Countering trans suicide figures

[Walkingtheplank]

DD asked I'd we could talk about trans issues/female rights yesterday. All very calm but ultimately we disagree on key points.

She raised the point that trans teens are more like to (try to) commit suicide.

Can anyone add a link here to a article explaining why this is not true so that I can share it with her?

Not exactly what you're after as it's not an easily digestible article, but loads of information here, to help arm yourself with:

Transgender Trend's page on suicide:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/the-suicide-myth/

Or equally, evidence that hormonal and medical transitioning doesn’t improve suicide rates. If trans young people are indeed more likely to commit suicide that doesn’t necessarily mean that full transitioning is the solution to that problem (which would be completely obvious in any other area).

It is 'true' but there's also causation versus correlation to consider. These are kids who have significant emotional concerns, often other issues underlying- bullying, marginalisation, etc. same as I'd assume that other marginalised groups have a high rate of self harm/ suicide attempts- from my youth the goth group springs to mind.

And as @HairyKitty pointed out- there is still significant numbers of self harm, suicide attempts in transitioned young people- so if it's all about recognition and being authentic- then why are these young people still suicidal despite being recognised and lauded for their stunning and brave transitions?

If you believe something without having evidence for that belief then your belief is based on faith, not facts.

In adults, suicide attempts/suicidal ideation rates are substantially higher after transitioning than before.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5436370/

Wasn’t the study about suicide in trans teens based on a very small self selecting sample? Transgender trend talk about it on the link given above

thecritic.co.uk/neither-marginalised-abused-nor-vulnerable/

Stats For Gender
https://statsforgender.org/

This below is an interview in a Twitter thread related to an important Finnish study

Leor Sapir
Helsingin: Activists... calling for hormone treatments for minors & legal gender recognition often repeat that trans youth have an increased risk of suicide & therefore urgently need care & support. "It's purposeful disinformation, & spreading it is irresponsible," says Kaltiala.

Leor Sapir
Suicidal thoughts and behavior are related to simultaneous psychiatric disorders also in young people who problematize their gender. "Mentally healthy young people who experience their sex in a way that is different from their biological bodies are not automatically suicidal."

Leor Sapir
[LS: This is the unfounded minority stress theory that co-occurring mental health problems, including suicidality, are secondary to "unaffirmed" gender and manageable only through social & medical transition. The suicide discourse relies on a correlation/causation fallacy.]

Leor Sapir
Helsingin: Suicide was a very rare occurrence in about ten years among young people seeking gender identity diagnoses. On the other hand, in a large Swedish study, suicide mortality had clearly increased among adults who had received gender reassignment treatments.

Leor Sapir
"Therefore it is not justified to tell the parents of young people identifying as transgender that a young person is at risk of suicide without medical treatments and that the danger can be alleviated with gender reassignment," says Kaltiala.

Leor Sapir
Kaltiala told the Finland Parliament Social & Health Committee that it would be better to not start any physical treatments based on gender identity before adulthood.

Leo Sapir
Asked about the dominance of the suicide discourse, Kaltiala said: "adults who have themselves benefited from gender reassignment, have a desire to go out and save children and young people. But they lack the understanding that a child is not a small adult.”
https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1620448081039994881

Basically, there are all sorts of reasons for young people to be suicidal as we have all always known long before this trend to become transgender.

There is no reason to think that being gender questioning or body dysphoric trumps the other co-morbidities or causes which those young people will have experienced.

Note in the study that hormone treatment in young people increases their depression.

This long term Swedish study of transsexuals (included hormones and surgery) showed they committed suicide more often. I think this study is of adults.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

Given that it's your daughter who believes this then I would tell her that the onus is on her to provide the evidence, that this is how debate is supposed to work.

And then what the Theeyeball said.

Sorry, I somehow missed this paragraph from that Twitter discussion about the Finnish study I posted earlier. Please be sure to read it all as I probably missed lots. It really is important for your question.
https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1620448081039994881

Kaltiala told the Finland Parliament Social & Health Committee that it would be better to not start any physical treatments based on gender identity before adulthood. A Finnish study found that the mental health of many minors who had received hormonal care... deteriorated

Michael Biggs has studied this in depth. It’s a massive lie to say children will kill themselves if denied hormone alteration of their bodies.

It’s also worth asking this:

If there have always been thousands of hidden trans kids who couldn’t “come out” years ago because of society, compared to how acceptable it is to “come out” as trans now, what happened to all these kids in the millennia before puberty blockers became available as a treatment option?

Did they all kill themselves?

Was there an out-of-control epidemic of suicide of “trans kids” that no one noticed or talked about?

Or was it talked about but everyone was a loss as to how to keep these kids from killing themselves until the miracle of puberty blockers meant everyone could breathe a huge sigh of relief?

The answers are:
They didn’t exist at the rate they do now and the ones who did coped.

No, of course not.

No there wasn’t.

No that didn’t happen either.

The offer of treatment has created the problem. Children are promised something, they are told they might Jill themselves if they don’t get it, so get distressed when they’re told they might not get it.

It’s one of the tenets of entire problem.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888486/

Transgender teens suicide facts and myths is a must read. It critics some of the research methods which is hugely important when looking at this topic.

Yes suicide ideation and attempts high in trans kids. But this is similar to the levels we see in non trans kids under CHAMS. In the general population I just read 20% of kids are self harming or suicidal!!

When the data is broken down it's mostly natal females who are gender nonconformist that these stats relate to.

Suicide stats for autistic people are worse. Up to 50% of trans kids are autistic. I think the stats for gay suicide is worse? I can't remember but it's high and as many trans people are/would be gay it's likely data is being skewed by poor research methods

If "gender affirming care" is life-saving, but has only recently become widely available, there should be records of the thousands of young trans people suicides up until about 2016, ie suicide rates should have decreased since for trans people. There are no such statistics. People identifying as trans often have pre-existing poor mental health which may be why they have slightly higher rates of suicide. Trans reddit forums are full of posts from people saying they feel worse on cross sex hormones and especially after surgery but the community tells them they just have internalised transphobia. It is damaging to tell anyone that suicide is an inherent and integral part of their identity - it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/34-gender-dysphoria-suicide

Most of society isn't praising and supporting them though, most will be looking at them like they are weirdos

A lot of trans children are all autistic. Autistic children will likely have felt excluded and not fitted in and been bullied, which will contribute to their poor mental health. They are also less likely to pick up on social cues to hear how to 'be' a boy or girl, which may contribute to feeling like 'I'm not a proper girl, so I must be a boy' (rather than 'I'm not a neurotypical girl, because I'm an autistic girl. I'm like other autistic girls)

Are autistic * ignore 'all' that's a typo

These children can really hope that everything will feel better for them after they transition, and there can be massive disappointment when actually their problems and identity issues still remain

Well it is true but that's hardly an argument in the trans movements favour. Self-hatred, hatred of one's body and difficulty fitting in are all factors which are known to contribute to identifying as trans. Now which demographic is going to have the higher suicide rate? People with self-esteem, body image and social adaptation issues? Or those without? Of course trans people are more statistically likely to. Same was true of anorexics, I think.

The sleight of hand of the trans movement is to repeatedly imply (a) that suicide is a result of lack of acceptance and bullying or (b) not accepting who one is. And of course their cure for the latter is to transition. Never mind that it seems not to stop suicidal ideation for most people and in fact can increase it just as much as people regret that they've inflicted life-long harm on themselves.

I used to have all the statistical arguments to hand but you've been linked to Transgender Trend above and that's an excellent start. What I recall is that the 41% that was going around was based on MtF prostitutes in Brazil - hardly representative of the UK - and that even in this case, the male prostitutes had a lower rate of deaths than the female ones. I also recall that the Scottish Trans Alliance (if I recall their name correctly) were publishing these false stats in schools guidance saying that refusal to affirm led to child suicide and that parents had to choose between a dead kid and a trans kid.

Good luck. As always my advice in any debate is to ensure you are not the one that looks like a screaming tomato. A better turn for the conversation sometimes is to challenge them on the regressive gender concepts that the trans movement is built on. Hopefully she hasn't fallen for the "boy brain" / "girl brain" thing that still shows up from time to time.

Past trauma, being in care, autism, ocd, being gay where that is unacceptable, eating disorders, are correlated with teens who suffer from gender dysphoria or who think they may be trans.

Teens with depression and anxiety who are self-harming or thinking about suicide are likely to have suffered past trauma, being in care, being autistic, suffering from OCD, being gay but feeling wrong etc.

The gender dysphoria, or feeling that being transgender will be the answer may well be a correlation not a cause. Other factors may be the root cause.

NB On line forums telling teens they are likely to kill themselves if they are not affirmed as being transgender, in itself could be a cause of suicidal thoughts and is highly irresponsible.

That study and that image doesn’t show higher suicidality after transition.

In fact, the study concludes the opposite:

“By contrast, evidence is mounting that barriers to transition-related healthcare contribute to suicidality among those who desire such measures and though it sometimes increases during transition, it typically decreases once desired transitional goals are completed.30,102Indeed, a recent qualitative inquiry into suicide protective factors among trans adults identified several important protective factors among this population, one of which was socially and/or medically transitioning (for those who seek it).103Additionally, suicidality may be generally higher among transgender individuals than the general population throughout the life course, due to factors unrelated to transition, such as stigma and discrimination.”

NB On line forums telling teens they are likely to kill themselves if they are not affirmed as being transgender, in itself could be a cause of suicidal thoughts and is highly irresponsible.

This. If one thing is known about self harm it is that it is prone to social contagion, suggestibility etc. It's why there are such careful reporting guidelines. Which trans groups seem to ride straight through the middle of.

Not to mention the lovely folks who literally tell kids to threaten self-harm to their parents and doctors in order to get access to treatment they think they want.

I have to confess I haven't read the study @TeaKlaxon so I'm a bit baffled that's the conclusion. Can you explain how this chart doesn't show higher rates of suicidality post transition?

I'm no statistician but that graph looks fairly clear to me.

In any event, the population most at risk of teen suicide are boys. Girls' referrals to GIDS outnumber those of boys by more than 2:1. If trans teens committed suicide more frequently, we'd expect that either of those stats to reverse. They're not.