WaPo "2% of high schoolers transgender"

[Macareaux]

No one on here is going to be surprised by that headline but this is shocking:

"The prevalence of attempted suicide also was found to be higher among transgender teens, with 35 percent reported having tried to commit suicide in the past year, compared with 5 percent of non-transgender boys and 9 percent of non-transgender girls."

Is it really true that nearly one in ten girls have attempted suicide in the last year? What the fuck is going on?

And, disrespectful as it might sound, we really need to know what counts as a suicide attempt and what percentage are successful. How is this data obtained? From Emergency Rooms? Questionnaires? It is blithely reported as though it is perfectly normal for a significant minority of our teens to attempt to kill themselves.

9% in one year.

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/health-science/the-big-number-almost-2-percent-of-high-schoolers-say-they-are-transgender/2019/02/01/9d1710f8-256e-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.a66c2f2c3759&__twitter_impression=true

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/health-science/the-big-number-almost-2-percent-of-high-schoolers-say-they-are-transgender/2019/02/01/9d1710f8-256e-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.a66c2f2c3759&__twitter_impression=true

That stat also implies either regular repeated suicide attempts, or that the number of teenagers who have attempted suicide ever is much higher.

Maybe being transgender isn't a "natural" state after all but another form of self-harm.

Wake up all you woke people...

The first para of the article tells you how the data was obtained, the sample size and so on, and that all of the stats are based on the teens themselves answering questions.

merrymouse The stat on suicide attempts says it is the teens answer when asked had they attempted suicide within the past year. It’s not ambiguous as far as I can see and there’s nothing in the article that insinuates repeated attempts etc.

My guess is that if a young person happens to be homosexual but has always known that his or her parents are massive homophobes and can't feel safe coming out then yes, suicide would be a possibility. Becoming trans might be a "solution" in that person's mind also. I think the two things are inextricably linked. The young man that I know who is well and truly on the trans road is obviously gay but has never been able to be open with his parents about it. So very sad.

When we hear these very unusual statistics about trans/suicide how can we be sure it is not linked to homophobia as it must've been for ages before this new thing?

'Attempted suicide' seems to have become part and parcel of the trans experience. It goes with the territory. Is almost part of the culture; a right of passage.

2% didn’t know what the question was asking. I’d like to think they were GC teenagers being deliberately obtuse

So 95% are not trans, 2% dont even know what the question means, 2% dont know if they are trans or are not, and 2% state that they are trans.

So NO confusion there then.. ;-)

Personally, I would throw out many of the claims re: suicide though.
As the % of boys who claim to be depressed and who claim to have attempted suicide etc. are much lower than for girls, yet their suicide rates are dramatically higher.... this is a known tendency, as a result of gender stereotypes boys dont admit to their psychological suffering.

We need an accurate measure of psychological distress which is not reflective of gender stereotype.

The data obtained from self reporting shows that the 2% of students who identify as transgender are more at risk of everything measured!

All drug taking, alcohol use, smoking, they are less likely to wear a condom, more likely to have been tested for AIDS, have had more sexual partners and at a younger age, more likely to have been threatened or injured with a weapon at school, more likely have been the victim of sexual violence, more likely to be electronically bullied etc etc.

The message seems to be that we no longer need to worry about any other minorities e.g BAME or those with a disability, just target all resources to the special 2%

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6803a3.htm?s_cid=mm6803a3_e

I was vaguely listening to some YouTube documentary the other day - it claimed that 70% of people with dissociative identity disorder and 80% of people with borderline personality disorder report attempting suicide at least once.

I’ve been trying to google up studies that confirm or refute those claims, to no avail - but assuming that suicide ideation does occur more frequently in these populations, I can’t help but wonder if a) these conditions are frequently comorbid with gender dysphoria (previously known as gender identity disorder) or b) if some trans querying people are getting a confused/incorrect diagnoses (or self diagnoses) and that’s why transition doesn’t always help.