1. Recruitment blind spots hide people who change their minds
Most long-term follow-up studies recruit new participants through lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans support groups or university “Pride” lists. Once someone stops identifying as trans they usually walk away from those spaces, so the call for volunteers never reaches them. A young woman who now calls herself “desisted” says: “Personally, as someone who left the community long ago, none of these liberal studies have found me. A conservative study did.” – Ok_Dog_202 source [citation:9bcf83b5-2153-4605-b7bd-de9a43e56715]. If the people most likely to feel regret are invisible to the researchers, the published satisfaction rates can look misleadingly high.

2. Self-report surveys invite social-pressure answers
The same studies usually ask participants to rate their own happiness by questionnaire. Because many people have invested money, time and identity in the transition, admitting disappointment feels like admitting personal failure. One detrans man explains the trap: “Cognitive dissonance works against reporting regret (acknowledged or not). How would one know the reported story of regret is even true?” – ValiMeyer source [citation:e6ea2e5e-dfa3-4bd0-8d8e-9b6589dba1cb]. When everyone around you cheers each step of the journey, ticking the “very satisfied” box is far easier than saying “I think I made a mistake.”

3. Career fear keeps uncomfortable questions out of print
University departments, medical journals and grant committees know that questioning transition can bring angry protests and bad press. A detrans man who watched it happen writes: “Imagine what it’d be like to be a professor… If the results conflicted with the narrative… that is a career-destroying move.” – Ok_Dog_202 source [citation:9bcf83b5-2153-4605-b7bd-de9a43e56715]. Because few academics can risk their livelihoods, studies that might show higher regret rates are quietly shelved while upbeat articles sail through review.

4. Publication bias turns science into a one-sided story
Even when a team manages to finish a project that highlights complications or rising detransition numbers, journals often reject it or demand heavy revisions. Another woman describes the pattern: “If one was willing & able to resist the tremendous forces against researching trans regret, it would be forthwith attacked & buried.” – ValiMeyer source [citation:e6ea2e5e-dfa3-4bd0-8d8e-9b6589dba1cb]. The result is a scientific record stacked with reports of success, while evidence of harm remains hard to find.

Conclusion
Taken together, these voices show that the research picture is not neutral: selective recruiting, social-pressure questionnaires, professional fear and editorial filtering all tilt the evidence toward transition-affirming conclusions. If you are weighing your own feelings, remember that real relief often comes from non-medical support—talk therapy, body-acceptance work, same-sex role models who defy stereotypes, and communities that celebrate gender non-conformity without drugs or surgery. Your story deserves a full range of facts and compassionate, open-minded space to explore every option for healing.