DETRANSITION STATISTICS FOR YOUTH
Youth-specific, long-term detransition statistics are limited, which is the most honest place to start. The studies that do exist suggest that most young people who receive care continue with it. In studies of childhood social transition, the large majority continued to identify as transgender over about five years. In the largest study of adolescents who began puberty-pausing medication and then hormones, about 98% continued into adulthood. These studies are mostly short-to-medium follow-up, often from single clinics, and several are from outside the United States, so precise youth detransition rates should be read with caution.
Detransition aftercare is also a different thing from "desistance," an older and heavily contested concept, and different from regret.
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Detransition among young people is real, and the experiences of those who detransition deserve support and respect. It is also one of the most misrepresented topics in this area, often quoted with figures that are inflated, out of context, or drawn from the wrong population. This page lays out the best youth-specific figures with their sources and limits, is honest about the sizable gaps in the data, and separates detransition from the related terms it is often confused with. For the broader, all-ages picture, see the detransition rate.
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This page distinguishes three things that are often confused. "Detransition" means stopping or reversing a transition. "Desistance" is an older term from research on young children whose gender-related feelings shifted before puberty. "Regret" means wishing one had not taken a step. They are not the same, and studies define them differently.
CONTENT NOTE
This is information, not medical advice, and it explains a clinical scale rather than any individual's care. Whether and when any medication is appropriate for a particular young person is a decision for that young person, their family, and their qualified healthcare providers, and in nearly all cases, minors cannot receive it without parental consent. If you are in immediate danger, call 911; for support any time, call or text 988.
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Updated November 2026
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The youth data are limited. Long-term, youth-specific detransition statistics are thin, which honest sources acknowledge.
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Most who start care continue. The best studies find that the large majority of young people continue with social or medical care over the follow-up periods studied.
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The medical figure is high continuation. In the largest study, about 98% of adolescents who started puberty suppression and hormones continued into adulthood.
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Watch the caveats. Many studies are single-clinic, short-to-medium follow-up, and from outside the United States.
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Detransition is not desistance or regret. These are distinct concepts and should not be conflated.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
THE BEST AVAILABLE YOUTH FIGURES​
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With those cautions in mind, here are the strongest youth-specific figures, one for social transition and one for medical care.
Sources: Olson et al., Pediatrics (2022); van der Loos et al., The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health (2022).
THE HONEST HEADLINE: YOUTH DATA IS LIMITED
There is no large, long-term, US-based dataset that gives a definitive youth detransition rate, and honest sources say so. Most of the studies available follow young people for a few years rather than decades, come from individual clinics rather than whole populations, and, in the case of the medical transition data, are largely from European clinics with long-standing programs.
This does not mean the evidence should be ignored; it means the figures are best read as informative but provisional.
Anyone who cites a single, precise youth detransition percentage as settled fact is overstating what the research currently supports.
This limitation is part of the wider evidence-quality picture covered on our page on whether gender-affirming care is evidence-based.
MOST YOUNG PEOPLE WHO START CARE CONTINUE
Across both social and medical care, the consistent finding is that the large majority of young people who begin continue over the periods studied. For social transition, a 2022 study in Pediatrics followed socially transitioned children for about five years and found roughly 94% continued to identify as binary transgender, with a small share re-identifying as cisgender or nonbinary. For medical care, the largest study of its kind, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, followed 720 adolescents in the Netherlands who started puberty suppression and then gender-affirming hormones, and found that about 98% (704 of 720) were still using hormones at follow-up into adulthood.
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Both figures come with genuine caveats that keep them honest. The medical study measured continued prescriptions rather than directly observed use; its authors could not determine why the 2% who stopped did so (it is not known whether that was regret, a change in identity, or another reason), and it comes from a single long-established European clinic, so it may not transfer directly to the United States. The social transition study drew on families already supporting their children. These are reasons for appropriate caution, not reasons to dismiss the findings, which point clearly in one direction.
DETRANSITION IS NOT THE SAME AS DESISTANCE
Youth detransition statistics are frequently confused with the older "desistance" literature, and the two are very different. Desistance research looked at young children, before puberty, whose gender-related feelings shifted over time, and that literature is heavily contested on methodological grounds.
A systematic review in Transgender Health found at least thirty different definitions of desistance in use and rated the underlying quantitative studies as poor quality, meaning the often-quoted high desistance percentages rest on inconsistent and weak foundations.
Detransition after receiving care in adolescence is a separate question studied in separate ways, and the desistance figures should not be applied to it.
For the persistence side of the desistance debate, see is my teenager too young to know and what watchful waiting is.
WHAT THE YOUTH DATA DOES NOT YET TELL US
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Several important questions do not yet have strong youth-specific answers, and naming them is part of an honest account. We lack large, long-term studies following young people who received care in the United States over many years. We do not have precise, well-defined youth detransition rates that use consistent definitions across studies. And for the small share who do stop or reverse care, the reasons are often not captured, as the Netherlands study's inability to explain its 2% illustrates. Better long-term research would sharpen all of this.
What the current data do support is that continuation is high over the periods studied, and that detransition among young people who received careful, assessed care appears to be uncommon, while the precision and long-term reach of that conclusion remain limited.
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When young people or adults do detransition, the reasons matter. Research on reasons points more often to external pressure, rather than to regret about the care itself. Studies of people who detransition find that family rejection, discrimination, and lack of support are common drivers, and that detransition is not the same as regret, which is itself uncommon by the best available measures. These are covered on our dedicated pages: see why people detransition and how common regret after transition is.
Read together with the continuation figures above, the overall picture is that most young people who begin care continue, that stopping is uncommon and often driven by external factors rather than regret, and that the long-term youth-specific evidence is still developing.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The best available evidence suggests that detransition among young people who received care is uncommon and that continuation is high, while youth-specific long-term data remain genuinely limited. Holding both halves of that sentence at once is the honest position.
The figures are reassuring as far as they go, roughly 94% continuing after childhood social transition and about 98% continuing medical care into adulthood in the largest study, and they are also provisional, drawn from short-to-medium follow-up, single clinics, and largely non-US settings.
Detransition among young people is real and deserves support when it happens; it is distinct from both desistance and regret, and it is best understood, on current evidence, as uncommon but not fully mapped.
