How often do young people detransition?

Precise figures are difficult to give. The proportion appears to rise as more young people have started medical treatments at a young age. Research in this area is still limited in scope and quality.

Are the medical consequences of an early transition reversible upon detransition?

Partially. Stopping hormone therapy can reduce some effects, but other consequences — such as effects on fertility, bone density or voice change — can be permanent. Surgical procedures are not reversible.

Home › Young people › Detransition in young people

Detransition in young people

Q: Where can detransitioned young people turn?

In the Netherlands, specific services for detransitioners are limited. A GP or psychologist can help find appropriate support.

Detransition among young people is no longer a fringe phenomenon. It is a growing, internationally visible phenomenon — and the strongest real-world counter-argument to the idea that rapid medical transition in minors is a safe, considered approach. Those who could until recently call these young people "invisible" can no longer do so today; the group is growing, organising itself and speaking out.

What is detransition in young people?

Detransition means that someone who has undertaken a gender transition returns to the original sex — socially, medically or both. Social detransition is possible: name, clothing and pronouns can be reversed. Medical detransition is much more complicated. Hormone therapy has partly irreversible effects (voice, facial hair, body composition, fertility, sexual function). Surgical interventions — removed breasts, removed womb, reconstructed genitals — are never fully reversible; lost tissue is lost.

In young people who have transitioned at an early stage via puberty blockers and hormones, the consequences can be lifelong: infertility, lower bone density, permanently reduced sexual function, a body that has not developed either fully male or fully female.

The figures are rising — and systematic registration is lacking

For a long time the official message was: "less than 1% of people regret transition". That figure is derived from outdated studies in a completely different patient profile (adult biological men who chose surgery after decades of exploration) and is not applicable to the current population — adolescent girls who within a few years have gone from a self-diagnosis on TikTok to mastectomy.

Clinics treating young people often lose contact with patients who come to regret it; reporting regret to the organisation that facilitated the transition is for many impossible. Recent research (Boyd et al. 2022; systematic review 2024) suggests detransition rates orders of magnitude higher than the old 1% claim. Vandenbussche (2021), based on self-report by detransitioners, gives insight into motives. Vandenbussche (2021) via Springer.

Why do young people detransition?

The motives are revealing and speak for themselves. Frequently mentioned reasons, based on self-report and growing international research:

The underlying problems (trauma, autism, depression, eating disorder, internalised misogyny, lesbian self-rejection) turned out not to be "gender", but were left untreated in favour of transition.
The expected improvement did not occur; complaints remained or got worse.
Regret over irreversible interventions — mastectomy, loss of fertility, permanent voice change.
Recognition that the transition was partly inspired by peer influence and social media, not by a deep-seated need.
Identity confusion that resolved with time, or with better therapy.

The silenced suffering

Detransitioned young people are caught between two fires. The trans community often experiences their stories as a threat to its own position and silences them ("you were never really trans"). The social criticism of transition care sometimes uses them in polemics the young person themselves did not want to be part of. The result: shame, isolation, and difficulty finding suitable care. In the Netherlands specific services for detransitioners are virtually absent — care for the people the system has harmed is literally not set up.

Voices of detransitioners

Internationally organisations have emerged — Detrans Voices, Beyond Trans, post-trans networks — where detransitioners tell their story. Stories like those of Keira Bell, Chloe Cole, Prisha Mosley, Helena Kerschner and countless others are becoming known in ever wider circles. Their experience is identical: they were treated too young, too quickly, too affirmatively; their underlying problems were missed or ignored; their regret comes later, often with lasting physical damage. In the Netherlands HP/De Tijd published a key interview in which Dutch detransitioners told their story. HP/De Tijd: "The transition has ruined my life".

What this says about paediatric transition care

Detransition is not a negligible "collateral" — it is a direct consequence of a care model that affirms too quickly, diagnoses too little, neglects co-morbidity and wrongly deploys suicide threats as an argument against caution. A growing number of countries have drawn conclusions from this: Cass Review (UK, 2024), SBU (Sweden), COHERE (Finland), policy revisions in Norway and Denmark. The Netherlands — the country of origin of the original Dutch Protocol — is lagging in this.

How often does detransition occur in young people?

Which consequences of transition are irreversible?

Where can detransitioned young people turn?

What can I do as a parent of a child considering detransition?