Talk:Detransition

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Detransition vs transgender desistance

Today, I removed a sentence from the article which read, "A 2008 study of gender dysphoric adolescents found 61% to desist from their transgender identity before reaching adulthood, and a 2013 study found 63% to desist," because desisting is not detransitioning, which is the cessation and reversal of a gender transition, and the sentence in particular doesn't even mention the subjects of the study transitioned at all. The information was re-added by @A145GI15I95: with the assertion that the sources use the terms interchangeably. To support this, A145GI15I95 cited the following sources:

• This article in The Stranger, which defines desistance as "trans kids [who] eventually identify as their sex at birth", without reference to transitioning
• This article in The Atlantic, which specifically describes desistance as distinct from detransitioning
• This source, in which the only use of the word "desistance", "desist", etc is simply to cite this Medium.com article, which defines desistance as the resolution of children's gender dysphoria by the time they are adults, which also differentiates the two topics

In order to avoid an edit war, I have not yet removed the statements again, but to me it is clear that the conflation of the two topics is WP:SYNTH on A145GI15I95's part, not supported by the sources as they claim. I would like to assume good faith on A145GI15I95's part, but they have an apparent history of disruptive behavior on this article in particular. For example, CANVASSING in [[REDACTED - Oshwah] this Twitter thread]. --Equivamp - talk 23:55, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

(Note: After this was posted, A145GI15I95's Twitter account was made private in order to make the link to their canvassing inaccessible, but it consisted of attempts to sway the results of the NPOV/other discussions above. --Equivamp - talk 00:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC))

The subjects of those two studies identified as trans, then years later reverted to non-trans identities. Transition doesn't require medical/physical changes, nor does detransition. The terms "detransition", "desistance", and "retransition" are used interchangeably by most sources, with little consensus as to distinction. My actions have remained with the realm of appropriate behavior on your linked rule page. However, you are now in violation of Wikipedia's privacy rules, in this attempt to WP:DOX. A145GI15I95 (talk) 00:34, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Nowhere did I make the assertion that (de)transition requires medical/physical changes. My point remains that no, the sources do not use them interchangeably, and the information currently cited in the article supporting that idea does not, in fact, do so.

I do not believe my link violates any policy about personally identifying information, as it lacks any. I misunderstood the breadth of the policy and now understand how it violated Wikipedia's policies. @A145GI15I95:, I apologize. --Equivamp - talk 00:44, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that conflating adolescent desistance and detransition in adults is WP:SYNTH. The lack of consensus as to a definition or distinction does not mean it's okay to go ahead and make that decision on here.

In addition, I have concerns about A145GI15I95's apparent off-wiki canvassing and the subsequent influx of new editors to this page. This is not the way consensus should be built on this wiki. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 02:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

You falsely accuse me of being a sock, of committing "sins", of citing Tumblr blogs, and now of being a canvasser. You deny the detrans community exists. You complain of reliable sources that you simply dislike. You bully me on my user:talk page. Your bias in gender identity is admitted on your user page. Please stop. A145GI15I95 (talk) 03:36, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi A145GI15I95, if you believe that I am acting maliciously towards you, feel free to request a third-party dispute resolution or administrator assistance. Otherwise, let's keep this talk page on-topic. Equivamp noted that it appears you requested help on Twitter to strengthen your point on this page. That is known as canvassing. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 04:07, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

"Let's keep this on topic", yet you keep bringing it back to hearsay and personal attacks. I already said I've done nothing outside the rules. An administrator already redacted the claim. Please stop. A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

The claim was not redacted, only the link which you expressed concern was "dox". The fact remains that you engaged in off-wiki ("stealth") canvassing right before a significant number of new editors began work on this page. --Equivamp - talk 18:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

@Equivamp: This page was also linked from the subreddit "GenderCritical" a few days ago [1], which has ~30k subscribers—I think that might explain the sudden explosion in page views and edits. I don't think A145GI15I95 should be blamed for the influx of new editors. I also don't think it's fair to characterise all the new editors as canvassed POV pushers—Pastaitaliana is new but has been making constructive additions. Cheers, gnu57 00:23, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Recommendation? Given that it seems like newspaper articles (and common parlance) uses the terms interchangeably, and perhaps do so with good reason [I agree with @A145GI15I95: that it seems logically to follow that if transition does *not* require medical intervention, detransition would not require it either], perhaps the title of the page should be "Detransition/Desistance". There is no page about desistance as far as I can tell, and it does seem from journal articles (like the study I referenced below) that it isn't only children who "desist" in gender dysphoria or in an alternative gender-identification. Then we could have a section on "Medical Detransition" as well, which will be useful as that research starts to come out (GIDES is evidently reorganizing so as to track detransitions better). Thoughts, crew? Figured if I was going to make this recommendation, I'd best demonstrate some evidence of it:

• Early social transitioning of the gender nonconforming preschooler may be an option if child is persistent and insistent in the gender variance, such as stating that they are the other gender, and if the parents express a strong acceptance and desire for it. Since in this age group children are developmentally at early stages of gender differentiation, nonconformity among preschool-age children is less socially noted or ostracized. This may alleviate the need for actual social transitioning, for example, in preschool programs. These children may never present to a gender specialist or even as gender nonconforming to their pediatricians, and are often taken care of at the primary care level. Some suggest caution in social transitioning in this age group as the rate of desistance might be higher than in older children. Detransitioning at a later age can be quite difficult for the child and family." And: "There is also concern about children desisting in cross-gender identification after puberty and the impact of detransitioning if the child socially transitioned before" https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-05683-4_7

--Pastaitaliana

"Desistance" is simply a polite/generic (less politically charged) word for "detransition". "Retransition" is almost a positive spin word (though adopted by some in the community). These words all mean the same thing: stopping IDing as trans. However that specifically manifests varies from person to person. Some keep their name, revert their name, or adopt a new name. Some keep pronouns, revert pronouns, take new pronouns. Some maintain dress, revert dress, or choose a new style of dress. Some continue cross-sex HRT, quit all HRT, or switch to same-sex HRT. Some never get surgery, some get surgery for the first time, some get new surgery in addition to surgeries from transition.

If someone IDs as trans, IDs as the opposite sex/gender, changes name, changes pronouns, changes style of clothes, takes hormones, gets surgery, or anything of those sorts, then they're trans. There are many competing perspectives and definitions, and there's no strict requirement that they do any minimum number of those things. And if they stop doing that(those) thing(s), then they've desisted from being trans, they've detransitioned or retransitioned. Detransition is the most common word within the community. How it manifests varies greatly based on histories and wishes.

Younger folk are less likely to've yet made many great physical changes, and they're more likely to detransition. This is noted and sourced in the article. But that doesn't mean youth who who detransition were never really trans or never really transitioned anymore than it means so for an adult.

This article has done a good job of walking the line of NPOV, stating facts without emotion, citing studies from both "sides". Though I still wish we'd stop fixating on statistics and declarations when we've so little data. The complaints here are from seemingly biased parties who apparently see detransition as a threat to trans rights. I believe treating detransition fairly should arouse no legitimate concern from any trans advocate or activist. A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:04, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

In that case, "Detransition/Desistance" seems like a good fix, given that they're synonyms. I haven't come across the retransition term at all, so it may be jumping the gun to add that to the top line, but definitely if there's a source, it's worth mentioning in the article! I'm still new to wikipedia but it seems to me that there are ways of marking AKA on pages? Pastaitaliana (talk) 22:45, 13 March 2019 (PDT)

Respectfully, I don't believe the article should be retitled as "Detransition/desistance", as "desistance" is a generic term for ceasing anything. It's also applied to ADHD, for example. Maybe "Detransition and gender-identity desistance", but I think that's unnecessarily wordy. The general term preferred by community members is simply "detransition". A145GI15I95 (talk) 06:14, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Alright, well I don't have a strong preference either way. I do think that the research falls into two categories generally, those who have medically transitioned v. those who have socially/identity transitioned, and that it might be worthwhile to lump the research results into those two groups. I'm just thinking of ways to make the page a little clearer and more readable, because there's a long list of symptoms/causes, and maybe sorting would help with legibility. Thanks for listening!Pastaitaliana (talk) 23:45, 13 March 2019 (PDT)

I appreciate your willingness to discuss, and suggestions to improve legibility. Differentiating kinds of trans folk is considered transphobic, and differentiating kinds of detrans folk is similarly detransphobic. Thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 06:54, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

As noted above, the current citations that purport to show that the terms are used interchangeably, in fact contradict that claim, or at least do not support it. --Equivamp - talk 18:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. I didn't do any more work on more evidence as it didn't seem like it was helpful to the discussion on this page. But it seems obvious to me that these terms are doing the same work, esp the last sentence: "There is also concern about children desisting in cross-gender identification after puberty and the impact of detransitioning if the child socially transitioned before". Desisting seems to be the internal manifestation of detransitioning. You desist in identification (internally) and that manifests (externally) as a detransition. This is of course not the same thing as getting an SRS reversal, which would be a sub-category of certain types of transitions. --Pastaitaliana (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2019 (PDT).

The two studies of younger detrans folk (Wallien and Steensma) use desist [from having a trans ID] as an antonym to persist [with having a trans ID]. Again, desistance is a polite/technical term. Detransition is the colloquial/umbrella term adopted by the detrans community. A145GI15I95 (talk) 22:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

"Persist with having a trans identity" is not the same thing as "transition", so I'm not seeing the argument made that to desist is the same as transition. The sources cited as using them interchangeably don't. There have been no sources provided to support that "desist" is a technical term with "detransition" being an intracommunity term for the same phenomenon. --Equivamp - talk 23:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

To persist trans ID is indeed to continue with transition, to continue being trans. Consider this sequence:

1) A person IDs as trans. They're now trans. Nothing further is required. They've begun transition. Transition may take further social, legal, and/or medical aspects over time.

2) Time passes, and this person still IDs as trans, they still are trans, their trans ID persists.

3) Later, this person desists from IDing as trans. They're now detrans. As in transition, nothing further is required. They've begun detransition. Detransition may take further social, legal and/or medical aspects over time.

The focus on removing studies of teenagers and young adults, who're least likely yet to've gotten surgery, who're the most likely age group to detransition, is an attempt to skew numbers back to "detransition never happens, detrans lives don't matter".

A145GI15I95 (talk) 03:43, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

"Being transgender" is not the same as "transitioning". This is why Transgender and Transitioning (transgender) are able to be separate articles. To quote the Transitioning (transgender) article, "Transition must begin with a personal decision to transition, prompted by the feeling that one's gender identity does not match the sex that one was assigned at birth." Being transgender is the "feeling" described, and transitioning refers to actions taken. (Be they restricted only to the social sphere or not.) You're implying I have some agenda to "skew" numbers of people who detransition, when that is not the case, nor is it relevant to what the sources say "detransitioning" and "desisting" are. Wikipedia reports what the reliable sources say. The reliable sources say they are related but not interchangeable - including the sources you yourself have tried to use to support their conflation, as I showed above. --Equivamp - talk 20:23, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

No one said being trans is transition. Identifying as trans is a form of transition (known as self ID). You cite two Wikipedia articles, but Wikipedia articles aren't reliable sources. I question your motive in removing these two studies because the web is full of blogs and tweets from activists attempting to discredit these studies. Please stop removing stable content without reaching consensus here first, thanks. A145GI15I95 (talk) 21:37, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the way the particular statement is sourced is that the studies in the inline citation are still in the article regardless of whether they are attached to that particular statement. In fact, checking the particular revision, it looks like they're still there. My issue is not with the inclusion of the sources, it is with misleadingly conveying that they support a claim which they actually contradict. If you can produce RS which support the conflation of the terms, I encourage you to do so, as ample time has passed with the misleadingly-cited information being presented as fact on this article to allow time for it. Again, I don't have an issue with the sources cited in and of themselves, and I didn't remove them from the article - they're still there. I'm not an activist at all. Are you? --Equivamp - talk 22:19, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I confused this discussion of a removed definition with another thread in which studies have been removed. Regarding definitions, I've added more medical sources and rewording accordingly. Thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 22:46, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

No worries, things can get a bit hectic when trying to address multiple things at once, so I understand how that can happen. I'm glad that we could get through that confusion to work on it. I think @Moeena: brings up good points about where to go from here (below) but I think I'm happy with it for now. The article will continue to grow as continued media coverage and research is done on the topic. --Equivamp - talk 03:09, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe that Equivamp is in the right here. Not all (in fact, I'd wager it's quite few) of the children in the desistance study identify as detrans or belong to said online communities. The article should use the terminology used by experts, not a colloquial usage used by a specific online community. There are more gender non-conforming children than there are transgender children, and calling childhood desistance detransition conflates the two. I think there should be seperate sections on childhood desistance and adult cessation of HRT/surgery/legal changes etc, especially because combining the statistics on the two is so SYNTHy. (See Frequency estimates for detransition and desistance vary greatly from 0 to 95%, with notable differences in terminology and methodology.) Desistance is much more common than detransition, but the current state of the article is essentially meaningless. Is the frequency of surgical detransition 95%? Is the rate of childhood desistance 1-2%? There's no way of knowing.

I certainly don't believe that seperating these two is going to send the message that detrans lives don't matter; that's a little hyperbolic. Reliably reporting on the research that has been done is going to cause no harm to the community of people who have detransitioned, nor is not doing so going to encourage people to join those online communities. If that worries you, it may be time to take a step back and cool down a little. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 04:22, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

This section of talk is regarding the two youth studies (Wallien 2008 and Steensma 2013), which report persistance vs desistance of gender dysphoria and trans gender identity. Our article content summarizes their results succinctly and accurately. Desistance is a part of detransition, so their inclusion is relevant. The percentage range for all studies (in the introductory paragraph preceding the paragraph of studies) is immediately followed by the statement that frequency is greatest in the earliest stages. A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:02, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Mike Penner

Hello all,

I just commented out the addition of Mike Penner, because I thought it needed some discussion. While detransition is not solely a medical topic, the WikiProject Medicine manual of style, a higher standard than the general MoS, provides a sensible guideline for content and tone. In particular, the MEDMOS advice for mentioning notable cases or media portrayals is applicable here. I'm reluctant to mention Penner because, although he returned to his former gender self-identification, and lots of sources called his experience one of detransition, he didn't publicly self-identify that way.

I think that all the other individual accounts are fine to mention, since the people (a) publicly self-identify as detrans and (b) have received media coverage specifically for their detransition; I of course would be opposed to adding people based on speculation or tabloid coverage, or including fictional portrayals without strong secondary sources. Penner is a bit of an edge case, but I think that we should err on the side of caution on a potential BLP issue. Cheers, gnu57 11:57, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gnu, thanks for commenting! I'm not particular - I simply copied over the reference from the french language wiki on detransition. I guess here is why I think Penner might be a valuable case to add. First, he seems to be the first notable "detransition". Seeing how the discussion of such a new concept evolves over time can be important for understanding it. Second, he fits the definition of the topic in an "objective" sense - once ID'd as trans, then didn't. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that detransition as a term is both an identity and an objective medical term. We use detransition to talk about childhood desistance, adolescent and adult identification, and adult SRS reversal. It would make sense to me to have different names for these things, but I don't think that exists yet - it's still too new. Anyway, there are plenty of notable cases, so one more or less doesn't seem too important to me - I'll defer to group consensus :) Thanks again for opening up the chat! Pastaitaliana (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2019

I'd like to echo that the words detransition/detransitioner/detrans didn't exist or weren't at all well-known in 2008 (transgender/transition/trans were barely known to the general public then). I'm in favor of returning Penner's short bio, as it garnered noticeable media attention. And yes, I certainly would oppose any future introduction of tabloid speculations (such as with Caitlyn Jenner, for example). And I'm undecided on the recent introduction of fictional examples. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:05, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I'll restore the Penner bio. When I looked up news stories about him, I found the amount of armchair psychoanalysis and speculation about his motivations really offputting; but you guys are right that he is one of the first prominent cases, and the actual facts of his bio are well established. (It would be nice, though, to use a reference with more factual details and less speculation.) Thanks for your comments. Cheers, gnu57 19:31, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Definitely agree with you that that armchair psychoanalysis is often less than stellar (and sometimes really icky). The source linked in the French wiki was a sympathetic commentator, so I thought that it would probably be the best one? (Tbh I didn't actually look around for new sources -- I should actually read a little bit about wikis in different languages and the expected syncing there). I suppose it is good at least to see that the way these issues are discussed has changed so much over the past decade. Thanks Gnu! Pastaitaliana (talk) 21:05, 17 March 2019 (UTC)PastaItaliana

I suspect everyone here already knows this, but since no-one has outright mentioned this I will point out for the record that while Wikipedia can cite someone as an example of something even if contemporary sources didn't have a, or the modern, word for the thing (we have a whole article on the Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln!), we do still have to have some sources which make the connection now, or else it's WP:OR / WP:SYNTH. In this case, one of the sources cited does use the word detransition, but the other seems not to(?) and replacing it with one which does also refer to Penner as an example of detransition would be helpful, since if only one reliable, non-tabloid source refers to Penner as such, it would not be WP:DUE to present him as such. -sche (talk) 22:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@-sche: The Friess article uses the terms "reverse transition" and "retransition" instead. The other source (which does say "de-transition") is a huffpost contributor article. I've found a book on gender and sport which devotes a chapter to Penner, calling his return to a male identity a "(re/de)transition"; I'm thinking of swapping that in for the huffpost source. Cheers, gnu57 22:50, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC for Medref tag

Seeking fresh, outside, neutral opinions on the "Occurrence" section's sources, per the Medref tag, please. Previous discussion is at Talk:Detransition#Medref_tag. Please note this page is tagged "Controversial".

The Medref tag was added 2017 December 27, 15 months ago. At that time, the article overall had 16 sources, all from the news. The medical section referenced 5 of those news sources, 2 of which referred to the same story.

Today, the article has 61 sources: 5 from books, 13 from medical journals, 32 of which are from news, and 11 from online sources. The medical section references 26 of those sources: 2 from books, 11 from journals, 15 from news, 1 from general online. Of the 11 journal sources, 2 of them reference the other 9.

Regarding this expansion of quantity and quality of sources, is the Medref tag still needed?

Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 06:00, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It's good that there's been a big increase in the use of MEDRS-compliant references, but the 32 news citations suggests maybe that the tag is still appropriate. We need to be moving to a point where there are almost no non-MEDRS-compliant references for medical claims. Bondegezou (talk) 08:59, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. The majority of news sources support content outside the medical section, to cover the social and legal aspects of detransition, which don't require MedRS. News sources within the medical section only support the journal sources as secondary sources. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:13, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

News sources for social and legal issues are fine. In terms of medical content, WP:MEDRS discourages us from using any news sources. If they're just repeating what MEDRS-compliant sources say, they can be deleted from there. Bondegezou (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS does not mean that all medical sources are okay. It clearly discourages WP:Primary sources. It also goes over quality matters. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:48, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Staszek Lem's uneducated opinion

This is a malformed RFC. You need to ask a specific question. The talk section you link is a chaotic discussion of several things. RFC usually asks for uninvolved editors like me who have no idea what was going on with the article. You have to brief them, otherwise sorry, tl;dr.

Now, specific comments:

First, The section has LOTS of references, but at the moment I looked it I get a strong whiff of original research, namely WP:SYNTH. This is exactly how SYNTH texts look like: a reference per word: have been few in number,[8] of disputed quality,[9] and politically controversial.[10]).

Second, how many of the medical refs are primary and how many secondary sources? To figure it out, this is your job, not commenters'.

In other words, if I were you, the RFC request must be something like this: Of 100 footnotes, 30 refer to news, 20 to primary, and 50 to secondary sources. However the 50 2ndary ones refer to only 5 the same authiors. Do you think the Medref tag is still required? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I opened the RfC; I wanted to avoid leading the question on this controversial topic. I've reworded above per your feedback. On perceived synth of quoted sentence: A and B are not cited to claim an uncited C; A, B, and C are cited, and A + B ≠ C. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• As commonly happens, @Staszek Lem: makes good points and I concur. However, it seems to me that this entire issue is not one that needs urgent resolution, and the very fact that we are agonising over it suggests that we are in reasonable doubt, which in turn means that we should leave the tag for another year or two (when possibly we might have more instances and publications as a basis for something more like a definitive basis for a decision?) As things stand, I may be prejudiced, but I don't think that any reader of the current version with its cautionary tag should be in no doubt that the text is tentative, but helpfully intended, and serves as a basis for further reading if desired. JonRichfield (talk) 14:56, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for replying. The very fact that we are agonising could indicate bias over a politically controversial topic, rather than reasonable doubt. It's unclear what specific changes are needed to address the tag, other than the repeated more. The quantity and quality of content and sources here are comparable to those of Transgender#Healthcare and Transitioning_(transgender), which are free of complaint. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:23, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Individual Accounts

Hi all. We have a lot of individual accounts at this point, and I worry things could get cluttered. I thought I'd check in about notability, and defer to group consensus. Thoughts on comedian Will Franken's detransition? Worth adding? https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/12/30/comedian-who-came-out-as-transgender-reverts-back-to-a-man/ https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-i-began-living-as-a-woman-then-decided-to-transition-back-a6788051.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pastaitaliana (talk • contribs) 07:00, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

The section's length is still in fine proportion to the other sections. There may come a day when it should break into a separate article, but not yet. Regarding Will Franken, I remember when this comedian's story broke (here it is also on Link TV). It generated interesting conversations at the time (in reliable and unreliable sources, positive and negative). I think it's notable enough for addition. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

The list is growing and is near the point of becoming a random collection. If it gets any larger, it should follow the same rule as for other lists on Wikipedia: if people are notable enough to have an article, list them. If not, don't. Jonathunder (talk) 21:00, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

If someone is featured in one article in one RS, e.g. Anthony and Robinson, then that does not appear to be notable enough for inclusion. We need to see an individual be covered by multiple RS. Bondegezou (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we could begin to reword the section as prose that focuses more on shared social themes and experiences, and to be less like a list of persons. A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:00, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Sarah comes across to me as a less serious case and perhaps something of a publicity thing. If mentioned at all, evidence of the publicity aspect should be included, but it seems to me like a blip on the screen of the larger issue, in spite of the coverage it generated at the time. Jzsj (talk) 12:07, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this, and while Jonathunder's suggestion of paring the list to people who have articles would bring it in line with similar articles I can think of (e.g., the list in Trans woman is kept to only ones who have articles), I was hesitant, because it'd also remove much of the section's contents. However, the more I think about it...are there other articles where we give paragraphs to multiple non-notable i.e. non-article-having people's individual experiences of the topic? African Americans doesn't seem to contain accounts by individual AAs of what it's like to be African American, Trans woman doesn't seem to contain a section of accounts of (non-notable or, to much extent, even notable) trans women's experiences of transitioning and being trans, Sex reassignment surgery doesn't seem to contain individual accounts of people who've had SRS. The closest I can find is Ex-gay, which has blurbs on individuals, but apparently only ones who meet WP:GNG i.e. have their own articles, which is back to Jonathunder's point. I'd say, remove anyone who's only attested in one RS, per Bondegezou, but whether to include other people who may not have articles but are covered in enough RS to suggest they have some importance (e.g. possibly Walt Heyer, who I ran into mentions of while looking up something else related to this article the other day), I'm not sure.
The suggestion above to refocus on (or even just, add content on) commonalities would be good to the extent that there are RS pointing things out as being commonalities or being generally the case—we should avoid just looking at a number of accounts and saying "well, several/most/all of these accounts have feature X, so...", because that's liable to run into WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. (One possible commonality I saw suggested in the sources I was looking through yesterday is that people who detransition tend to be at earlier stages of transition, it being very rare among people who've had surgery. Something else to look into would be whether any RS report on it being more common among one sex/gender or another.) -sche (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I concur with that.

If there are particularly famous cases, I think they can warrant inclusion, but those should only be exceptional cases. For example, Christiane Völling gets explicitly mentioned at Sex_reassignment_therapy#Consent_and_the_treatment_of_intersex_people for a specific reason as a first. Bondegezou (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: I agree that the individual cases of detransition are numerous enough that not all of them should be included (unlike, say, spontaneous human combustion, where the small handful of possible cases are all mentioned).

I've been a bit reluctant to open this potential can of worms, but how about drafting another section called something like "associated activism", to explain the viewpoints of detransitioners publicly known for their advocacy like Callahan, Heyer, and possibly Anthony, as well as other people who've written extensively about detransitioning from various perspectives and received secondary-source coverage like Debra W. Soh, Ryan T. Anderson (the anti-gay marriage public intellectual guy—I'm very surprised he doesn't have an article), Julia Serano, and Sheila Jeffreys? The "What is a Woman" New Yorker article has some background information as well about the views of radical feminists and transfeminists. Cheers, gnu57 10:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Never mind, I've realised this is unnecessary and overall a bad idea. gnu57 16:05, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

If individuals are of particular note, they should have their own articles. They could be mentioned briefly here, perhaps in an annotated See Also section. We have some text discussing activism around detransitioning: we could include notable people within that...? Bondegezou (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

The Mitchell and Anthony stories were removed. I can see Mitchell as less notable, being reported by only two sources in a single month. Anthony has been covered in several sources over multiple years, so I re-added him with further refs. A145GI15I95 (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I think this section remains the largest in the article. That seems wrong to me. Are all of these examples necessary? Bondegezou (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, I've made a bold move: removed Robinson and Belovitch content (since their stories are more isolated in time), moved the sources that focused only on them to Further reading (they're good stories), and refocused remaining content on the more notable persons (with less "this magazine on that date" language). Hope this addresses the concerns without offending fans of the content. A145GI15I95 (talk) 22:14, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I think these new accounts could use some work. Specifically, I think it would be helpful to say *why* the blogs that they run are particularly notable, since I can't think of many other articles that list bloggers on the topic. Regarding the Lepovic section, As his views became less essentialist sounds like editorializing to me. The articles I read don't mention essentialism or explain what it is. (?) I don't propose removing them entirely, but they certainly could be edited down. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓

Revised. A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Pride before the fall

off-topic discussion
Wiki loves Pride. WP:WLP Pride before the fall. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.108.197.179 (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality Tag

Hi, I noticed this article has a neutrality tag on it, dated March 2019. I've reviewed the article and I do not see any POV problems at this time. Are there any current POV concerns? May His Shadow Fall Upon You ^Talk 14:39, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@May His Shadow Fall Upon You: Mooeena added the tag in March 2019 (diff) and started a discussion in the talk page: Talk:Detransition/Archive 1#NPOV. Some things in the article have changed since March. One of the challenged statements is still there: The number of detransitioners is unknown but growing.. Maybe Mooeena or someone else can elaborate on current major NPOV issues, if any. Best, --MarioGom (talk) 07:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that, while the unknown but growing sentence has a lot of sources, it clearly both contradicts and is encompassed by the earlier Frequency estimates for detransition and desistance vary greatly, with notable differences in terminology and methodology - ie. it looks like what we're doing is first saying that it varies greatly, then selectively citing people who say it's increasing. Also, the citations, on close examination, are mostly not very good - one person (or a few) saying they've seen more people is anecdotal evidence; preliminary findings shouldn't be reported as fact; Singal is a WP:BIASed source whose opinions on this topic cannot be cited on this subject without in-line attribution (and who carefully hedges with "appeared to be"); and the last one says more youtube videoes are appearing, not detransitioners. At the very least several of those cites have to go, since they don't support the point being made. EDIT: By my reading only one study there seems to support the idea that there is solid, reliable evidence behind there being an increase rather than vague anecdotes, opinions, or preliminary findings. --Aquillion (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Aquillion has it spot on. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 01:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a classic "phenomenon vs. term" political debate. This biased article reifies a transphobic ideology akin to the ex-gay movement. I propose adding a few sources to improve neutrality, starting with this one:

• Robinson CM, Spivey SE (2019). Ungodly Genders: Deconstructing Ex-Gay Movement Discourses of “Transgenderism” in the US. Social Sciences doi:10.3390/socsci8060191 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jokestress (talk • contribs) 23:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Sam Hope 2019 book

Jessica Kingsley Publishers came out with a book this year that nicely summarizes the bias underpinning this entire article. I propose we include this quotation:

Detransition is held up as the bogeyman, is held against trans people. Our transitions must be sure, and certain, and final, otherwise they are not legitimate. But of course, real life is much messier. As a therapist, a big part of my job is to be able to stay with client's uncertainty and hold quite a posing desires and needs.

Trans people detransition. And retransition. And alter trajectory. And change their names and pronouns more than once. All this is entirely valid. We can know that transition benefits the people who undertake it, but we can never know if transition is right for us, or the person in front of us. We cannot cure someone of being trans, but what they do about being trans is up to them. However, society will have a heavy bias towards 'gender transition is bad,' so we should probably worry less about a trans person being unduly influenced to not transition.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a disproportionate level of concern around trans people making the wrong choice towards transition perhaps because there are still underlying social attitudes that it is never the right choice. The extent to which trans people are subject to gatekeeping, having their decisions questioned, or having barriers placed in their way, is quite extreme.

Source: Hope, Sam (2019). Person-Centred Counselling for Trans and Gender Diverse People: A Practical Guide Jessica Kingsley Publishers ISBN 9781784509378 Jokestress (talk) 16:27, 6 November 2019 (UTC)