Transitioning to a medical scandal
J.K. ROWLING HAS RECENTLY been accused of transphobia for expressing concern about growing numbers of young people, women especially, who regret gender transition. In one of the politer admonishments Rowling received, economics professor Deirdre McCloskey wrote in Prospect that “she is mistaken … to believe that a sound reason to oppose gender change in say, children, is the alleged ‘accounts of detransitioners’.” McCloskey (who is trans) also referred to stories of detransition as “fairytales”.
In the UK, minors wishing to change gender may be prescribed “puberty blockers” if they have already started puberty, and children from 10 years old have been treated in this way. Cross-sex hormones can be prescribed from age 16, and surgical procedures carried out from 18. Detransitioners — individuals who regret or seek to reverse a gender transition — have become a bone of contention in the transgender culture wars. They are portrayed by organisations such as Stonewall, the UK’s foremost LGBT charity, and Mermaids, a UK-based charity working with trans-identifying minors, as a vanishingly rare phenomenon and the object of faux concern from conservatives who instrumentalise it to restrict access to transition.
We take issue with such minimisation, and share Rowling’s concerns. Detransitioners’ accounts cannot accurately be described as “alleged” or “fairytales”. The potential severity of the consequences faced by detransitioners necessitates scrutiny of the current treatment protocols for trans-identifying children.
on the number of detransitioners is lacking, it is undeniable that there are people who have undergone a gender transition which they subsequently regret. A simple internet search reveals an abundance of examples. On social media
