DETRANS: When transition is not the solution

Increasing numbers of people are identifying as belonging to a gender different to that of their biological sex. There's a commonly held assumption that some people are ‘trans’ and ‘born into the wrong body. Most healthcare interventions will ‘affirm’ the person’s preferred gender and help them to transition often in a physically irreversible way.

But what if someone who makes a gender transition later changes their mind? What if they regret making irreversible physical changes to their body? What then?

This book is about the detransitioners and the desisters for whom gender transition was not the hoped for solution.

The people whom society has been led to believe do not exist and who are not followed up by the gender clinics who facilitated their gender transition. But those of us who work with them clinically know all too well that they exist and that their numbers are growing rapidly.

This book sheds light on the phenomenon of detransition and gives a voice to the detrans people and the parents for whom transition can impact with devastating consequences.

“Beset by scandal and pseudoscience, the edifice of Transgender Medicine is toppling under its own weight. Dr Hakeem provides the ultimate guide to understanding why the current medical regime failed, and how we can build a more sober and compassionate treatment regime for sufferers of gender dysphoria.”

Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

“By turns touching and heartbreaking, this uniquely insightful book combines the insights of the first clinician to write about the modern explosion in trans identification from outside the ‘gender affirmative’ paradigm, and those of the detransitioners who are its fallout.”

Helen Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality

“Dr Hakeem has been deeply involved in working with those with disturbance in relation to Gender for very many years and is one of leading thinkers in this area... he was there at the beginning. This book makes a unique contribution to this discipline... Dr Hakeem brings his long experience and knowledge of that most neglected group - those who changed their mind, 'detransitioners'. Their painful stories have been silenced in the media storm and Dr Hakeem gives them a voice. This book... will be essential reading for all those involved in work either professionally or as carers of individuals in distress in relation to their gender... given the huge storm this subject has created... it will be of considerable interest to the general reader who wants to understand this area from the wise and balanced perspective Dr Hakeem provides.”

Dr David Bell, Psychoanalyst and former Governor of Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

“DETRANS is essential reading for anyone who is interested in supporting people with gender-related distress. This is a compelling read. The harrowing stories of the detransitioners are combined with practical approaches that can offer hope... Anyone embarking on medical or social transition should read this. Parents of gender-distressed children should read this. Professionals should read this. Most of all, those people who are lost in transition, who have already medically transitioned and are now reflecting on their situation, should read this as they will come to realise there are many ways to cope with the trauma of an inappropriate medical transition. DETRANS lays bare the shameful behaviour of medical professionals and therapists who perpetrated the notion that medical transition could act as a panacea for vulnerable people. This book brings solace to everyone who has been harmed by medical transition as it heralds the beginning of a new era of truth and reconciliation that has become necessary in the wake of the unhinged excesses of gender ideology.”

Stella O’Malley, Founder of Genspect