans community, Barbee says. If this language is used in such a solicitation, the NIH will probably struggle to find knowledgeable specialists to respond, Charlton says. (Charlton, who has had five grants that make up 95% of her centre’s funding cancelled, sued the NIH and the HHS yesterday. The lawsuit alleges that the agencies have engaged in a “reckless and illegal purge to stamp out NIH-funded research that addresses topics and populations that they disfavor”.)

The Trump Regime directs the NIH to study trans “regret” in a bid to show proof that there is a major wave of detransitioners that they would create out of thin air. In reality, the rate of trans regret is very low.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Trump admin orders scientists to research transition “regret”: It’s “America’s Cass Review”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

New Study: Trans Youth Satisfied 6-10 Years Later With Very Low Loss To Follow Up

The study is the latest in a huge number of studies showing high levels of satisfaction with trans care in the United States, and represents

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics explores the long-term experiences of transgender youth, focusing on individuals six to ten years after transitioning. The findings show that transgender youth who transition at a young age report high levels of satisfaction with their care. Notably, only 3% of participants discontinued hormone therapy, according to the study's main sample. The research employed innovative methodologies to address “loss to follow-up,” a common issue when participants stop responding to surveys, and utilized a prospective approach. This study is likely to become one of the most significant pieces of evidence countering critics who argue for banning transgender care.

The study began recruiting participants in 2013, with final recruitment completed by 2017. All participants were 12 years old or younger at the time of enrollment. Researchers followed these individuals through their transitions and gender-affirming care, conducting multiple surveys along the way. The survey referenced in this study was issued in 2023. The study included only those who had started gender-affirming care—269 youth in total. Of these, 220 responded to the 2023 survey, and researchers found that just 3% had discontinued care. Additionally, satisfaction rates were extremely high, averaging 6.5 on a 7-point scale, demonstrating that 6 to 10 years after transition, transgender youth remain highly satisfied with their treatment and overall experiences. One of the most innovative aspects of this study wasn't just its prospective design but how it addressed a common issue known as “loss to follow-up.” Many studies that rely on surveys to collect patient experiences around medical care experience this problem, which occurs when a significant number of participants fail to return surveys. This is a frequent challenge in survey-based research. Critics of transgender care often exploit this issue to dismiss studies showing the positive effects of gender-affirming care, arguing that those who didn’t respond likely had negative experiences, despite no evidence that this is the case.

The study dealt with this problem by utilizing clinical notes, following up directly with a subset of the questions, evaluating patient emails, and even looking at hormone discontinuation rates among those who did not follow up. What they found was that those who did not follow up had very similar continuation rates for gender affirming care to those who did follow up, only around 6% in the secondary sample discontinued hormone therapy. This finding is important, as it will likely neuter further attempts to argue that loss to follow up is a significant issue in research around gender affirming care, which was an argument used by the Cass Review which has been used to crack down on youth and adult care in the United Kingdom.

The findings of this study align with other recent research, including a study from Australia that also used innovative methodologies to address the issue of “loss to follow-up.” That study, also published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that only 4% of transgender youth reidentified with their sex assigned at birth. It successfully collected data on 548 of 552 patients by using clinical notes to support its conclusions. Similarly, studies in the United States have reported very low rates of desistance or detransition. A Dutch study also reported comparably low rates, along with many other studies. According to a review of literature by Cornell University, the regret rate for gender-affirming care ranges from 0.3% to 3.8%, depending on the study's methodology. Within hours of its release, anti-trans activists and bloggers, including Benjamin Ryan, published critiques of the study. They argued that the participants were not representative of transgender youth today, noting that the sample included a higher proportion of individuals assigned male at birth than is typically seen. Critics also pointed out that the population studied was younger and more affluent than average. Additionally, they claimed the follow-up period was still too short, referencing the Cass Review and speculating—with little evidence—that detransition might commonly “take five to 10 years” to occur.

[...] This study is poised to become a cornerstone in affirming the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Its extended follow-up period and findings that show no significant differences between those who completed follow-ups and those who did not directly rebut common anti-trans arguments. The innovative methodology strengthens the case for previous studies, undermining the assumption that those who fail to follow up regret their care. As more research like this emerges, it becomes increasingly clear that claims questioning the effectiveness of gender-affirming care lack a solid foundation and will continue to fall short.

A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics reports that an overwhelming majority of trans youth are highly satisfied 6-10 years after transitioning, with only 3% in the survey discontinuing the transition process.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: 97% of trans youth don’t regret transitioning, new study finds

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Landmark Systematic Review Of Trans Surgery: Regret Rate "Remarkably Low"

A landmark systematic review has concluded that regret rate for transgender surgeries is "remarkably low," comparing it to many other surger

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

In recent years, anti-transgender activists have used fear of "regret" as justification to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth and restrict it for many adults. Now, a new systematic review published in The American Journal of Surgery has concluded that the rate of regret for transgender surgeries is "remarkably low." The review encompasses more than 55 individual studies on regret to support its conclusions and will likely be a powerful tool in challenging transgender bans in the coming weeks.

The study, conducted by experts from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, examines reported regret rates for dozens of surgeries as well as major life decisions and compares them to the regret rates for transgender surgeries. It finds that "there is lower regret after [gender-affirming surgery], which is less than 1%, than after many other decisions, both surgical and otherwise." It notes that surgeries such as tubal sterilization, assisted prostatectomy, body contouring, facial rejuvenation, and more all have regret rates more than 10 times as high as gender-affirming surgery. The review also finds that regret rates for gender-affirming surgeries are lower than those for many life decisions. For instance, the survey found that marriage has a regret rate of 31%, having children has a regret rate of 13%, and at least 72% of sexually active students report regret after engaging in sexual activity at least once. All of these are notably magnitudes higher than gender affirming surgery.

Regret is commonly weaponized against transgender care. The recently released Cass Review, currently being used in an attempt to ban transgender care in England, mentions "regret" 20 times in the document. Pamela Paul's story in The New York Times features stories of regret heavily and objects to reports of low regret rates. Legislators use the myth of high levels of regret to justify harsh crackdowns on transgender care. Recently, though, anti-trans activists who have pushed the idea that regret may be high appear to be retreating from their claims. In the WPATH Files, a highly editorialized and error-filled document targeting the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the authors state that the low levels of regret for transgender people obtaining surgery are actually cause for alarm, and that transgender people are "suspiciously" happy. The idea that transgender people cannot be trusted to report their own happiness and regret has also been echoed by anti-transgender activists and influencers like Matt Walsh and Jesse Singal.

[...] There is no evidence that transgender people experience high rates of regret for any transgender care, including transgender surgery. On the contrary, gender-affirming care saves lives. 

A new systematic review published in The American Journal of Surgery about gender-confirming surgery reveal that its regret rates that are very low, much lower than many other surgeries. This should quash the anti-trans arguments about "regret" that they falsely inflate in which they are used to justify bans on gender-affirming care.

See Also:

MMFA: Right-wing media are using the Cass Report to push for broad restrictions on trans rights, and even violence against the parents of trans youth

[drag-tween]

CNN fact-checked by Community Notes for report that transgender patients 'have no regrets' about 'top surgery'

CNN was fact-checked by X after it cited a study that claimed "[t]ransgender and nonbinary patients have no regrets" after they receive "top surgery”

Reminder that X.Twitter's Elon Musk has rejected his trans daughter. Also (scrolls to next blog item)...

[whyimnotanartist]

A Quick Note On The Statistics Of "Post-Surgery Trans Regret"

A Quick Note On The Statistics Of “Post-Surgery Trans Regret”

Just figured I’d drop this off here while it was still on my mind. It’s a pretty common argument among decidedly anti-trans circles to bring up the daunting spectre of “trans regret”. I’m not gonna say it’s not a thing (because it is), and I’m not gonna say it isn’t tragic (because it is), but I will say that damn near everything that crowd is trying to sell you about it is a flat out lie.

In…

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