Afraid Your Child Will Regret Their Transition? Let’s Talk About It!

Regret is one of the most complex human emotions. Sometimes it’s instantaneous, when unexpected consequences come knocking. Other times, regret is a tool — it helps us notice how much we’ve changed, often for the better. “The person I am today would not make the decision I made yesterday,” regret tells us, “though that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision.”

When it comes to transgender people, however, regret is a weapon. The possibility of transition regret is an omnipresent bogeyman that stops individuals from living authentically, empowers legislators to propose anti-trans legislation, and holds parents back from fully supporting their children. Articles like Pamela Paul’s New York Times op-ed about detransitioners are meant to further stoke the fires of fear many individuals have about transition regret.

As a transgender person who came out nearly 10 years ago, and as someone who now works as an advocate and support for parents of transgender young people, I’ve spoken to countless parents and individuals about their concerns about transition regret. I want to reassure you: You are not a bad person or a bad parent for worrying that someone might regret transitioning. This is a common fear that many parents, caregivers, and community members have, and I’d like to take an opportunity to talk through that fear without judgment. (And if you’re curious, legislative reporter Erin Reed has already systematically debunked each and every study and misleading statistic that Paul shares in her op-ed.)

In order to understand why we may fear transition regret and detransition, it’s helpful to think about our relationship with regret overall.

Often, regret is combined with other emotions and serves to teach us lessons about ourselves and our lives. We reflect on our early careers with regretful observations of professional blunders. We look back on our college days with a fond sort of regret, shaking our heads at the feats of sleep and nutrition that carried us through busy exam seasons. We carry gratitude and regrets from past relationships that help us learn how to show up as more compassionate friends and partners.

In many cases, we take risks because we understand that we’re moving toward something that feels worth taking risks for. But when we speak about transgender folks and their transitions, we typically focus on the negative.

If your child, your partner, or someone very close to you told you they wanted to go to medical school, you’d likely be thrilled for them. “Wow,” you’d say, “I’m so proud of you. I know it will be a lot of work, but I’m sure you can do it and you’ll be an amazing doctor.”

Then, the worry sets in. Perhaps you think about the average medical-school graduate owing $250,995 in total student loan debt. Maybe you heard about the grueling workloads and practically inhuman sleep schedules. The worry mounts; what if they regret it? In 2022, only 57% of physicians said they would choose to become physicians again. Is it really worth it?

Yet we don’t hear many stories about parents trying to stop their children from going to medical school. Why? Because, for many, the risk is deemed “worth it.” The question that frames the risk, in this instance, is “What do I stand to gain if medical school is the right choice?” The answer is clear: a high-paying salary, a stable career, a prestigious title. In many cases, we take risks because we understand that we’re moving toward something that feels worth taking risks for.

But when we speak about transgender folks and their transitions — both medical and social — we typically focus on the negative: “What if transitioning is the wrong choice?” Looking at the messages coming from the world around us, it’s no wonder that’s our biggest question. Beyond people like Paul and right-wing political figureheads spreading horror stories and disinformation about transition regret, most of our conversations around the trans community focus on pain, suffering, and oppression. Television shows and movies most frequently feature transgender characters for brief, traumatic plotlines — we serve as villains or victims, rarely making it to “happily ever after.” Even those in support of the transgender community heavily emphasize statistics about anxiety, depression, and suicidality in order to convey the urgency of providing support — or the consequences of withholding it — and while the statistics are all factually true, they leave us with an overall impression that to be transgender is to suffer in isolation.

While the most popular trans stories to tell these days are desperate pleas for people to see us as human, countless stories go untold of transgender people getting married, having kids, having grandkids (yes, we can get that old!), starting businesses, celebrating birthdays surrounded by chosen family, or just walking their dogs.

To many, the risks may feel overwhelming because we don’t actually know what we’re moving toward. What lies at the end of the tunnel? If we only support transgender people because we view living as a transgender person as a last resort, if we view them as walking down a dark and dangerous road with no joy in sight, of course the risks wouldn’t feel worth it. This is why it’s so crucial to focus our support on joy and to try to find examples of transgender people falling in love, finding community, and happily living their lives. This is why I make the focus of my writing and speaking on supporting trans youth the best practices for keeping joy at the center.

While the most popular trans stories to tell these days are desperate pleas for people to see us as human, countless stories go untold of transgender people getting married, having kids, having grandkids (yes, we can get that old!), starting businesses, celebrating birthdays surrounded by chosen family, or just walking their dogs. Stories of living mundane and unremarkable but unmistakably joyful lives. We are moving toward the potential for authenticity and community, toward feeling truly at home in our bodies.

The sad stories we hear about — anxiety, depression, and suicidality are all familiar friends of mine too — don’t come from our trans identities; they come from the way the world around us reacts to our trans identities. Suffering doesn’t need to “come with the territory” of coming out. For me, even if when I was 15, I knew that this would be how my community was treated, even if I knew then the laws that would be filed against me in my home in Missouri, even if I knew the easy target it would put on my back for journalists like Pamela Paul, I would still choose to live authentically as myself every time. And that’s because I know what I have moved toward.

Nearly 40% of adults regret their choice of college major.

Between 35 and 50% of first marriages in the United States end in divorce.

And 93% of people who bought a house in 2023 have regrets.

Yet not only do we encourage our loved ones to take these risks—we often expect them to! Why? Because they’re moving towards something we want for them, even if the potential risks can be high. While a litany of peer-reviewed studies point towards a 1% regret rate for gender-affirming surgery, that statistic alone is not enough to erase the fear of regret. It is only through learning to see the love and joy experienced by the transgender community that we will be able to understand that the risk of regret, however small, is worth it.

Ben V. Greene is a public speaker, LGBTQ+ inclusion consultant, openly transgender man, and the author of My Child Is Trans, Now What? A Joy-Centered Approach to Support. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri.