Journalist guest on GB news uses the 50% suicide figure

[FemaleAndLearning]

Just that really, when are they going to stop doing this. It was on Dan Wooton's show tonight (27 Spot 2021). He asked each guest if they believed saying do women have cervices was transphobic. The other two gets thought it was a biological fact. I'll see if there is a link on you tube yet.

Yeah it's bullshit.

The stat has been debunked numerous times including by the Tavistock who state "thankfully suicide in trans patients is vanishingly rare"
(so, not half then).

But there's a new American survey that apparently proves "More than 50% of trans people feel suicidal" which I'd take with a pinch of salt, but I'd also raise the following question.

If around 50% of extreme gender ideologists are genuinely suicidal, (and aren't just saying it to access desired surgery/drugs) what is it about this ideology that is making believers feel suicidal?

If it was reported that 50% of Scientologists felt suicidal we'd start thinking what the hell is the church of Scientology saying to it's following?

Why aren't we asking what it is about gender ideology that apparently makes people suicidal?

I mean I know if my entire sense of self was dependent on other people using counter intuitive pronouns and forcing others to pretend I'm something I'm not, I'd probably feel suicidal too. So perhaps the above questions are more rhetorical than intended.

It’s such a cop out any way. Ask any teenagers “have you ever had thoughts of suicide” I believe the majority would say yes. NOT because they were seriously considering it, or going to do it, but because a teenage brain can cope with something by a thought along the lines of “maybe everyone would be better off without me”. That’s a thought of suicide.

Also, if 50% of trans teens/people have attempted suicide, where are all the mass trans suicides being reported? Because if half of them are doing it then surely half of those, or a quarter, or even a tenth of them would be successful I would have thought. Even 10% of suicides specifically from trans teens would be enough to make someone sit up and notice, the TRA’s wouldn’t stop banging on about it. Yet…nothing…

I do not understand why none of the fact-checking organisations ( Full Fact , BBC's More or Less , or the C4 version) have not corrected this in public. I've no idea if they've approached the major repeat offenders who continue to use these incorrect statistics despite being given corrections.

@Gncq

Yeah it's bullshit.

The stat has been debunked numerous times including by the Tavistock who state "thankfully suicide in trans patients is vanishingly rare"
(so, not half then).

But there's a new American survey that apparently proves "More than 50% of trans people feel suicidal" which I'd take with a pinch of salt, but I'd also raise the following question.

If around 50% of extreme gender ideologists are genuinely suicidal, (and aren't just saying it to access desired surgery/drugs) what is it about this ideology that is making believers feel suicidal?

If it was reported that 50% of Scientologists felt suicidal we'd start thinking what the hell is the church of Scientology saying to it's following?

Why aren't we asking what it is about gender ideology that apparently makes people suicidal?

I mean I know if my entire sense of self was dependent on other people using counter intuitive pronouns and forcing others to pretend I'm something I'm not, I'd probably feel suicidal too. So perhaps the above questions are more rhetorical than intended.

Quite. Even if their claim was true, it does not follow that the answer to making them feel less suicidal is to agree with everything they say even if it is biologically inaccurate and potentially harmful to themselves and others. Surely anyone who really wanted to solve this problem would want to do more research on why (by which I mean actual scientific research).

The suicide stats are made up.
The murder stats are all about Brazil.
The hate crime stats include being accidentally misgendered by your long-suffering wife.

I believe there probably is some discrimination against trans people but all this noise obfuscates the facts. And it's criminal that journalists aren't asking where these stats come from and verifying their accuracy.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

I do not understand why none of the fact-checking organisations ( Full Fact , BBC's More or Less , or the C4 version) have not corrected this in public. I've no idea if they've approached the major repeat offenders who continue to use these incorrect statistics despite being given corrections.

FullFact did, but they did a shit job of it

fullfact.org/health/young-trans-people/

FullFact did, but they did a shit job of it

Given the number of times this zombie claim surfaces in contemporary discussions, if this were any other topic, my impression is that they would be relentless in highlighting this and encouraging the repeat offenders to stop using these false data.

It's all very disappointing and in the absence of other information it feels like partiality.

I would recommend emailing them and telling them. They seem to ask for people’s views. Tell them what you thought.

I don't think it's feasible but if it were possible to produce aggregated, anonymised results, perhaps some kind of FOI request asking how many suicide attempts, attributed to transphobia, have been noted and treated by mental health practitioners might be a more useful metric. Rather than self-selecting internet questionnaires with double figures sample sizes.

Rather than self-selecting internet questionnaires with double figures sample sizes.

Given that in a recent study (Turban 2020), 73% of trans respondents said they'd received puberty blockers after the age of 18, (so they threw those responses away for being obvious nonsense), I would suggest not having much confidence in other self-reporting from trans people.

Yes, MH professionals deal in very many shades of grey when exploring this issue in patients. It is not something to be bandied about casually as Samaritans guidance says very clearly