The largest-ever survey of trans Americans reaffirms what the trans community has been saying for ages: trans people who go back to living as their sex assigned at birth do so because of transphobia, not because of doubts about gender or transition.
Approximately 92,329 binary and nonbinary trans Americans aged 16 and older — including 84,170 adults — participated in the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey (USTS), which was spearheaded by the trans rights organization Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Researchers then used survey findings to compile a trans health report titled “Health and Wellbeing: Findings from the 2022 US Trans Survey.”
Only 9% of respondents said that they had gone back to living as their sex assigned at birth at some point in their lives. Of that 9%, the most common reason for doing so was that it was “just too hard to be trans in my community” (41%). Meanwhile, 37% cited pressure from a parent, 24% cited pressure from other family members, and 33% cited facing too much harassment or discrimination for being trans.
“Social and structural explanations dominated the reasons why respondents reported going back to living in their sex assigned at birth,” the report reads. “[…] Only 4% of people who went back to living in their sex assigned at birth for a while cited that their reason was because they realized that gender transition was not for them. When considering all respondents who had transitioned, this number equates to only 0.36%.”
There is never going to be a Perfect Study that eliminates transphobia, and if nitpicking is what is keeping someone from supporting trans rights, I don’t think they were ever going to be much of a supporter to begin with.
If 10% of people detransitioned because they no longer consider themselves trans it wouldn’t matter, because expressing your gender identity is a basic right everyone has as a human being, regardless of what regrets other people have about their own choices. Nobody is ever going to be able to guarantee you’re not going to wind up regretting any given action you take, that’s just life.