The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.
One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.
I wouldn’t imagine that a lot of detransitioners have the energy to advocate. Social transition generally has a hot mess stage where people aren’t really very confident in their transition and you are just clinging to the bricks with splintering fingers trying to get through the hard part of telling everyone what you need. Going through that and then reversing course and doing it a second time probably holds enough social anxiety for several lifetimes on it’s own.
The route of least resistance is to just quietly try and go forward with nobody knowing your history. I would not fault anyone for wanting that.
It’s Also reaaaaaaaaallly rare. Like 2020 in the US there were something around 12,800 gender affirming surgeries done in the US. If the detransition rate is about 1% that is only about 128 people. Of detransitioners studies tend to put those who just found it wasn’t for them (not counting those who found anti-trans sentiments and pressures unbearable and wanted to flee back into the closet where they felt safe) at around 0.04 percent… That’s about… maybe ONE person for everyone who surgically transitioned in the US that year? I dunno how you really count 0.5 of a person so maybe it’s a coin toss?
It’s really scary being that alone as a voice. You are really vulnerable.