This page contains stories, articles and blogs by people who transitioned and later detransitioned, or are in the process of detransitioning. The stories are varied; some from men, some from women, some who experience regret, some who don’t. We include the testimonies of people of all walks of life and at any age. They are the part of the story which is hidden and denied by transgender activists and support groups and they all deserve to be heard.
Detransition Studies
Care of Transgender Patients: A General Practice Quality Improvement Approach (2022)
Isabel Boyd, Thomas Hackett, Susan Bewley
“Given the findings of long waits, high rates of medical complexity, and some undesired treatment outcomes (including a fifth of patients stopping hormones of whom more than half cited regret or detransition experiences), this small but population-based quality improvement approach should be replicated and expanded upon at scale.”
“Thus, the detransition rate found in this population is novel and questions may be raised about the phenomenon of overdiagnosis, overtreatment, or iatrogenic harm as found in other medical fields.”
Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners (2021)
Lisa Littman
“Some were harmed by transition and detransitioned because they concluded that their gender dysphoria was caused by trauma, a mental health condition, internalized homophobia, or misogyny—conditions that are not likely to be resolved with transition.These findings highlight the complexity of gender dysphoria and suggest that, in some cases, failure to explore co-morbidities and the context in which the gender dysphoria emerged can lead to misdiagnosis, missed diagnoses, and inappropriate gender transition.”
Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey (2021)
Elie Vandenbussche
“The results showed important psychological needs in relation to gender dysphoria, comorbid conditions, feelings of regret and internalized homophobic and sexist prejudices. It was also found that many detransitioners need medical support notably in relation to stopping/changing hormone therapy, surgery/treatment complications and reversal interventions. Additionally, the results indicated the need for hearing about other detransitioners’ experiences and meeting each other.”
Read the full study results here
Access to care and frequency of detransition among a cohort discharged by a UK national adult gender identity clinic: retrospective case-note review (2021)
R. Hall, L. Mitchell, J. Sachdeva
“Service users may have unmet needs. Neurodevelopmental disorders or ACEs suggest complexity requiring consideration during the assessment process. Managing mental ill health and substance misuse during treatment needs optimising. Detransitioning might be more frequent than previously reported.”
A Typology of Gender Detransition and Its Implications for Healthcare Providers (2021)
Pablo Exposito-Campos
“When facing a person who decides to detransition, clinicians must always adopt a non-judgmental, compassionate stance. Detransitioning can be as difficult as transitioning due to societal lack of understanding, social isolation, fear, shame, trauma, and the paucity of answers and resources for those who take that path. Even when the person has only undergone a social transition, going back to living according to one’s birth sex can be troublesome”
Letter to the Editor: Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence (2021)
Pablo Exposito-Campos, Roberto D’Angelo
Debate: The pressing need for research and services for gender desisters/detransitioners (2020)
Catherine Butler, Anna Hutchinson
“Research with populations who desist and detransition is in its infancy, and little is known about how best to work with this growing population. While there is increasing recognition of the need for support for those who require it, there are still no clear guidelines on how to do this work. We are at an important juncture where our evidence base is based on previous cohorts that may not be applicable to the current population of desisters and detransitioners; it is prudent to consider their needs alongside those who go on to identify as trans for life.”
Debate: Reality check – Detransitioner’s testimonies require us to rethink gender dysphoria (2020)
Kirsty Entwistle
“Anecdotal reports by detransitioners suggest greater openness to psychological formulation based interventions to make sense of the factors that prompted and maintained their GD that may have been more challenging prior to detransition. These include external factors such as ‘bingeing’ on videos by transgender YouTubers; misinformation on GD and medical transition; being bullied and being socially isolated.”
Female Detransition and Reidentification: Survey Results and Interpretation (2016)
Crashchaoscats
“This survey was created for anyone female/AFAB who formerly self-described as transgender. This includes women who transitioned, whether socially and/or medically, and subsequently detransitioned, as well as individuals who still identify as nonbinary or genderfluid, but have desisted from medical or social transition.”
Recent Writings and Articles
Corinna Cohn: What I wish I’d known when I was 19 and had sex reassignment surgery
Sinead Watson: The detransitioners: “The problems I thought I’d solved were all still there”
Allie: I was allowed to transition at 18 without question – but I regretted it
Grace Lidinsky-Smith: There’s No Standard for Care When it Comes to Trans Medicine
TullipR: Lost Boys – Speaking up for Detrans Males
J D Robertson: Detrans Youth Stories they Didn’t Want You to Hear, in 60 Minutes, or Less
Detrans Voices: Detrans Story: Laura
Hormone Hangover: Top Surgery Regret
Keira Bell: ‘I couldn’t sit by while so many others made the same mistake’
Keira Bell: NHS gender clinic ‘should have challenged me more’ over transition
Sinead Watson: Transition and detransition: a conversation between sisters
Laura Dodsworth: The Detransitioners
Charlie Evans: A Journey from Trans* to T*RF
Thomasin Pick: Living in trans bubble increased my social anxiety
Aleksa Lundberg: “I am a gay feminine man with a female body”
Carey Callahan: The Game Plan for When Transition Hasn’t Worked Out
Thomasin Pick: One Year Out – My Story
Nicole Jones: Overcoming Gender Dysphoria
Exit Sign: Out of Place and Time
Lisa Marchiano: The ranks of detransitioners are growing. We need to understand why
Helen Joyce: Speaking up for female eunuchs
BBC News: Bath Spa University ‘blocks transgender research’
Websites and Support Groups
Post trans – a collection of detransition stories of female detransitioners and desisters
Support Post Trans on Patreon here
The Detransition Advocacy Network
GCCAN – Gender Care Consumer Advocacy Network
Broadcasts, Podcasts and Videos
The Critic Magazine: The Detransitioners – interview with James Caspian and Laura Dodsworth
Post Trans Booklet
Detrans Stories – Benjamin Boyce
Genspect Detrans Awareness Day Webinar
Sinead Watson: Ramblings of a Detransitioned Woman
Standing for Women: Biological Woman’s Hour – interview with Keira Bell
BBC: NHS gender clinic ‘should have challenged me more’ over transition – interview with Keira Bell
Sky News: Transgender Ruling: Clinic Defends Transgender Treatment – interview with Keira Bell
BBC Newsnight: Detransitioning – Reversing a Gender Transition
The Detransitioners – She2He2She and He2She2He
BBC World Service radio broadcasts available here
Detransition: The Elephant in the Room
The Trans Train: Swedish Documentary
The Trans Train (2)
The Trans Train (3) Link here
Transgender Regret: Dutch documentary, with subtitles by PeachYogurt
On Transition, Activism and Therapy, with Carey Callahan
60 Minutes Australia: Who am I?
Sky News: ‘Hundreds’ of young trans people seeking help to return to original sex
Charlie Evans: Sky News interview
Elle Palmer
If you’re a girl who hated puberty this is for you
Why I transitioned and detransitioned
Blaire White
Interview with Elle Palmer
Pique Resilience Project
Listen to their Danger Ramen podcasts here.
What do detransitioned women think of social media?
Q & A
Chiara interviewed by Benjamin Boyce
GNC Centric
Follow on Twitter at @gnc_centric and support on Patreon here
Social Media: from Transitioning with Queer Cult Twitter to Detransition with Gender Critical Tumblr
Tavistock: Former Clinicians Call it Conversion Therapy – My Response
Coercion and Abuse in the Gender ID Community: Interview with Benjamin Boyce
Martin Rei
My Detransition: How it Happened
hayitsmatthew
Detransition (forreal this time y’all)
Voices
This Soft Space
“But a wave of voices is rising, and helping tremendously.” A documentation of videos and writing by the young women whose words are amongst the most powerful on the subject of transition and the journey back to womanhood: Maria Catt, Kat, Max, and the blogs CrashChaosCats and GuideOnRagingStars.
Detransition – An FtM Journeys Home – In Her Own Words
“I’m 30 years of age. I don’t blame anyone else for my idiocy. I just wish I would have learned to love myself before completely turning my life upside down with all of this.”
Advice for Parents of Teen Girls and Girl-Children Who Think They’re Trans
“In closing, this trend is going to have a devastating impact on today’s youth about 10 years down the road. These things are not very well studied, and we are/were their guinea pigs. Be a role model, be a mentor, but most of all, don’t be afraid to be a parent. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into this. This is your child’s health that is being played with, and your child’s health is not a game – it is life or death.”
Maria Catt: The Adult Baby Story
“A lot of my anger at the people who were cheerleaders for my transition is their enthusiasm for all these limits I was placing on my life- the black hole of time and money and energy transitioning is- revealed that they didn’t think I had much value. They didn’t say anything like, “What you could do with that time and money and energy if you directed it towards a goal beyond changing your body is so profound that this pursuit seems like a massive waste of what you are capable of.”
Third Way Trans
“I then worked through a lot of trauma in therapy and discovered that I could be comfortable with presenting male after all, and that it was good to let go of the need of be seen as female. Much to my surprise it was possible to become okay with being seen as male, because it does not limit me from being who I am. I wish I could have saved myself all of this trouble and worked through these issues psychologically and I am concerned that the psychological community does not present this possibility.”
CRASHCHAOSCATS
“I’m always going to wonder what might have been. What would my body be like now if I’d never done t? I devalued my own body, I became dissatisfied with it, I convinced myself that it wasn’t enough, didn’t speak clearly enough about what I was”
This Soft Space
“Took me until I was 30 to realize I was a lesbian. Took me another 8 years and a trip through postmodern gender/queer theory, including a time identifying as transgender, to finally make peace with my body, my sex, and my orientation – not to mention my place in the world.”
Guide On Raging Stars
“The memories keep coming. Remembering who I was before I was a “boy” and then a “man”. Things I felt I couldn’t think about before because it would remind me that I was born female. In trying to solve my identity problems I think now that I only compounded them, became a man with no past. So much of my childhood makes no sense without the context of girlhood, so those memories were forgotten–not blocked out, just ignored. It’s no wonder that I’ve felt so lost and unlike myself for so long.”
Hot Flanks: No Trick, No Secret
“I latched onto the idea that I had never been able to connect with my peers or make friends because I couldn’t relate to other people as a woman, because I was a man! There were answers to what I was dealing with and with Modern Medical Technology could correct this very simple birth-defect that I had recently diagnosed myself with. My discomfort with my body would be eased and the world would suddenly know how to relate to me!”
The Re-Transing Of Male Miriam
“Feminine = female, because the alternative of being a man who displays femininity as a man is too horrible to contemplate. Like the friend who told me that going into the men’s restroom would be demeaning to me. I can already see from reactions of my customers that I’m more socially acceptable as a man who’s tryin reel hard to be a women rather than as some weirdo dude with a feminine self-expression.”
Sex Change Regret
A website for people who regret gender reassignment surgery
Blood and Visions: Reconciling With Being Female
Booklet available from Autotomous Womyn’s Press
Redress Alert
http://redressalert.tumblr.com/
Sex Change Info
“Regarding the outcome of reassignment surgery Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld said, “80% should not do it” and for the remaining 20%, he says it will not be a lifelong solution but rather a temporary “reprieve.” In other words, do not expect long term success.”
4thWaveNow: In Praise of Gatekeepers: An Interview With A Former Teen Client Of Transactive Gender Centre
“I think the idea of someone being able to get transitional surgery underage is concerning—in the state of Oregon, you can’t get a tattoo underage even with parental consent, but you can be permanently sterilized at 15 without any parental input. This is built off the law that minors 15 and older can consent to their own medical and dental diagnosis and treatment, up to and including surgery, but it seems to me that these kinds of surgeries are things that can wait until someone is at least 18.”
Sex Change Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer and You Should Know
Walt Heyer, the Witherspoon Istitute Public Discourse
“It is intellectually dishonest to ignore the facts that surgery never has been a medically necessary procedure for treating gender dysphoria and that taking cross-gender hormones can be harmful.”
Mistaken Identity
David Batty, the Guardian
“It’s taken eight years finally to get to grips with myself and the reality of my situation. I know I will never be anything other than a transsexual. As long as I live, I will never be a real woman – no matter how well I pass. Unless you really come to terms with this, the transsexual lifestyle can be unbearably hard. If we throw away our support by burying ourselves in ‘normal society’, it can also become unbearably lonely. So my message is, proceed with caution.”
Transgender Regret is Real Even if the Media Tell You Otherwise
Walt Heyer, the Federalist
“The media cover-up of regret and suicides isn’t a new phenomenon; it was in play 36 years ago. In 1979 Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld, who worked alongside the famous Dr. Harry Benjamin for six years administering hormone therapy to some 500 transgenders, spoke to an audience in New York about his experience: “There is too much unhappiness among people who have had the surgery. Too many of them end as suicides.”