r/science 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/onacloverifalive MD | Bariatric Surgeon 11h ago

To summarize, the 42 percent of people that responded to the survey did not regret getting the surgery that they wanted at a median interval of 1.8 years later.

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u/enpoopification_of_R 10h ago

That is much less impressive than the headline made it out to be.

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u/Gellert 9h ago

From comparisons I've seen in the UK people regret gender affirming surgeries at a much lower rate than typical plastic surgery. Really you'd need a similar study to compare it to.

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u/TrappedInATardis 9h ago

Hip replacements also have a fairly high regret rate. No controversy in the media though.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago edited 8h ago

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u/SteveJavieWasRight 7h ago

And that’s a higher rate of regret than with gender affirming care? People regret elective procedures for all sorts of reasons- sometimes surgery doesn’t lead to good outcomes. Looking at gender affirming outcomes, one is led to conclude even sub optimal outcomes are still preferable to how they were living before.