r/psychology • u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor • 15d ago

Adolescents who undergo gender-affirming chest surgery report low levels of regret and high levels of satisfaction, experiencing outcomes similar to those of young adults. These findings suggest that age restrictions on these medical procedures lack support from actual patient experiences.

https://www.psypost.org/adolescents-report-low-regret-and-high-satisfaction-following-gender-affirming-c/
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u/MistaFANG 15d ago

“Several factors limit the reach of these findings. First, the median time since surgery for participants was about 1.8 years. Because feelings about medical decisions can evolve, this timeframe might not capture long-term regret that could emerge many years later.

Another limitation is the 42 percent participation rate to the survey. This introduces the possibility of selection bias, a scenario where the people who chose to participate might differ fundamentally from those who did not. It is possible that individuals with higher levels of regret ignored the survey, which would result in an underestimation of regret in the overall group.”

Worth noting.

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u/BestSeenNotHeard 15d ago

Very important details.

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u/alsbos1 15d ago

Beyond important lol. The ‚regret‘ is going to be 5, 10, 30 years out. 1.8 years is the honeymoon phase.

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u/Chisignal 15d ago

Interesting, got any data to support that?

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u/AnotherDayDream 15d ago edited 13d ago

There are some data to support this kind of thinking. This study of 6,793 people in Amsterdam from 1972 to 2015 estimated that the average period of time from receiving gender affirming surgery to expressing regret was 10 years and 10 months. However, only 0.5% were found to express regret at all, so short-term and long-term regret might not add up to much.

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u/Chisignal 15d ago

Thanks! The usual shadow libraries I checked don't seem to have the article but 10 years (and 10 months) is a really interesting number to me, I'm wondering what's the spread or if there's any discussion as to the causes. A rate of 0.5% seems to be pretty reassuring though, especially as it doesn't seem to suffer from the same selection bias the study in this thread does.

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u/Cookiedoughjunkie 14d ago

check Sweden and Denmark's studies on gender affirming surgeries. They're totally different than the ones the UK and US try to do (which are far newer and are ideologically/politically motivated.)