Transgender regret? Research challenges narratives about gender-affirming surgeries

Gender-affirming surgeries give transgender people the opportunity to align their bodies with their gender identity. Luke Dray/Getty Images by Harry Barbee, Johns Hopkins University; Bashar Hassan, Johns Hopkins University, and Fan Liang, Johns Hopkins University CC BY-SA 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...