Definitions of Detransition and Regret

Detransition is not a clearly defined concept.

Detransition

Detransition is not a clearly defined concept. It may refer to socially returning to one’s original gender role, stopping hormone treatment, undergoing restorative surgery, reversing one’s legal gender registration, or a combination of these.

Regret

Regret is a separate category. Someone may stop transitioning without experiencing regret (for example, because of health reasons or social pressure), while someone else may regret transitioning without fully returning. Scientific literature uses various measurement instruments, making comparisons difficult.

Importance for statistics

The chosen definition has a major influence on reported percentages. Regret following surgery is often reported at a lower rate than detransition in general. From a policy perspective, making these distinctions is important for drawing meaningful conclusions.

Related concepts

Three concepts are often conflated in the literature. Desistance is the disappearance of gender dysphoria in a child or young person before medical treatment has begun. Detransition is stopping or reversing a transition that has already been initiated. Regret is the feeling that the transition was a mistake. In 2021, Spanish researcher Pablo Expósito-Campos proposed distinguishing between people who stop because they no longer feel transgender and those who stop for another reason, such as health problems, costs or rejection, while their identity has not changed. This distinction also appears in the 2023 literature review on detransition, of which he is the lead author. What research into desistance meant for one person can be read in Desistance en mij on mijngender.nl.

How clinics measure regret

Many of the low percentages come from research conducted by clinics that use a narrow definition. In the Amsterdam study, conducted by Amsterdam UMC, someone was counted as experiencing regret only when they returned to the same clinic after having their gonads removed, expressed regret and began taking hormones of their original sex. Those who did not return, sought help elsewhere or experienced regret without starting hormones again were not included in the count. In that study, more than ten years passed on average between treatment and expressing regret.

Implications for the debate

Those who say regret is rare and those who say detransition is common are therefore often talking about different things, and both may be able to cite a study. For every statistic, check what was counted, in which group and over what period. See international detransition statistics, detransition statistics and what is detransition. A more detailed explanation of the difference can be found in the article regret versus detransition on ikbentrans.nl.