'Transition regret' is extremely rare, according to study

This story originally appeared on Them.

A new study found that most transgender people who started gender-affirming care in their adolescence have no regrets regarding their transition years after the fact, despite widespread claims cited by conservatives to justify gender-affirming care bans for minors.

Published in JAMA Pediatrics on November 9 by a group of psychiatric and pediatric researchers, the study analyzed data from a sample of nearly 400 people who started gender-affirming hormone therapy such as estrogen or testosterone as youth, looking at their satisfaction rate in the years that followed. Researchers evaluated self-reported surveys submitted by the cohort between 2023 and 2025, which concluded that “overall decisional regret was very low.” In fact, 96.8% of participants reported that receiving hormone therapy was the right decision, while only 2.7% reported any regret over the decision, and even fewer (1.9%) reported feeling harmed by their decision.

While incredibly low overall, the decision regret score — which researchers used to evaluate participants on their feelings about having started hormone therapy — was higher among people who weren’t currently on hormone therapy compared to people who remained on it. Decision regret percentage was also higher among nonbinary people than binary trans people surveyed. The nominal regret reported by a small number of participants did not show a correlation with young age. It’s also important to recognize that having regret over hormone therapy does not inherently mean someone no longer identifies as transgender or nonbinary.

“The findings of this cohort study complement the literature documenting mental health benefits of [hormone thera[y], providing further support for existing standards of care for transgender and gender-diverse youth,” the researchers wrote.

The findings showed that the vast majority of participants expressed no regret over starting hormone therapy, negating the common conservative argument that transition is a phase that most young people will come to regret in their adulthood. Namely, the findings contradict the central argument used to justify bans on gender-affirming care for minors that have currently passed into law in 27 U.S. states. The data also undercuts the public disinformation campaigns that were used to sway voters on youth gender-affirming care bans during the midterm elections, in states like Colorado.

Instead, the data supports existing guidelines on treating trans youth, as well as years of studies that prove gender-affirming care saves lives. A 2022 study published in American Medical Association’s monthly open-access journal found that trans youth who received access to gender-affirming care had better mental health outcomes than those prevented from getting treatment. In 2021, a groundbreaking, large-scale study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health confirmed that access to gender-affirming care had overwhelmingly positive effects on trans youth.

As the data continues to show the overwhelmingly positive benefits of trans young people receiving gender-affirming care, as well as the incredibly low rates of regret over accessing these treatments, scientists are speaking out in favor of existing standards of treatment over mass care bans.

“The results provide further support for the existing standards of care, do not support efforts to categorically restrict or ban access to [hormone therapy] for [trans and gender diverse] youth, and caution against making assumptions about treatment satisfaction, regret, or harm based on demographic or clinical characteristics,” the researchers wrote.

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