I am in total agreement that understanding detrans research requires empathy, lots and lots of empathy. IF someone in transition is presumed to be vulnerable, imagine the mindset and state of vulnerability of someone who "dares" to detran. My question is expanded on below, but how is regret different from detrans, and I mean real regret. Detrans research seems to be missing out on the sub-population with no voice?
The question of weaponization is a dishonest framing. This is the Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, nine-year, $10 million error. You can't shield people from the result of your research IF you don't like the result. This is something trans related research seems to suffer from and such dishonesty will send transition back into the dark days. The ethical job of the researcher is not to cultivate a desired result. It is to speak honestly and find answers to substantive and meaningful questions. I appreciate a post-modernist will spin out of control if I say "find truth". It is about having a better understanding of a problem - hence if the result doesn't prove the hypothesis an ethical researcher ponders and explains why, one should never run from a result or fear weaponization.
SO WHAT: Where does this leave us with detrans research? Is it finding truth? Sometimes it feels like we are trying to create as many sub-populations as possible to obscure the obvious? People detransition, some never get to detransition because the regret is so severe.. As a matter of trauma survival it seems so many will try to find a positive to transition. Its how they survive and truly cope. In some respects like Stockholm Syndrome we find a way to survive. Ultimately, it becomes difficult to honestly parse out the "why" people detrans. It almost feels irrelevant in the bigger picture. It is all the more corrupt when we are describing individuals that socially transitioned at a young age given they had no way to comprehend what they were doing and where it would lead.
MY QUESTION: Why not capture those who can no longer speak? Case in point, two adolescents committed suicide during the *Chen et al (2023). Is it simply an acceptable number "lost to follow up"? Chen (2023) certainly appears to treat it that way. So how are the dead accounted for? Given two individuals never got to the point of detrans, are they excluded from the one-percent? We seem to be missing a growing segment of the population that have suffered a transition outcome far greater than detrans, I looked at a review of the UKs Tavistock GIDS initiated, intended as a follow up study to the famous "Dutch protocol research". Their puberty blocker study initiated in 2010 during a somewhat less turbulent time. By the time the study began in 2011 it had enrolled 44 children aged between 12 and 15 and the study ran over a three year period. The study was reluctantly released nine years after it started and findings confirmed blockers were not "a pause" but part of a pathway given 43 out of 44 participants moved on to cross-sex hormones. There is nothing to fear in this finding; however, the study went unpublished for years. When it was revealed we learned a more disturbing pre-post outcome. After a year on blockers, ‘a significant increase was found in the first item on the Youth Self Report questionnaire: “I deliberately try to hurt or kill self”. This was cross reference with parental feedback. While this raises ethical questions ultimately it seems there are now 43 people that would make an ideal longitudinal study group to capture detrans rates and potentially an even worse outcome.
* Chen, D., Berona, J., Chan, Y.-M., Ehrensaft, D., Garofalo, R., Hidalgo, M. A., Rosenthal, S. M., Tishelman, A. C., & Olson-Kennedy, J. (2023). Psychosocial functioning in transgender youth after 2 years of hormones. New England Journal of Medicine, 388(3), 240–250.
You have hit so many nails on the head here. And what a great idea to attempt to follow up the 43 people from the GIDS puberty blocker study.
And I’m really not sure why the NHS seems unable to follow up ALL the former GIDS patients to find out how they are faring - physically, emotionally, psychologically, and socially.
Thanks for taking time to read the comment. I really want to know how many are alive from the initial group in the 2011 study. I am sure we are now into the thousands that have been put on this path. To suggest continuing further is reprehensible, study or no study.
Hannah Barnes touched on this in a BBC article published on 18 Sep 23. Of the original 44 individuals involved in the 2011 study, after 12 months: 34% saw mental health deteriorate and 29% improved. This infers 71% saw no improvement yet they continued??
Carmichael waited until 2021 to publish this. That is itself reprehensible.
I am in total agreement that understanding detrans research requires empathy, lots and lots of empathy. IF someone in transition is presumed to be vulnerable, imagine the mindset and state of vulnerability of someone who "dares" to detran. My question is expanded on below, but how is regret different from detrans, and I mean real regret. Detrans research seems to be missing out on the sub-population with no voice?
The question of weaponization is a dishonest framing. This is the Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, nine-year, $10 million error. You can't shield people from the result of your research IF you don't like the result. This is something trans related research seems to suffer from and such dishonesty will send transition back into the dark days. The ethical job of the researcher is not to cultivate a desired result. It is to speak honestly and find answers to substantive and meaningful questions. I appreciate a post-modernist will spin out of control if I say "find truth". It is about having a better understanding of a problem - hence if the result doesn't prove the hypothesis an ethical researcher ponders and explains why, one should never run from a result or fear weaponization.
SO WHAT: Where does this leave us with detrans research? Is it finding truth? Sometimes it feels like we are trying to create as many sub-populations as possible to obscure the obvious? People detransition, some never get to detransition because the regret is so severe.. As a matter of trauma survival it seems so many will try to find a positive to transition. Its how they survive and truly cope. In some respects like Stockholm Syndrome we find a way to survive. Ultimately, it becomes difficult to honestly parse out the "why" people detrans. It almost feels irrelevant in the bigger picture. It is all the more corrupt when we are describing individuals that socially transitioned at a young age given they had no way to comprehend what they were doing and where it would lead.
MY QUESTION: Why not capture those who can no longer speak? Case in point, two adolescents committed suicide during the *Chen et al (2023). Is it simply an acceptable number "lost to follow up"? Chen (2023) certainly appears to treat it that way. So how are the dead accounted for? Given two individuals never got to the point of detrans, are they excluded from the one-percent? We seem to be missing a growing segment of the population that have suffered a transition outcome far greater than detrans, I looked at a review of the UKs Tavistock GIDS initiated, intended as a follow up study to the famous "Dutch protocol research". Their puberty blocker study initiated in 2010 during a somewhat less turbulent time. By the time the study began in 2011 it had enrolled 44 children aged between 12 and 15 and the study ran over a three year period. The study was reluctantly released nine years after it started and findings confirmed blockers were not "a pause" but part of a pathway given 43 out of 44 participants moved on to cross-sex hormones. There is nothing to fear in this finding; however, the study went unpublished for years. When it was revealed we learned a more disturbing pre-post outcome. After a year on blockers, ‘a significant increase was found in the first item on the Youth Self Report questionnaire: “I deliberately try to hurt or kill self”. This was cross reference with parental feedback. While this raises ethical questions ultimately it seems there are now 43 people that would make an ideal longitudinal study group to capture detrans rates and potentially an even worse outcome.
* Chen, D., Berona, J., Chan, Y.-M., Ehrensaft, D., Garofalo, R., Hidalgo, M. A., Rosenthal, S. M., Tishelman, A. C., & Olson-Kennedy, J. (2023). Psychosocial functioning in transgender youth after 2 years of hormones. New England Journal of Medicine, 388(3), 240–250.
https:// doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa220629
You have hit so many nails on the head here. And what a great idea to attempt to follow up the 43 people from the GIDS puberty blocker study.
And I’m really not sure why the NHS seems unable to follow up ALL the former GIDS patients to find out how they are faring - physically, emotionally, psychologically, and socially.
Thanks for taking time to read the comment. I really want to know how many are alive from the initial group in the 2011 study. I am sure we are now into the thousands that have been put on this path. To suggest continuing further is reprehensible, study or no study.
Hannah Barnes touched on this in a BBC article published on 18 Sep 23. Of the original 44 individuals involved in the 2011 study, after 12 months: 34% saw mental health deteriorate and 29% improved. This infers 71% saw no improvement yet they continued??
Carmichael waited until 2021 to publish this. That is itself reprehensible.