The Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (AusPATH) was established in 2009 and is Australia’s peak body for professionals involved in the health, rights and wellbeing of all trans people – binary and non-binary. The AusPATH membership comprises over 450 experienced professionals working across Australia.
The AusPATH Board of Directors makes the following statement in response to increasing media attention about gender affirmative approaches in Australia and internationally.
In June 2021, AusPATH published a position statement on gender affirming healthcare, including for trans youth. This statement collates much of the available evidence, including studies with adequate methodology that examine factors related to affirmation decisions toward the gender a person was first assigned at birth (sometimes called retransition or detransition). The AusPATH Board reasserts the importance of this statement, found here.
The evidence is well established, the majority of trans people do not regret affirming their gender, and access to medical gender affirmation can be life saving and improve quality of life for those who seek it.
All trans people and those experiencing distress related to their gender deserve accessible, local and affordable mental health care that affirms and supports them.
From the AusPATH statement:
“Widely used guidelines for provision of gender affirming healthcare respect the agency and autonomy of trans people, while also stressing the importance of engagement and assessment between patient and treating physician (e.g. Coleman et al, 2012; Deutsch, 2016; Steensma et al, 2017, Hembree et al, 2017).
As a consequence of adherence to these carefully developed guidelines, gender affirming healthcare is associated with very low rates of regret and de-transition, including as they apply to trans youth (e.g. de Vries et al, 2014; Wiepjes et al, 2018; Brik et al, 2020). Where de-transition occurs, it is often a consequence of external pressures (e.g. Turban et al, 2021).”
There are many trans people, including trans women, trans men and those who are non-binary who make personal choices about engaging with or ceasing gender affirming hormones, or may seek different surgical outcomes. Caution must be used when exposing individual stories and extrapolating from them.
AusPATH Board of Directors
August 2022