Tragic suicide

[Ramblingnamechanger]

Channel four news spent long time talking about the suicide of a young person ( male ) who killed themself because of not receiving gender affirming surgery when they wanted it. Obviously distraught parents seemed to think that that should have had whatever it was, affirming their son was their daughter and interviewer calling them she throughout.nothing about treating the depression which was underlying. Did not touch the area of what exactly GAS is. I have no idea what they meant…the only thing that was interesting was that they were discharged at 18 from the gender identity clinic, because of depression ( I think that was stated), Would this now be a counter indication for surgeries I wonder?

I had this on in the back ground, and didn't hear all of it. Somehow I got the impression that it wasn't even about surgery but just discussion.

But it did seem to be that everyone family and presenter where saying the depression was because of the lack of "affirmative" care, rather than that possibly the depression had latched on to the notion that transitioning would stop the depression.

(I am wondering if this is a new treng the media has agreed to, ie to use the phrase "gender affirming" as it makes like something so nice and reassuring so why would any say it shouldn't be offered. One thing the TRAs are past masters at are weasel words and phrases.)

Anyhow for anyone who want to listen this is the clip https://www.channel4.com/news/alice-litman-family-pays-tribute-as-inquest-expected-to-look-into-delays-to-her-receiving-gender-affirming-health-care

Alice was 16 when she told her family she wanted to live as a woman.

She was referred to the NHS Gender Identity Development Service in 2019, but was still waiting for an initial assessment when she died in 2022.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-66843602

I would have thought that this goes against the guidelines on reporting suicides as it opens up the possibility of copycat suicides.

It would nice if the media and the TRAs actually cared about vulnerable youngsters.

That's horrible. 3 years to wait for an assessment is crazy!

Poor girl. My heart breaks for her and her family.💔

I think that the BBC article is incorrect in referring to GIDS (children and adolescents) and that the Channel 4 video is correct in referring to the (adult) Gender Identity Clinic (GIC).

The timeline in the BBC article suggests that Alice was referred to GIDS in 2019 aged 17. If that were true then GIDS would, or should, have immediatedly referred on to the GIC. Certainly before March 2020 when Alice had already turned 18.

There is no mention of GIDS in the Channel 4 video, only the GIC, so it is likely that all the time on the Waiting List would have been for an assessment by the GIC (adults).

NHS STANDARD CONTRACT
FOR GENDER IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT SERVICE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
SCHEDULE 2 – THE SERVICES A. SERVICE SPECIFICATION

"This specification sets out the deliverables for a highly specialised service for Gender Identity Development (GID) for children and adolescents up to their 18th birthday"

3.4 Any acceptance and exclusion criteria

3.4.2 Age of access

The Service will be offered to children and young people aged up to their 18th birthday. If a new referral is received for a client who is already 17 years of age, the Service will contact the young person to discuss referral options, given that the 18 week timeline to be seen as a new patient followed by the appropriate duration of assessment means that they are likely to have already reached or nearly reached the exclusion criteria for the Service (that is, reached their 18th birthday) before they can commence hormone treatment, if this is indicated.
In such cases,

• If the young person’s objective is to receive hormone treatment and they would instead
• prefer a direct referral to adult services, the referrer will be contacted and asked to do this.
• If the young person would like the opportunity to explore their gender identification and
• options, on their own or with their parents/carers, the Service will offer to assess the young person over two to three appointments. It will then agree an appropriate onward referral if appropriate and the young person wishes.
• In all cases, referrers will be informed of the client’s decision so that local health professionals can put in place support as required whilst the young person waits to access the adult gender identity clinic.
• Referrals for young people who will be 18 by the time of the first assessment appointment will be promptly re directed via the referrer to adult gender services to minimise delays.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/gender-development-service-children-adolescents.pdf

Pretty much par for the course for almost everybody in 2020-22, though.

Surely Alice should not have been allowed to make such life-changing decisions anyway whilst Alice’s depression was out of control? The actual problem appears to be that, for whatever reason, Alice did not get enough mental health support - tragic, but sadly, hardly unique. Especially as Mooncup says, during that time period

I am sorry that Alice felt the only option was suicide, what a tragic waste of a life.

However, surely the responsibility for the suicides of people waiting for body changing medical care lies with those who lobbied to have gender dysphoria removed as a mental health issue.

It is NOT normal to loathe your body to such an extent that you feel life is not worth living if you can't access surgery and drugs to change it. There clearly IS a mental health issue there that needs addressing.

But it did seem to be that everyone family and presenter where saying the depression was because of the lack of "affirmative" care, rather than that possibly the depression had latched on to the notion that transitioning would stop the depression.

The problem is, that there's not enough peer-reviewed, proper, ethical research on this.

But the emerging clinical treatment evidence (when clinicians are not shut down, cancelled or sacked) is that transition isn't always the panacea that patients think it will be.

And that the after-effects of "gender-affirming" treatment can actually make any other underlying conditions worse.

I watched that news item with great sadness. Losing a child is the worst possible loss. But IMO, it is the lack of mental health services and support in this country that is the problem.
Also the awful stuff in social media that encourages unrealistic expectations and suicidal ideation.
The nhs is not fit for purpose, misinformation is rife and mental health support is non existent.
My heart breaks for that family. I know what it is to lose a child. But I think the focus of blame is misplaced.
I also think the news report was very poor.

If as a society, we 'affirm' a gender confused child. Do we then also agree with people suffering from anorexia that they are too fat, and help them starve themselves? Surely talking therapies are always better than surgery which leads to sterility? My heart goes out to those parents but currently the 'care' for young people with mental health problems is woefully inadequate.

I completely agree. The tragedy of losing a child is awful but this reporting is utterly terrible. It signposts suicide ideation, with its lack of any balance whatsoever on the co-morbiditity of depression amongst anything else that may also have been going on e.g. was Alice autistic? Bullying trauma is also downplayed, with all root causes apparently pointing towards the lack of gender affirming care. The BBC should be ashamed of itself.

Does anyone know if there is a Twitter post from the BBC with this article on it? Having complained directly to the BBC a couple of times, I no longer trust their self-policed complaints process.

Public shaming, looping in Ofcom, is the only sensible way forward.

I watched this. It made me so angry that this person’s death is being used to push an agenda and actually put other people at risk.

Suicide should be reported with great care.

We’ve very recently lost a family friend to suicide. Mental health and social services are inadequate and under-invested. This sort of reporting does not address that, in fact it distracts from the problems.

my heart breaks for anyone waiting a long time to access mental health services.

Some for far longer than 3 years. Far far longer.

Poor family. Losing anyone to suicide is horrific. I would be very careful if I were the broadcaster attributing factors to suicide. This goes against Samaritans guidelines.

There needs to be lots of discussions nationally about children to adult transfers.

It was tragic and a sad indictment of the state of MH services.

Aside from that I also thought it was sad that the older sister changed her family history to the false narrative and talked about anecdotes when her sibling was a 'little girl' which she of course never was.

So sad for all.

It’s desperately sad for the family, but it is appalling that it was given publicity on a scale that it undoubtedly does not warrant. Anecdotal “evidence” on medical health should not be pushed by the media. If there was a wave of suicides, to the point where it represented significant data, then perhaps it warrants reporting, but what we have here is effectively a political message/propaganda on a very controversial topic, and the suicide of any young adult should never be used in that way.

It would be understandable in the tragic circumstances for the parents to focus on the gender dysphoria aspect of their child's mental health. I don't disagree that he should've had access to better support, as should all young people having a mental health crisis.

But it's poor reporting to suggest that 'transitioning' would've been like waving a magic wand over this young person though, there's no evidence to suggest it would've been effective in treating his mental health issues. Affirming something we know to be false isn't actually helping anyone, much like a previous poster suggested with eating disorders.

Better care definitely needs to be given to children struggling with their mental health no matter how it is presenting, but giving them the idea they can change sex to magic away all their problems is so problematic it's actually borderline abusive imo.

I was surprised to see this reported as it was in The Times:

Trans teenager killed herself after waiting years for NHS treatment

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0cf50618-566c-11ee-9ad7-7384b2f230c5?shareToken=11685d7ef5bc8e26332f1d94f0c2a36c

For one thing, I thought headlines like that were a no-no. For another, the article states:

"Due to the severe delays in referral, her family paid for private counselling to help support her mentally. They also sought help from GenderGP, a private service aimed at supporting transgender patients, and Alice began taking cross-sex hormone therapy."

If they were going to go with this, then The Times really should have reported other background information about such routes. Indeed, they have in the past:

GP who gave puberty blockers to children aged 12 nominated for award

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ef4743fe-20a8-11ee-b9dc-95034bbd78f3?shareToken=0d327380fdb18da523883f23c0d9f46e

Online clinic ignores ruling on puberty blockers

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/16db5c54-36f3-11eb-861c-b713ee2a0069?shareToken=0040ecd9a75ed9487ad630e19d35bd3f

Every suicide is tragic. Suicides of people desperate for medical care don't get highlighted in the same way.

So this is yet another case where a young person committed suicide after going on cross-sex hormones? When is there going to be a proper investigation into whether the link is causal?

How fortunate for GenderGP that the BBC is being so misleading with its coverage.

So the young person was receiving treatment, the wanted hormones and mental health support that the family funded themselves, so it was not lack of any treatment that caused this tragedy. And yet again proves that the treatment is not the prophylactic against such tragedy that it's being claimed by some sources, and something else was urgently needed. It would appear another massive failing on the part of CAMHS and mental health support. That poor family.

That reporting was completely exploitative, inaccurate and unethical. IMO.