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AIUI, another user ITT has mentioned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33883438 that this is merely statistics of how many transitioners formally pursue detransition, and that the numbers of those who practically desist from treatment are a lot higher than that.

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The number of individuals failing to follow up on a study or even treatment for any disease at the same medical office is high, for example it's approximately 50% for _cancer_. [1] You're welcome to extrapolate to your own taste, but it's still simply an unknown -- unlike the people you _do_ have data for.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29028642/

But the whole question is why people are desisting from treatment that's supposed to help them reaffirm their gender. Everyone knows that cancer treatment has very uncomfortable side effects; it's not surprising that people might neglect that. Gender treatment is literally supposed to make you feel good, by treating disphoria.

Lost to follow up is not necessarily discontinuation of treatment is the issue. The person may have moved out of state or out of country, or simply have moved to be treated by a different physician. Consider also the perspective of the detransitioning person: in trying to reconcile their experience, they project that there must be more people out there like themselves and point to a known unknown to justify it.

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