(NewsNation) — Regret among transgender and gender-diverse people who receive gender-affirming care is rarer than believed, according to a new study.
Three researchers at Johns Hopkins University are urging the medical community to dismiss the belief — often held among conservatives — that people who undergo the surgery regret it later in life.
That argument is not supported by science, according to the article published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Surgery.
Researchers Harry Barbee, Ph.D.; Bashar Hassan, M.D.; and Fan Liang, M.D., conducted a retrospective look at the limited studies examining gender-affirming care and found that the “regret rate” is less than 1%.
“This rate of surgical regret among (transgender and gender diverse) patients appears to be substantially lower than rates of surgical regret following similar procedures among the broader population, including cisgender individuals,” the authors wrote in the report summary.
“In fact, 1 systematic review found that the average prevalence of surgical regret was 14.4% among all research studies analyzed, which the authors suggested was relatively low,” they added.
The idea that people regret undergoing gender-affirming surgery has been used by lawmakers across the country to justify bans on the procedure. There are a total of 22 states that have laws restricting gender-affirming care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, though some of those are being challenged in court.
On Friday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would have banned gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth. However, the bill could still go into effect if Ohio’s House of Representatives and Senate override the governor’s veto with a three-fifths vote.
Still, the governor noted he will proceed with drafting administrative rules to ban gender-affirming surgery on minors. DeWine said he is also instructing his administration to collect data on trans health care and to combat clinics that don’t provide adequate mental health counseling.
The research from Johns Hopkins aligns with best practice guidelines from multiple medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association.
The researchers suggest that the low regret rate may be a reason people decide to have the surgery in the first place.
“That reduction in regret also may (be) due to careful implementation of existing evidence-based, multidisciplinary guidelines and standards of care for those who are (transgender or gender diverse), such as requiring a well-documented history of gender dysphoria (feeling mismatch between biological sex and gender identity),” according to a news release from Johns Hopkins.
