Source: Family First
MEDIA RELEASE – 8 October 2025
JUST RELEASED: The Untold Stories Of Kiwi ‘Detransitioners’ Issy and Zara – WATCH
A Canadian-based study, the largest of its kind in decades, and released recently in the International Journal of Transgender Health suggests that while there is plenty of support for those who want to attempt to transition to the opposite sex, those who wish to revert back to their biological sex feel poorly supported by LGBTQ groups and gender-affirming care practitioners, and wish doctors “took a more neutral approach to care.” The researchers say that this exposes a new form of stigma – using the language of the left: detransphobia.
This is similar to the experiences of kiwi ‘detransitioners’ Issy and Zara, whose stories have just been published online by Family First NZ after they were first shared at the recent Forum on the Family attended by 750 delegates in Auckland.
Reported in Canada’s National Post, the York University-led research team wrote
“The mainstream gender-affirming care system largely presumes that gender identity / expression is immutable and that TGD (transgender and gender-diverse) people will engage in only one gender transition… this presumption can create environments in which multiple transitions, gender fluidity, and detransitions are misunderstood or even stigmatized.”
The findings of the survey of 956 ‘detransitioners’ living in Canada and the US are backed up by New Zealander Issy. Issy ‘transitioned’ to male at the age of 19 and then had ‘top surgery’ when she was 21 and a hysterectomy when she was 22. She grew a beard, got a deep voice, her period stopped, there was more sweat and she could make muscle easily. All the stuff she wanted. But she also got massively depressed. But then she came to the realisation that she would always be female – and there was power in acknowledging and accepting that. Issy ‘detransitioned’ but says that the support that was there when she was transitioning is now much harder to find.
In Zara’s case (also a kiwi), when she was 13, she started ‘socially transitioning’ to be a male with a changed name and ‘preferred pronouns’. By the time she was 15, she was on puberty blockers. When she was 16, she was on testosterone. With the help of the public health system, she had ‘top surgery’ lined up for when she was 18 years old. She was told that if she said she was suicidal, it would help get her through the system quickly – so she did exactly what they told her to do. But just before she was scheduled to have her healthy breasts removed, she ‘detransitioned’.
“Sadly, our politicians disgraced themselves and criminalised the support of vulnerable young people such as Issy and Zara via the flawed ‘conversion therapy ban’ law. As a result, parents, counsellors and medical professionals are at risk of prosecution for helping vulnerable young people, the ban is scaring therapists away from troubled adolescents, and self-determination of how you want to live your life and align your values are being criminalised and dictated by the state,” says Bob McCoskrie, CEO of Family First NZ.
“Fortunately the transgender agenda is slowly crumbling before our eyes, and more and more countries are banning puberty blockers and so-called gender affirmation treatment which has made the problem worse, not better, for vulnerable young people.”
“It’s well over time that New Zealand also moved to safeguard our young people.”
WATCH The Untold Stories Of Kiwi ‘Detransitioners’ – Meet Issy
WATCH The Untold Stories Of Kiwi ‘Detransitioners’ – Meet Zara
