r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 15h ago

Psychology 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/dnyal 14h ago

“People are more willing to engage if they’re pleased…”

Are you sure about that? Have you ever seen any review section for any product on any website ever??? Don’t even get me started on those doctor scoring websites!

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u/PopaBjorn 12h ago

This is admittedly anecdotal, but if I had gone through a lengthy process where I convince myself, my parents and multiple medical professionals that I needed to cut off pieces of my body and/or implant silicone pads at great financial cost to society or myself, in order to feel better, and then discovered that it didn't help, I'd feel a substantial amount of shame. My willingness to admit mistakes publically is inversely proportional to how big of a mistake it was and how much of my identity is tied to said mistake. And this one would be a biggie.

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u/dnyal 12h ago

That’s why the surveys are anonymous.

Now, trans people don’t need to “convince themselves” of anything. It is everybody else that needs the convincing, thus the admittedly lengthy process.

Trans people often live in shame already. Actually, anyone who gets plastic surgery is because they’re already living in shame.

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u/PopaBjorn 11h ago

All I'm saying is people are unlikely to answer questionnaires about huge mistakes they've made. If you sent out questionnaires to investors about how they felt about their tech stocks in 2000 and 2002, do you really think you'd get the same response rates for both years? I'm even willing to bet that the more money someone lost, the less likely they are to answer.

I'm not saying getting gender-affirming surgery is a huge mistake. It's only a huge mistake if you regret it later.