Nov 13 2026 - 12:45pm
According to a recent study, 97% of trans-identified people who start taking cross-sex hormones in their teens do not come to regret it. For many this will be seen as a vindication of “gender medicine” for minors. The Washington Post gives an enthusiastic write-up of the news, quoting WPATH’s Scott Leibowitz, who claims it “adds to the growing evidence base that demonstrates individualized gender-affirming care can be beneficial for a young person”. But does it really?
Critics of the study have been quick to point out its flaws. A survey was sent to 698 former patients, with 376 not responding at all. Even if one were to consider this a typical response rate in academic research, the study mainly tracks participants five years after initial treatment, which starts at an average age of 16. For an intervention with lifelong implications — and one that is fundamentally based on redirecting the body’s lifecycle — this is no time at all.
There is a bigger problem, though. Both the study itself, and responses by news outlets and activists, work on the premise that regret is a reasonable measure of whether or not “gender-affirming” care helps or harms. I would argue that this is flawed. While it is true that gender medicine’s opponents have used the stories of detransitioners to bolster their case, this does not mean that no regret equals no problem. Indeed, even a 100% “no regrets” rate, based on responses from all 698 patients, would do nothing to validate “individualized gender-affirming care”. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of regret itself.
It’s a deeply painful feeling, which many of us do our best to ward off. We already know many of the extreme costs of taking cross-sex hormones. We also know that, whatever clinicians promise, it is not possible for human beings to change sex. If you have done something very damaging to your body, one which causes it permanent harm, you will be highly invested in believing the alternative would have been worse. Indeed, if I had harmed my body based on a lie, I’d work damn hard at maintaining that lie for the rest of my life. This would not mean that I was happy.
To experience regret involves keeping an open mind and being able to imagine an alternative pathway. Transactivists have been adept at ensuring young followers view the world in strictly binary terms. If you have been taught that having a female body involves identifying with feminine roles and stereotypes, you may well think “regret”’ means “realizing you have that feminine mindset after all”. Of course this is not what it needs to mean. It could mean “realizing that you could have been a gender non-conforming person without sacrificing your health”. But transactivism is a movement in which such thoughts are not tolerated.
Someone who started taking cross-sex hormones at 16 has no idea, five years on, how they would feel had they not started — the comfort they might have started to experience in their own body, realizing they can in fact wear what they like and love who they like, without any need to suffer. They have no meaningful point of comparison. It is ludicrous to compare regret rates to those for knee or gastric bypass surgery, as the Washington Post article does. Fleeing a life path because you lack the maturity and imagination to separate sexed bodies from gender hierarchies commits you to maintaining your own delusion.
All that this new survey shows is that a high proportion of young people who have harmed themselves believe they’d be in more pain had they not done so. Certainly, they might be in even more pain if they stopped telling themselves this. This is not a story of “benefits”. Nothing changes the physical devastation, all based on a lie. It’s a story of coping mechanisms now that the damage is already done.
