Hi, welcome to Gender Analysis. In the popular imagination, there are few subjects as fascinating
as transitioning. It’s an intensely personal decision to do something most people never
even contemplate, undergoing such a seemingly radical transformation both physically and
socially. And our increasing visibility has inspired a moment of cultural reckoning, along
with endless media coverage of our experiences. So, in the midst of this fascination, what
happens when someone transitions back?
News stories about trans people are sometimes accompanied by the accounts of those who claim
to regret their choice to transition. These examples serve to evoke doubt about whether
trans people can be trusted to make such decisions. They raise the possibility that some may change
their minds later after having made potentially permanent changes. Perhaps the most frequently
cited story is the case of Walt Heyer. Walt was assigned male, transitioned, and lived
as a woman for 8 years before choosing to resume living as a man. He believes that he
was not actually experiencing gender dysphoria, but rather a dissociative disorder due to
childhood abuse, and feels his original psychologist should not have allowed him to undergo transition
surgeries. But beyond simply sharing his own experience, Heyer believes everyone should
avoid transitioning, and hosts a website, SexChangeRegret.com, with stories from others
who allegedly regret their transitions. Many of these stories appear to be authentic, and
the fact that some people choose to discontinue transitioning shouldn’t surprise us. Every
person makes their choice to transition based on a variety of individual factors. We each
have our own needs, expectations, and goals, and we exercise our own judgment. And there
are those who do transition but find that, for whatever reason, this isn’t what’s
best for them. They may have mixed feelings about its impact on their lives, feel that
particular medical treatments ultimately weren’t right for them, or consider themselves their
assigned gender and return to living as such. Some do express a deep and genuine regret
over these experiences. I know of such people – I’m friends with some of them. But the
examples Heyer cites are not a unified bloc. They are not all stories of lifelong anguish
and painful consequences, and when we look at what many of these people are actually
saying, it’s clear that their feelings are much too varied and complex to be reduced
to “regret”.
Heyer’s website hosts several exclusive stories, and links to numerous other articles
referencing additional cases. I followed those links, which include articles by Heyer and
Stella Morabito at TheFederalist.com, and then followed up on the links in those articles.
This led to more stories on Morabito’s personal blog, Lynn Conway’s personal site, a resource
page by the anti-trans group Ensuring Fairness, and articles in The Guardian and Standpoint
magazine. After identifying each case cited in these articles as an example of regret,
there were 30 individuals in total. Some of these stories try to suggest that they draw
these examples from a massive but largely invisible group. Morabito implies that regret
may be common, saying:
"The transgender lobby actively polices and suppresses discussion of sex-change regret,
and claims it’s rare (no more than '5 percent.')"
She further suggests that “sex-change regret is far deeper and broader than reported”.
In reality, the supposedly revealing cases reported in these articles are largely unverifiable,
misrepresented, and very dated. Rather than easily dipping into an allegedly substantial
pool of examples, these stories cite the same cases over and over, many of which are from
the 1990s and early 2000s. Eight of these examples are either from completely anonymous
sources or unidentifiable pseudonyms like “M”, “Gregory”, and “Dr. Stu”.
These make up more than a quarter of the cited stories.
Among the remaining verifiable cases, it’s clear that their experiences have been falsely
portrayed and oversimplified. Josef Kirchner, who was profiled in an MSNBC documentary,
later said that he did not regret the experience of living as a woman or even having genital
surgery. He also noted that he “had a lot of fun along the way”. Joel Nowak, who hosts
the site Retransition.org, stated in a recent interview that he does not regret transitioning.
Instead, he feels it was a decision he “needed to make at that time”. YouTube user shipwrecksilence
states in their two most recent videos that they’re “really glad” they transitioned,
and they wouldn’t be comfortable with themselves if they hadn’t done it. They also ask not
to have their experience cited as a reason to avoid transitioning. Marissa Dainton chose
to go back to living as a man, but still found herself wanting to be a woman. She feels she
was not originally misdiagnosed, saying: “I had to become a woman again.” Retired tennis
player Renée Richards clearly expresses her lack of regret in a New York Times interview.
When asked if she regrets having surgery, she replied: “The answer is no.” Out of
22 named individuals cited in these articles, five of them do not express regret about transitioning,
and three are even appreciative of the experience. To represent their stories as clear-cut cases
of regret is extremely misleading. If regret is so common, what need is there for this
obvious distortion?
When someone does regret transitioning, it’s worth examining the reasons why. Several of
these articles generalize such cases to argue that transitioning isn’t appropriate for
anyone in the first place. But in these examples, transition is acknowledged as the proper choice
for them – and this choice is unfortunately complicated by external factors. YouTube user
Kristofwales posted a video about detransitioning, stating that they don’t feel like they’re
in a safe enough environment, while encouraging others who do want to transition. They also
say they might transition at a later time. Sandra MacDougall’s story was recounted
in The Scotsman, which states that “she wishes she was still male”, and explains
that this is largely due to attitudes in her community. She describes her experiences of
being verbally and physically abused in public, sexually assaulted by several men, and disowned
by her family. Her chief complaint about transitioning is that it came with extremely difficult social
consequences imposed on her by others. Matthew Attonley is described by the Daily Mail as
feeling that “she has never been fully accepted as a real woman”. He says he doesn’t “look
like a proper woman” and believes he can’t have “an actual female body”. This doesn’t
indicate that transitioning was inherently the wrong course of action for him. Instead,
it suggests that he may have benefited from more transitioning if it were possible for
him to look as he wanted. Ria Cooper, tastefully heralded as “Britain’s youngest sex swap
patient” in the Daily Mail, says “my decision has alienated my family”. Cooper also feels
unable to find love as a woman, and believes living as male will address these issues.
Once again, this is a case of someone whose dissatisfaction is largely due to being mistreated
by others. This is hardly a condemnation of transitioning, because transition treatments
aren’t meant to make cis people stop being assholes. It’s also worth mentioning that
Cooper still uses Twitter under the name Ria Cooper and has been posting pictures in unambiguously
feminine attire from 2013 to the present. Out of 17 named individuals who do express
regrets, four have done so for reasons other than transitioning being simply wrong for
them. If we omit these, we’re left with 13 cases cited in this set of articles, having
voiced their regrets over a span of more than 20 years. This is not an especially large
number. It’s clear why Heyer, Morabito, and others promoting a narrative of regret
have to reinterpret and recycle these stories: they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
These anecdotes are few and flimsy, and those who stir up fears of regret have no excuse
for relying on them so heavily. Rigorous studies on transition outcomes and regrets have been
available for years. In a 2002 study of 232 trans women who had received genital reconstruction
from the same surgeon, none were consistently regretful, and 6% felt regret sometimes. Eight
respondents were regretful because of inadequate surgical outcomes, five were regretful because
of social and family issues, and two occasionally returned to living as men on a temporary basis.
This pattern is consistent with the personal accounts we’ve seen citing social difficulties
or shortcomings of transition treatment. Another study in 2005 found that out of 162 trans
adults, only one reported that she would choose not to transition again, and another had some
regrets but would choose to transition again. Five participants only felt regrets during
treatment, and did not want to return to living as their assigned gender. A study in 2006
similarly found that out of 62 trans people who had undergone surgery, one woman said
she occasionally regretted it, and continued to live as a woman. And in 2009, a study of
50 trans women who had received genital reconstruction found that only two felt regret sometimes.
It’s no surprise that Walt Heyer has to reach so far to find so few cases of regret:
all of the available research on the subject indicates that this is extremely uncommon.
This notion of regret invites cis people to imagine what it would be like to make such
a mistake and end up “trapped in the wrong body”, as the cliché goes. This imaginary
exercise is all too real for the trans people who are discouraged from pursuing treatment
by those who insist on exaggerating this remote possibility. I’ve examined Walt Heyer’s
work because my friends get emails from their unsupportive family members citing his website
as if it’s reliable. He and others portray themselves as an embattled minority pitted
against cultural orthodoxy, but the truth is that he is the orthodoxy. The social forces
discouraging us from transitioning are powerful and incessant. The penalty for being true
to ourselves is often the loss of basic inclusion in the world: we lose our friends and family,
our jobs and our homes, our respect and our dignity, and even our safety. We’re questioned
about why we would choose to transition and whether we might regret it – but the more
relevant question is why so many would choose to hurt us for this, and why they have no
regrets about it. If you’re worried that trans people will make poor decisions about
their lives, trying to persuade them with false information or violent consequences
is not going to help them make better choices. What does help is providing open and supportive
environments where they can see themselves more clearly without having their self-understanding
invalidated by everyone around them. I spent years exploring my gender at my own pace before
transitioning. I could do this because my family respected who I was and didn’t try
to push me in their own directions. And from the day I finally decided to transition, it
was only two months before I started treatment. These were the choices that were right for
me, and I’m better off for having had the opportunity to decide this for myself. So
please, don’t make us regret who we are.
I’m Zinnia Jones. Thanks for watching, and tune in next time for more Gender Analysis.