Dr. Hakeem speaks to
- the lack of follow-up — regretters are not counted
- high rate of regret he sees in his post-op patients–26%
Who is Dr. Az Hakeem?
Dr Az Hakeem is a consultant psychiatrist, medical psychotherapist and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is also a qualified Group Analyst who has used this training to develop and facilitate the unique therapeutic practice of mixed group therapy sessions with gender dysphoric patients both pre- and post-transition.
Who is Transgender Trend?
Transgender Trend conducted the interview. They say “We are an organisation of parents, professionals and academics based in the UK who are concerned about the current trend to diagnose children as transgender”
The entire interview is available at Transgender Trend: https://www.transgendertrend.com/interview-az-hakeem/
The entire interview is great reading. Here’s the relevant part to know today.
Dr. Hakeem says: (emphasis mine)
“As I stated in my publications 26% of my patients are post-operative regretters: this 26% of course does not represent the demographic of Gender Dysphoric patents but was the demographic of the people who had been referred to my service. These people were all non- existent data. No one had followed them up from the gender clinic since they had been given their sex changes. They had been free to live their lives as they had wanted to be without anyone asking later whether they had made a mistake. Many of them were too embarrassed to admit that they regretted their decision having persuaded the Doctors and Psychiatrists and gender clinic to give them what they wanted and felt they needed. Many of them were living in a post-operative role which they now felt to be fraudulent but from which they felt there was no return.
The public are often told that relative regret is extremely low. But this of course is a complete fiction. There are no follow-up studies, no one knows what the regret rate actually is and this low rate results from the lack of any information being collected. The patients I saw did not officially exist in any gender identity clinics’ books.”
Thank you, Dr. Hakeem!