Transgender Regret? Research Challenges Narratives About Gender-Affirming Surgeries

It is difficult to understand the issue of trans surgeries? Is is some sort of mass medical malpractice and evil social engineering? Or are claims from the right just another attack on the LGBTQ+ community? This article from The Conversation from earlier this year puts the issue in perspective.

Authors: Harry Barbee, Assistant Professor of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins University. Bashar Hassan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Johns Hopkins University. Fan Liang, Assistant Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Johns Hopkins University.

You'll often hear lawmakers, activists and pundits argue that many transgender people regret their decision to have gender-affirming surgeries – a belief that's been fueling a wave of legislation that restricts access to gender-affirming health care.

Gender-affirming care can include surgical procedures such as facial reconstruction, chest or "top" surgery, and genital or "bottom" surgery.

But in an article we recently published in JAMA Surgery, we challenge the notion that transgender people often regret gender-affirming surgeries.

Evidence suggests that less than 1% of transgender people who undergo gender-affirming surgery report regret. That proportion is even more striking when compared to the fact that 14.4% of the broader population reports regret after similar surgeries.

For example, studies have found that between 5% and 14% of all women who receive mastectomies to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer say they regretted doing so. However, less than 1% of transgender men who receive the same procedure report regret.

These statistics are based on reviews of existing studies that investigated regret among 7,928 transgender individuals who received gender-affirming surgeries. Although some of this prior research has been criticized for overlooking the fact that regret can sometimes take years to develop, it aligns with the growing body of studies that show positive health outcomes among transgender people who receive gender-affirming care.