WASHINGTON—More than 70 people who formerly sought to change their gender, but later had a change of heart, met near Capitol Hill on March 12 to warn against body-altering procedures and urge politicians to make the process of reversal easier.
The event marked Detransitioner Awareness Day, an annual observance of a phenomenon that has been garnering attention in the media and government.
“For too long, your suffering has been leveraged for profit by unscrupulous surgeons and therapists,” Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson said.
Ferguson told the crowd that he was dedicated to investigating whether gender-change procedures are offered under false or misleading claims.
“That is ending under the administration of President [Donald] Trump.”
“[Gender intervention] doesn’t deliver what it promises, and it weakens the body, and it scrambles the brain,” Stella O’Malley said.
O’Malley is the founder of Genspect, an organization dedicated to increasing awareness of ceasing and reversing so-called gender transition.
Her speech was one of many seeking to draw attention to the issue on Detransitioner Awareness Day, which elevates stories of regret.
The issue of regret—and responsibility—surrounding medical gender interventions for minors has come to the fore recently, because of advocacy like Genspect’s, as well as a recent wave of lawsuits against medical practitioners who approved or performed such procedures.
Trial litigation analyst Kevin Keller told attendees that none of those suits has failed for “substantive material” reasons.
They have either been settled or, in many cases, dismissed because of the statute of limitations.
“The only case that’s been decided … just gave a $2 million verdict, which could have been a lot higher,” he said.
Keller was referencing the January verdict in the Fox Varian case, where a young woman sued her psychologist and surgeon after receiving a double mastectomy at age 16.
How common is that regret?
“Anybody who pretends to know is a charlatan,” O’Malley said.
That’s because the data is muddled; according to one study, O’Malley said, around 73 percent of detransitioners did not tell their clinic.
Different researchers also track the numbers differently.
Some don’t consider a person a “detransitioner” if they took hormones but never had genital surgery.
Meanwhile, some have suggested that such lawsuits may hinder physicians from providing these surgeries for those who seek them.
Madeline G. Chin, Research Fellow at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, said in 2023 that: “The targeting of physicians through these legal penalties impedes them from practicing evidence-based medicine and blocks patients from accessing standard of care treatments.”
A panel of medical experts told attendees that there is also hope after detransitioning, even if some procedures are irreversible.
Dr. Katy Hurd is seeking to found a clinic in Seattle dedicated to addressing the medical issues of detransitioners.
She hopes to begin telehealth service by fall 2026, followed by an in-person facility a year or so later, she said.
“I also need about $500,000—I say that a little tongue-in-cheek, but it’s actually true.”
The clinic won’t be able to charge clients for many of its services at first, she said, because insurance doesn’t always cover detransition procedures.
Dr. Kurt Miceli of Do No Harm said his organization will meet with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 17 to ask it to provide medical designation codes for detransition procedures.
That might ease insurance coverage and would provide data on how often these procedures are requested.
Jonni Skinner told the audience that he’d been diagnosed with autism at a young age and was frequently seeing therapists.
Around seventh grade, he realized he was gay, and that led to hostility from the men in his life and his religious community.
He alleged to have been misled by health care providers to pursue a so-called transition.
Some practitioners, he alleged, may have been caught up in ideology, but others had different motivations.
“This is my speculation, but I think some people saw this field and saw a way to make money, to make lots and lots of money,” he said.
