Penna Dexter

It’s hard to know the rate at which people who obtain gender transition surgeries ultimately seek to detransition. The detransition rate has hovered at around two percent. But two trans academics, Daniela Valdes and Kinnon MacKinnon, point out that “older studies may not adequately predict outcomes for today’s far larger, more diverse trans and gender-questioning population.”

In their article in The Atlantic entitled, “Take Detransitioners Seriously,” the two researchers argue that detransitioning is not “a negligible issue.”

We have been hearing from quite a few detransitioners lately.

Here’s one of their stories as told to FOX News and reported in Family Research Council’s news publication, The Washington Stand. For privacy, the detransitioner calls himself ‘Kobe.” Kobe says he was a “feminine boy” and that he was experiencing “mental health” issues. Had it not been for the pervasive gender ideology online, he says he would not have pursued a gender transition.

Kobe began taking puberty blockers at age 13 and estrogen at age 16. To get them, he heeded online advice to “play the suicide card.” He received “castration surgery” at age 19. “But then,” he says, “everything started to crack, and I couldn’t ignore the complications. I couldn’t ignore that I mutilated myself pretty much with the permission of a psychiatrist.” Because Kobe took puberty blockers and started estrogen so young, he mostly skipped male puberty. He has breasts, female hips, no gonads, a smaller body, and more of a feminine skull. As to the hoped-for improvement in his mental health, he says, “it didn’t do anything.” He has many complications including urination issues caused by his castration surgery and severe back pain which he fears is osteoporosis. “I just wasted so much time,” he says, “and all I really did was become a medical patient for life.”

Gender detransitioners like Kobe who were in no position to consent to such mutilation, are now to be commended for their courage in standing up against it.