Study limitations
She also acknowledges that the short follow-up data in some individuals make it difficult to draw conclusions about regret, to some extent.
The average use of cross-sex hormones in their study was 3.5 years for males transitioning to females and 2.3 years for females transitioning to males, so on average, this wouldn’t be long enough to see regret, she acknowledged.
Prior research shows that if youth decide to detransition to their natal sex, this can take, on average, 5 years from the start of medical therapy among born females and 7 years among born males.
However, some born males in the study had been taking hormones for 20 years and some natal females for 15 years, said Dr. van der Loos.
Another limitation is that the research only followed individuals until the end of 2018 while some government data estimate that the number of teens identifying as transgender has nearly doubled over the past 5 years.
The authors, Dr. Munera, and Dr. Lopez have reported no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.