Approximately 1 in 7 surgical patients reported decision-making regret on the part of the patients themselves. The factors related to regret were related to both the patient and the procedure. This patient seeks additional medical treatment after initial gender-affirming procedures and may express an evolving gender identity or request greater surgical consolidation of their identity.
Consider, for example, a well-known study in which extremely low regret rates were found when searching the records for mentions of regret and hormonal reversion, or of studies that used equally weak methodologies to assert that there was little regret for surgery.
While access to gender-affirming health care has expanded, these achievements are continually threatened by several independent organizations, religious and political groups that question the legitimacy of this aspect of health care, despite an increasing amount of scientific literature supporting the medical need for many affirmative surgical and non-surgical interventions. While both regret and requests for surgical reversion are rare, the need to develop guidelines is critical to providing high-quality care to this patient population, regardless of prevalence.Of the 62 patients who underwent surgical reversal procedures, at the time of the initial gender-affirming surgery, 19 were identified as trans men, 37 as trans women, and 6 as non-binary patients. Of the 46 respondents, 61% of those surveyed found that at least one patient regretted having made the surgical transition or a patient who had undergone a reversal procedure, regardless of whether the initial surgery had been performed the respondent or other surgeon. Clinical studies conducted on patients and doctors participating in elective surgical treatment were included. Other criticisms and concerns have also been expressed about this study, but it is still frequently cited for demonstrating that regret rates for transitional surgery are low.
Other vital decisions, such as having children and getting a tattoo, have regret rates of 7 and 16.2%, respectively. With the reduction of stigmatization of non-binary gender identity and the ability to access non-binary affirmative surgical options, this type of regret can be less common in the future. While the surgical regret rate is low, many patients may suffer from many forms of “mild regret” after surgery. Retransition is a phenomenon in which a patient, after a surgical reversion procedure, later feels that this reversion was incorrect and seeks to reaffirm their previously expressed gender identity.
Respondents were asked about their patients' gender identification, their history of surgical transition, and the reasons why the patient requested reversal surgery. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, if repentance and surgical reversal procedures are not studied, these issues will be left to interpretation and may not reflect patients' actual experience. One respondent indicated that she found between 10 and 20 patients who regretted their surgical gender transition.
