help me out - trans suicide rates?

[loveyouradvice]

Hi....

I keep hearing that the mermaids/Lily quoted trans suicide rate of 42% is inaccurate and breaches Samaritans guidelines ... self selecting small group etc.... But then I come across the american stats? Which seem very similar? Any idea what we think of them?

An estimated 41 per cent of people who identify as transgender attempt to take their own life [according to figures from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention] and more than half of transgender youths in the U.S. have attempted suicide at least once before their 20th birthday.

Maybe it doesn't help, but i guess the only people who can honestly say whether or not it does are transsexuals who have undergone hormone and surgery treatment

And that study is asking people who've had hormone and surgery treatment.

Regarding the wording; ASD is increasingly being referred to as ASC - condition - rather than a 'disorder.' Which is more respectful. So it's possible that the wording around body dysphoria is similarly being adjusted. I don't have any issues with this actually, I'm struggling to explain why but it might be that I feel dysphoria if any sort is very much due to outside influences impacting on the individual from a young age, mainly the way gender stereotypes can be so rigid.

I did experience a type of dysphoria around my looks that really did start to get out of hand as a young adult very much stemming from a few key comments by others in my child hood/ early teens. If those outside influences did not exist I question how I would have felt regarding a particular aspect of my looks.

It's still a mental health issue but if a slightly different calibre (if any of this makes sense?!) .

I will say that a child I taught who wanted to be a girl (autistic) did it seemed to us experience all the things listed up thread when in that "character". What I used to find difficult is that when allowed to dress up during the school day, their whole persona changed. They watched a lot of American tween tv progs and appeared to put on a new personality when in this role. Luckily this child had good support and counselling and was later happy with their body, and learned they were free to enjoy what ever shows, fashion etc they liked as a boy/ man.

And that study is asking people who've had hormone and surgery treatment.

Ah okay. Well, it doesn't surprise me too much. My guess is that it might alleviate symptoms temporarily but the disorder is still there. It seems unlikely that more research will be done though, given that the guy who wanted to research de-transitioning was barred from doing so. Any suggestion these days that hormone treatment and irreversible surgery is not fantastic is met with accusations of transphobia.

holycheese - I remember reading somewhere that the reclassification was to shift the emphasis of treatment from one of fixing a "disorder" to one of relieving the distress of mismatch. Thus hormone and surgery is not to fix things but to relieve distress, but then you have studies as the one I linked to suggesting that suicide attempts continue or increase whilst trans lobbyists are saying this is rubbish and that treatment brings relief and prevents suicide attempts so should be made easier.

The argument at WHO was that changing gender dysphoria from a mental illness to a medical condition would reduce barriers to care.
Unfortunately the result has been less needed care.
www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/health/who-transgender-medical-disorder.html

That rings bells miri and makes sense.

That's an interesting article bewilderness. I'm not quite getting why it has led to less needing care?

Suicidal ideation is most common among adolescents with depressive disorders. This is why parents are so distressed over 100% of children who present with depression at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Transgender Clinic are being recommended to transitioning care.
That is one ginormous red flag.

I'm not quite getting why it has led to less needing care? Needed care, not needing care. They need it but are not getting it.
Mental illness is usually treated with long term talk therapy and other care while a medical condition is usually treated with drugs to alleviate symptoms.

Ah I see.

This article explains another difficulty with the figures and studies given by TRAs. Ie the use of the phrase 'attempted suicide' which implies particular motivation and risk for an act of self harm.
The author was the chair for the NICE guidelines on self harm and is on the team running the National Confidential Inquiry into suicide so is quite authoritative. In summary it explains why using 'attempted suicide' and trying to assign motivation for self harm is too problematic to be useful in predicting future death from suicide.
www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/nonsuicidal-selfinjury-v-attempted-suicide-new-diagnosis-or-false-dichotomy/BF7295C2297829CF41C763E5F6D37201

I think people read '48% attempted suicide' to mean most of those will die by suicide and therefore we need to desperately do everything they say they want to prevent this almost certain outcome. This makes no sense on so many levels but my point in this post is that actually suicide still is rare even if you take the 48% at face value.

The figures are more like 1 in 100 people who present to A and E with self harm will die by suicide in the next year. Most of those will have the other mental health conditions that are well known to be associated with suicide and are well documented.

I am not wishing to minimise the issue with self harm. It is a very serious problem with a significant association with morbidity and mortality (not just from suicide). 1% is too high. However, the idea that trans people are at particularly high risk compared to anyone else who has self harmed isn't supported by the evidence. And the idea this is related to discrimination by feminists is even more tenuous. Its just been spun that way.

I wonder: does claiming a suicidal ideation helps to jump the queue / shorten the wait for hormones / surgery / etc?

Independent to the trans stuff, a long time ago, I dated someone with MH and anxiety issues

He screamed at me that he was thinking of dying every day, and I had to “help” him.

His MH issues were diagnosed, and he had proper support from his GP and student services and counselling services and platonic friends and family.

He didn’t want to use these, of course.

Why would he want to “get better”?

getting better wasn’t what he actually wanted?

What he meant was “my mental health issues will only be solved by YOU (attractive youngish woman) giving me sex and allowing me as self defined “victim” to cross your physical and social boundaries

I’m a softie and was quite naive at the time so did want to help.

But he told me he didn’t want to go out for coffee and talk, or go for a walk or a drink

he wanted to either push me into having sex or “do sports with me”

basically we’d go for a run “as friends” and he’d stare at me whilst nursing a semi erection. This would “save” him.

This dynamic is what the trans depression suicide stuff reminds me of. A lot.

MH issues are serious and need support.

But so many controlling men threaten to harm themselves, simply to get unlimited access to or get the attention of women who aren’t sexually interested in them that it’s hard not to put this statistic into this category.