Stonewall's response to Transgender Trend

I'm going to give an analogy to make it easier to convey the problems with Transgender Trend's critique of studies on suicidality and completed suicide.

Imagine there is a rare ethnic minority that comprises about 1% of our population. The people come from an island we've never heard of before (I say this to make this analogy devoid of real-life preconceptions people hold).

They're living amongst us and we're worried that their population is at particular risk of domestic abuse. So we try to do some research to find out about this with the hope that this knowledge helps develop pathways that offer increased support and lessen domestic abuse.

So we try to do surveys to find out more, but this minority comprises such a small percent of the overall population that we're always going to have issues with the statistical power of the research - this is inevitable; we can't just magic more of this population up as they just don't exist in bigger numbers.

This minority are kind of wary of us as well, they're experienced general discrimination in society and are fairly mistrustful of surveys, so a lot of this population are reluctant to come forward, but thankfully we do get some and they answer the questions and sometimes we're lucky enough to get rich, qualitative data from interviews, which tells us more about their experiences.

So as researchers we think, this has been really hard to get evidence on because of these difficulties that are out of our control, but, here we've got this information, we've got some with good statistical significance, it is in line with what we thought and the evidence we've got suggests this population are at particular risk of domestic abuse. Our research has also given us some ideas about support that can be offered and strategies that might help minimise domestic abuse.

But then the Men's Rights Activists come in, and they say "Hey, wait up, you haven't got any good evidence at all!! The numbers are too small, those people that answered the survey self-selected and were not chosen at random. And we think they're all lying anyway to push a particular agenda. In short, there is no evidence this population is at increased risk of domestic abuse over any other."

Do you agree with those Men's Rights Activists in this analysis?

This is how TransgenderTrend are approaching the studies they have analysed, and it is shameful and dangerous. When read by people who are not in business of evaluating studies their approach can seem convincing.

But they are dismissing good evidence that does exist - there are hundreds of good quality but small studies, and meta-analysis and systematic review approaches are in the process of synthesizing the evidence.

@suggestionsplease1 That tells us, at a single timepoint, that a subset of a small group of youths (15-21 - no breakdown of ages) felt more positive and affirmed in their identity when referred to by their chosen name. 129 identified as ‘transgender’ or ‘gender non-conforming’ - how many of each? It makes a difference. Only 74 of this mixed group reported a different chosen name.

How is this indicative of anything? How does it lead to "transgender kids at higher risk of suicide”?

We had nicknames when I was a kid too and using them was a term of belonging to your friendship group - of affection and acceptance.

I don’t understand what import you are putting on this?

Here's Dr David Bell talking (with his years of expertise) about the catastrophic outcomes for children where therapists prioritise treating gender "issues" and ignore their numerous co morbidities. These children end up as adults with their self harm, eating disorders, anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation etc ignored and completely untreated.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09yk7dh

sadly the most common signs tend to be ignored the main ones being someone who is depressed suddenly being more upbeat and happy.

your right most people dont shout about it but self harm can be a precursor weather thats drink/drugs, self harm or cosmetic surgery.

Here is the link to the study I referred to:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6165713/

What is your reasoning for wanting to prove that there is a high rate of suicide amongst children with gender dysphoria?

And I question the motivation to assign the reasons for these deaths on trans issues.

We know, as parents and from studies from peer reviewed data that many of these young people and children have incredibly complex mental health comorbidities.

Taking this simplistic direction is not helping these children and young people to get the level of care they need. It really is politicising an agenda that is causing harm by focusing on one issue.

We also know this because detransitioners are telling us they had these complex issues and they now feel those issues were not treated.

Who benefits from using these statistics in this way? The patients? I am yet to see any study that shows this. Strangely when it has really depended on this data being robust enough to be used in court, there was nothing. Has something been released since?

Threatening to commit suicide to get what you want doesn't mean you're suicidal...

@OldCrone I would cynically suggest it might have something to do with more people becoming aware of, and rejecting the basis of. gender identity ideology, particularly for young people.

@suggestionsplease1 What is your reasoning for wanting to prove that there is a high rate of suicide amongst children with gender dysphoria?

The ONS have not provided data about this and there are no other impartial sources which indicate that this high rate of suicide or attempted suicide exists.

In the absence of any evidence, I'll keep an open mind. You, however, seem very invested in wanting to prove that the suicide rate is high, despite the lack of evidence. Why is that?

2. Parents, next of kin "Please record their death as , their birth name. We do not accept they had a trans status, they perhaps were questioning and trying out different things with their friends, but of course they lived the majority of their life as , so it is right that this is how it is recorded".

Have you any idea how deaths are recorded? A parent couldn't just make a request to record their child's death by any name other than that which is on their official documents.

And what do you mean by 'lived the majority of their life as *?

@suggestionsplease1
This is a large longitudinal study of boys with gender identity disorder:
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784/full

It’s presumptuous to label children and young people as ‘Transgender’.

Well, one of my suggestions would be to look at well-designed and peer-reviewed studies on this issue and to implement what they have found helps to reduce poor mental health and suicidality in young trans people:

Could you provide the link for the actual study. From that report I can only work out it was a survey of just 129 individuals in America. No ages, sex or other relevant variables that may be confounders are provided. We have no idea how the group is split but quite quickly we are getting small numbers. We also know that correlation is not causation.

As you say well-designed studies would be helpful but from the information in the article provided this study is not that.

I should add .......to be able to label the respondents as Transgender Youths?

@suggestionsplease1 That’s a survey of gender dysphoric youth regarding what would make them feel happier. The only science bit is the crunching the responses/‘data’.

How many of the respondents had a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria?

The reason Sweden often features in these studies is because they collect large cohort data on all their citizens. It is from this that we know the rate of suicide post transition over the longer term is many times higher than the general population. Which suggests transition does not address underlying mental health difficulties.

[quote DoubleTweenQueen]@suggestionsplease1
Your posts are pure supposition.
There is no evidence.
Which comes first - GD or poor mental health?
Why would someone who is being affirmed and supported as TG then take their own life?
Why is ‘Trans-identifying’ your overriding concern and focus?
Are you suggesting that ’trans-identifying youth’ need to be placed on suicide-watch? What is the main trigger for your suggested phenomenon? Deep-rooted MH issues? Trauma? Gender dysphoria itself? Feeling disconnected? Staring into an abyss of medicalisation and potentially surgery? Being confirmed in their self-loathing?

I imagine transphobic bullying would be top of your list, also perhaps restriction to accessing puberty blockers sufficiently early?

So, what are your suggestions for tackling something that has not been demonstrated?[/quote]
Well, one of my suggestions would be to look at well-designed and peer-reviewed studies on this issue and to implement what they have found helps to reduce poor mental health and suicidality in young trans people:

news.utexas.edu/2018/03/30/name-use-matters-for-transgender-youths-mental-health/

This implies that the writer thinks he has found accurate stats on attempted suicide and completed suicide for GIDS in this time frame, but of course he does not have accurate stats. He has the stats on what has been reported to him, and these are the figures that GIDS have recorded - that have been reported to them (by who - the parents, the children themseves?)

I also believe he has discussed this with clinicians directly.

Do you honestly believe that clinicians would not know the number of patients that suddenly don’t come to appointments? If the clinicians themselves are also reporting the numbers are no higher than other very vulnerable teenagers with similar mental health, I would expect there might be something to consider.

Rather than only reading a lobby group’s claims. And just how much of their claim has been based on the incredibly over used self selected and incentivised survey done by the Trevor project that we see posted here so often. With incredibly poor methodology as well and based on USA cultural aspects.

And as has been brought up already. The current research and current feedback from across the world is saying that the current agenda pushed of affirming only is failing these young transitioners.

There is also research that shows that the rates of suicide during or after treatment is of more concern. Because of the lack of focus the current affirming only treatment has on dealing with comorbidities. And with the regrets of surgeries and hormone therapy for various reasons.

I am sure we can find the studies and the papers. They have been stashed on the ‘Break it down’ thread. The one about suicide after treatment was even presented as a ‘gotcha’ by an activist who thought it presented something it did not really say.

So I am concerned by posters claiming that they know better than the clinicians and the organizations who would be collecting the data - coroners included. I mean Tavistock spokespeople also state rates are no higher than comparative groups.

If posters are really arguing these figures, and organisations are incorrect, I look forward to actual original sourced studies and peer reviewed papers that back up this.

@suggestionsplease1

So without evidence, how can you claim any link?

It's incredibly easy to refute this ridiculous suicide myth.

The fact is that in Sweden, the number of children identifying as dysphoric has fallen incredibly sharply - by over 65% back in 2019 and still dwindling. Sweden has banned puberty blockers for kids.

Yet there has been no corresponding increase in suicides.

Very strong large-scale evidence that affirmation doesn't affect suicide risk and Stonewall are making it up as they go along.

Here's the ONS response detailing that they do not have access to accurate statistics on this issue:
__

You asked
Please provide information regarding the suicide rate for known transgender/gender dysphoric persons of any age between the years 2010 to 2017 (inclusive). If possible, please also provide official figures regarding the attempted suicide rate for the same group mentioned above.

We said
Thank you for your request.

The information we hold on deaths is limited to what is recorded on the death certificate by a doctor or information about the cause and circumstances of the death provided by a coroner.

Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). We can provide the number of suicides per year by key variables such as age, sex and geographical area. Such enquiries should be made to: [email protected]. We recommend that you contact the Mortality Analysis team directly in order to discuss your data requirements in more detail.

Detailed information on whether the person was transgender or gender dysphoric is not generally available. We do not hold information on attempted suicides.

As the only information that can be provided is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
_

We also know Stonewall''s numbers are rubbish because if we work in the other direction we can see that there quite simply aren't enough child suicides to make those numbers work. Once again: every suicide is referred to the coroner and there is an inquest

@suggestionsplease1
Your posts are pure supposition.
There is no evidence.
Which comes first - GD or poor mental health?
Why would someone who is being affirmed and supported as TG then take their own life?
Why is ‘Trans-identifying’ your overriding concern and focus?
Are you suggesting that ’trans-identifying youth’ need to be placed on suicide-watch? What is the main trigger for your suggested phenomenon? Deep-rooted MH issues? Trauma? Gender dysphoria itself? Feeling disconnected? Staring into an abyss of medicalisation and potentially surgery? Being confirmed in their self-loathing?

I imagine transphobic bullying would be top of your list, also perhaps restriction to accessing puberty blockers sufficiently early?

So, what are your suggestions for tackling something that has not been demonstrated?

The issue is children and young people who identify as trans are not reliably having this identity recorded in suicide figures.

what this means is:

1. Trans identified young person dies by suicide.

1. Parents, next of kin "Please record their death as **, their birth name. We do not accept they had a trans status, they perhaps were questioning and trying out different things with their friends, but of course they lived the majority of their life as **, so it is right that this is how it is recorded".

1. Trans-identified young person is not recognised as trans-identified on relevant documentation.

1. GC feminism proponents look at recorded stats and say "See, we told you that there is no issue with suicide and trans-identified young people".

It's a bit fucked-up, isn't it.

Alongside this goes a very concerted effort to obscure information about young trans people and suicide because there is natural concern that this information might influence other young people in similar situations and who are vulnerable to suicide. So that's what we saw yesterday when that news article was taken down.

So I understand that process and the most important thing is preventing further suicides, but of course this process obscures the reality of trans identified people and suicide and makes it appear as a non-issue because there is little publicity and public awareness.