Why Detransitioners Aren’t An Argument Against Trans Healthcare

Alexander Petrovnia
2 min readMar 15, 2021

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To be clear; the problem has nothing to do with detransitioned people themselves. They have every right to make personal medical and social decisions for themselves. The problem is the transphobes who realize detransition is a thing and decide to try to “save” or “restore” trans people in an evangelistic and abusive campaign of coercion. The problem is the transphobes who weaponize detransition stories against people considering transition. Trans healthcare, and detransition healthcare, are bodily autonomy issues. They are feminist issues. They are queer issues. Detransitioned people don’t deserve to have their experiences weaponized against others. #DetransitionAwarenessDay

For anyone tempted to use detransition to violate trans rights, here’s some data.

Less than 1% of people who undergo medical transition choose to detransition later.

Tw suicide, self harm

Transition healthcare saves lives of those at incredibly high risks of suicide + self harm. “67% of transitioning people thought more about suicide before transitioning whereas only 3% thought about suicide more after their transition (Bailey et al., 2014).”

https://www.suicideinfo.ca/resource/transgender-people-suicide/

Transition healthcare is medicine. Every medical intervention has its risks. Other medical interventions aren’t deemed “too risky” or “excessively dangerous” because a small subset of the population experiences adverse effects.

If you’ve ever seen a drug effects warning, you know that the way we as a society deal with these risks is to inform patients about possible risks, and then respect their own personal medical decisions. Trans people should be no different.

Those who have had adverse effects from medical interventions associated with transition deserve support, as with any other victim of a failed medical intervention. They don’t deserve to be used in your crusades against trans people attempting to access lifesaving care.

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Alexander Petrovnia
Alexander Petrovnia

Written by Alexander Petrovnia

Poet, writer, political commentator, grassroots organizer, scientist. Kind not nice. "Realist of a larger reality." Transmasc. Appalachian. Disabled. Mad. 28.

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