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The hysteria about gender detransition threatens to wall off the public from the scientific truth and the treatment they need. From conservative news outlets to massive echo chambers on social media, from eye-catching headlines to somber pictures of tearful teens, stories about a person's journey first to identifying as transgender then re-identifying as their assigned sex abound.
Not only is the provenance of these stories questionable, but the numbers just don't support them. The rate of regret in the transgender or gender non-binary population after gender-affirmation surgeries is under 1 percent. Rather than gender-related regret, more than half of these individuals reported discrimination and worries about their safety.
Furthermore, it is important to recognize the difference between detransition and retransition, or continued transition. These terms have been used to describe the cessation or reversal of medical transition. However, detransition fails to honor the spectrum of reasons why transgender youth may seek to halt or reverse treatment.
Instead of wishing to revert to their gender identity before transition, transgender youth may decide to re-affirm their previously expressed gender identity, or affirm a non-binary gender identity, as a next step in their gender exploration journey—concepts more accurately captured by the terms retransition or continued transition.
A gender journey, just like the journey one takes to explore every other facet of self-identity, can be straightforward or meandering. Supporting youth on their gender journey is as important to their wellbeing and growth as providing them the space to develop their character, discover their values, and experience life in all its vivid colors.
Recent cases of anti-transgender attacks have framed the medical care delivered to transgender youth as child abuse, questioning the scientific legitimacy of treating patients "too young" to understand their gender identity. However, epidemiological data from several countries indicate that gender dysphoria in children and adolescents is far more common than scientists had initially anticipated. Recent research on early childhood transitions also reveals that an overwhelming majority (over 97 percent) of youth who identify as transgender or non-binary continued to do so five years after their initial social transition.
On the other hand, much research has underlined that withholding medical care for children and adolescents who experience gender dysphoria can be truly harmful to their wellbeing. In addition, studies on the long-term outcome of gender-affirming treatments (e.g., puberty suppression and hormonal treatment) indicate that young people with gender dysphoria may benefit substantially with regard to psychosocial outcomes and quality of life.
Over 1.6 million adults and youth identify as transgender in the United States. Transgender health care should not be a political debate, not a philosophical discussion, not a Twitter thread, nor a media controversy. Its availability allows people to live a safe and healthy life.
What right has anybody to question someone's right to exist? To wake up every morning unafraid, knowing that they are accepted and loved for who they are? Transgender youth have faced with too many barriers to care. By sensationalizing the notion of detransition while blatantly ignoring the scientific facts, and by allowing lawmakers to interfere with medical decision making, we are risking the health and safety of more than a million human beings. They are not going away. They have always been here. It is urgent for the public to realize that every click, every tale retold, every stance we take on transgender and non-conforming advocacy, has tangible and immediate real-life consequences.
The remedy is obvious—give our children and youth the space to explore who they are.
Wisteria Deng, M.S. is a clinical psychology therapist at the Yale Gender Program.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
