I can't help but wonder how suicide attempt is defined and the impact that this would have on the statistics. Surely such a high attempt % would result in a higher outcome of actual deaths ? Why do these reports only talk about attempts and not outcomes?
Suicide is really complex, and for many reasons I really dislike how the trans lobby talk about this sensitive subject.
Firstly, suicide attempt rates don't translate directly proportionately to actual deaths from suicide. Interestingly, there is a sexed difference in these. Females (biological ones) tend to attempt suicide at higher rates than males, and have higher rates of depression, but usually more males actually die from suicide. This may be due to males choosing more violent methods.
SO we don't know how these attempts translate for trans people. Obviously every attempt is one too many! But you need actual reliable numbers to work with. One problem is that nobody seems to be recording transgender deaths in official ways, so we don't have good data. This is the same for the murder rates.
The issue is that the trans lobby simultaneously wants us to believe that there is an epidemic of terrible proportions going on, with grave loss of life, yet gives us NO hard data or proper evidence, and prohibits us from using the tools needed to actually properly track/tackle the problem. Many TRAs argue it's too "outing" to create a trans category to try to capture such data, or that people would refuse to tick the "trans box"... So how are we to impartially collect the information, despite the fact it would be for their own community's benefit?
There's very little long-term follow-up studies medically of trans persons, either, which means we don't actually have much evidence that transition is the "cure all" that some trans activists pretend it is, nor the risks associated with it. A study has shown us that suicide and psychiatric issues remain a problem even after FULL medical and legal transition. We also don't know how much other factors are at play. For example, Depression or Borderline Personality Disorder puts you at higher risk of suicidality. Are therapists properly addressing co-morbidities in their rush to focus on gender? Is it possible that focusing on solely "gender identity" issues could obscure underlying problems and be too simple an explanation? By TRAs and their allies creating an affirm-or-nothing model, are they actually hurting our understanding of these issues and actually hurting some people who say they are trans?
These surveys are terribly subjective and could have any number of flaws. The first being that they don't actually track suicide numbers or decent investigation of mental health issues, just attitudes and feelings of those surveyed.
Remember that, thankfully , ALL of the people who respond to the survey are survivors. By design, surveys cannot capture reliable information of actual deaths.
Things to keep in mind with surveys:
-the data captured will be those for the kinds of people who are plugged in to the system enough to respond to a survey - they may not be representative of the whole (especially if they are distributed to people along ideological lines...)
-the questions could be worded ambiguously or people don't understand what they mean so you could have two different people having had the same kind of experience but classifying it differently
-what is the definition of trans? Is there a difference between married high-power cross-dressers and those that Blanchard would define as homosexual transsexuals who might be from an ethnic minority background and in severe financial difficulty? Do sexed differences between patterns remain even after transition?
Suicide is a very difficult topic, which cannot be reduced to one cause as a rhetorical political weapon. What trans activists are doing also has the potential to increase suicidal ideation in trans people by keeping a harmful narrative. The Samaritans has guidance on how to report it in the media responsibly (which a prominent trans activist and the Guardian memorably disregarded for a piece).
I feel there is an element of coercion here. If you say you will die if you don't get EXACTLY what YOU want from someone else, and the blood will be on the other person's hands, that reminds me of what an abusive partner might say to keep control. It's emotional manipulation. What TRAs are doing goes against everything we know about best practice to save lives from suicide.
I feel like LGB activists used to say "it gets better." Now, the tactics trans activists use sound... different. "Get over it," with accusations of "transphobe" and serious threats to anyone who dissents sounds quite a "do what I say or else" mentality. And that hurts everyone, including trans people.