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?

It says the suicide population begins at 18, so in fact your paper has fuck all to do with the question. Thanks for your input.

Age at time of suicide, year
18-66

The OP question was are transpeople more likely to complete suicide than nontranspeople and that is an academically researched and accepted fact.

It's an additional question, people are interested in the dubious claims made about actual child suicide. Which you don't have any data on, just unreliable self reported studies.

This is the OP question actually.

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

Other people made claims, some of which have been refuted.

I can't see how a study could be designed that would robustly compare suicide rates between different populations with it being horribly unethical.

You could hardly randomise people with gender dysphoria to either transition or not and then take control of their lives to avoid confounding factors and see what happens over the next few years.

@ChopperC110P

Just read your study you linked.

Participants were from a national sample of youth (12–24 years of age) recruited from The Trevor Project, a gender- and SMY-focused suicide crisis prevention service provider

(So they were looking at suicide rates from a sample of trans and sexuality minority youth referred to a service provider for suicide provention.)

The total sample size for analysis was 592. Californian 12-24 year olds. Note Sixty-five responses were dropped due to duplicate data (i.e., accessing the survey more than once)

-side note that's something I read again and again with research into trans topics. Maybe we should think about what this means? Is it common in research for people to submit multiple responses? What would the motivation for this be?

TBH once I read the sample came from people referred to a suicide prevention service I gave up. You cannot extrapolate that data to the general trans population ffs.

TBH once I read the sample came from people referred to a suicide prevention service I gave up. You cannot extrapolate that data to the general trans population ffs.

Indeed.

I found modules in research methods the most boring at uni. I just wanted to learn what I considered the interesting stuff. But my god I'm glad they drilled it into us.

Makes me sad how many gaping holes there are in the research methods in studies on topics like this. Studies that are used to prop up a harmful ideology that is harming kids. So many people don't have understanding of good research methods and just accept what they are told because "a study said xyz".

It's really really important for all of us to actually read the studies and look at the research methods and sample sizes. (And who funded it). For both studies that support our beliefs and those that counter them.

I honestly don’t think I’ve come across a more psychopathic or ghoulish answer to the problems faced by trans kids than the argument developing now that ‘they only think about or attempt suicide at massively higher rates’.

If the comfort you take from your ideological position is that you don’t actually know for a fact that the significantly increased suicide attempt rates among trans people translates into higher suicide completion, then frankly you are a ghoul and should be so thoroughly ashamed.

I'm honestly shocked at the level of sucidal ideation and self harm among all our youth. It's. Not just trans youth who have such poor mental health the whole situation is so vary sad.

But I'd say twisting facts to continue harming kids is worse than ghoulish its outright evil

But that is precisely what those who want to deny affirmative care are doing.

If you think affirmative care is so harmful, you can presumably tell me what proportion who have been on affirmative treatment have detransitioned because it was the wrong decision (as opposed to because of ongoing pressure to detransition)?

The population studied was from age 4 to 81. The youngest at age of suicide was 18.

Teens include 18 and 19 years olds for which the data I linked showed a higher incidence of suicide. So it is relevant. Of course you have no data to show otherwise.

Which one was that? Because I have linked quite a few including re-linking ones that others have posted.

The study we are currently discussing is based in the Netherlands and is a cohort of “The characteristics of the study population are shown in Table 1. In total, 8263 people attended the gender identity clinic, of which 5107 were trans women (median age at first visit 28 years, range 4 to 81 years) and 3156 were trans men (median age at first visit 20 years, range 4 to 73 years).”

Everyone is then matched to a person matching their sex and birth year in the Netherlands for a control.

@TeaKlaxon

"If you think affirmative care is so harmful, you can presumably tell me what proportion who have been on affirmative treatment have detransitioned because it was the wrong decision (as opposed to because of ongoing pressure to detransition)?"

I can't tell you that because there isn't research into it. When people propose to research it they loose their jobs. There is a real effort to silence these stats because it's counter to the ideology.

But I can tell you there is a great number of de transitioners now speaking out. And of all the cases if read about or the videos I've watched from them they all talk about pressure to transition either medically or socially or both. They all say the risks and the reality of what would be the body they are left with were not explained to them. They question how children can give informed consent. I've seen just one case where they say they detransitioned due to pressure- and this person re transitioned and I have to wonder if they were just trying to stop the abuse they were getting from TRA

What we need to know with children, is not what percentage will detransition, or detransition for a particular reason.

We need to know the long term outcomes of transitioning vs not transitioning, and how many young people would have naturally recovered at some stage, if they weren't transitioned in the first place.

I would think, for example, that you can't morally transition two children, if one of them was going to recover anyway. If we say that neither of them will ever detransition, that hardly makes it ethically acceptable.

@ChopperC110P

Ok link the study again please. If I've read the wrong one I'd like to read the right one.

But my criticism of the other one you linked still stand

I think it was this thread that I mentioned this on earlier, but there's a No True Scotsman effect with detransitioners. I'd have to dig out old notes but the stats were warped by those compiling them saying that those who detransitioned weren't actually trans and removing them from the figures for what they were trying to prove. I'd have to try and dig out old posts but I remember it being a very sneak twisting of the statistics and it's always worth keeping an eye out for.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.13164

this one is the Netherlands one.

Ive gone back and that study was to answer a specific question from @Ereshkigalangcleg who was wondering how T compare to LGB for completing suicide. So it makes sense that the sample would be LGBT teens who have attempted suicide and they are all receiving the same level of MH intervention so that you have one confounding factor addressed which is being known to and in the MH system. That study wasn’t meant to address the OP’s question at all.

A few more related studies

https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/45/1/102/6444311

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30711364/
Response: https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(19)30137-5/fulltext
Follow up: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X19308821
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X22005122

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014521342100421X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395622006458

There are not that many studies on completed suicides in children and youth because the total numbers of suicides is quite low until you get to later teens / early adult

https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20suicide%20rates,middle%2Daged%20and%20older%20adults.

In the USA, they commonly use <15 and then 15-24 as the next age range in research as that is how they collect their data. They have a bigger population so absolute numbers when it comes to deaths are higher
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db433.htm

In the UK, sample sizes are small. For the England / Wales data set, there are <15 deaths from suicide annually by those 10-14. In the 15-19 age group, there were 185 deaths (2019), 160 deaths (2020) and 215 deaths (2021). Given the small percentage of the population that is trans - it would take many yers of data to get sufficient numbers of reliable data to have anything meaningful.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/latest#suicide-patterns-by-age