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?

Bollocks they don't know about the Cass report. It's been in the media and widely reported as part of stories on the Tavistock and children transitioning.

They are turning a blind eye.

Unfortunately I think it's so niche a topic that a lot of people simply don't stumble upon it in their everyday lives. Or if they do, they don't really join all the dots up.
The research that gets published about autism and gender identity, for example, is all flipped around the wrong way: it starts with a premise that gender identity is real, therefore anyone who has the double-whammy of also being neurodivergent has even more need for understanding.
If you're a professional in autism and mental health, this is the constant messaging from within your own industry. The news reports aren't really front and centre, with much mainstream media giving it a very wide berth and/or misrepresenting things (such as this awful suicide).

BonfireLady I agree 100%.

"Continuous Professional Development" does not rely on people happening to have read a Newspaper article or seen a TV programme featuring a controversy around what is still an extremely low incidence population.

There has been little to no coverage in publications which you would expect HCPs and Teachers to pay attention to, and that they would be expected to pay attention to, as part of keeping up to date with current practice, whether from their own professions, regulatory bodies or voluntary organisations.

Medicine is possibly an exception as there have been several articles and letters in the BMJ.

MedScape is interesting as it seems to be mainly used by medics in the USA and any wiffle-waffle-gender-woo article receives a lot of "gender sceptical" comments and outright condemnations from US medics.

Some professions have been stitched up like a kipper.

Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists: the Chair is a member of WPATH and the RCSLT constitution has been revised so that he/they or whatever he calls his-Queer-self now rules supreme, all vestiges of democracy having been obliterated.

https://loupreston.substack.com/p/where-democracy-dies-edi-flourishes

Some are divided on "gender identity" issues.

British Psychological Society: a search for "Cass Review" found one article and one letter from August 2022 specifically about the Tavistock GIDS. Other searches, eg. "Cass interim", found nothing.

MumOfYoungTransAdult - "gender dysphoria has become such a common comorbidity"

I think this is the wrong way around, ie. while it might be common for gender dysphoria to have co-morbidities (eg. autism, social anxiety) it cannot be common for gender dysphoria to be a "common comorbidity" or there would be far more of it around than there is. The likelihood of gender dysphoria being a co-morbidity is also going to vary a lot depending on the primary diagnosis.

Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2022

In 2022, 18.0% of children aged 7 to 16 years and 22.0% of young people aged 17 to 24 years had a probable mental disorder.

In children aged 7 to 16 years, rates rose from 1 in 9 (12.1%) in 2017 to 1 in 6 (16.7%) in 2020. Rates of probable mental disorder then remained stable between 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In young people aged 17 to 19 years, rates of a probable mental disorder rose from 1 in 10 (10.1%) in 2017 to 1 in 6 (17.7%) in 2020. Rates were stable between 2020 and 2021, but then increased from 1 in 6 (17.4%) in 2021 to 1 in 4 (25.7%) in 2022.

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2022-follow-up-to-the-2017-survey

I had a look on SEGM but the studies were of gender dysphoria with co-morbid conditions, so they might study how often people with gender dysphoria have autism but not how often people with autism have gender dysphoria.

A. Novel epidemiological trend: adolescent-onset gender dysphoria with mental health comorbidities

https://segm.org/studies

If you have got any references to specific conditions I would be really interested.

I've heard a few parents say in the group that they don't believe their child would be alive if they hadn't transitioned.

This is what is so difficult and sad. Even if you or the parents thought transitioning possibly isn't the long term solution, if that is what the child believes that is their reality. And once settled on that, for the child that is an end point they really dont want reach, but their belief takes them there.

I think that there is a lot behind these parents' belief that hasn't been fully explored. But equally it's likely to be really difficult to do this.
If you've got a child telling you they are suicidal or having suicidal thoughts and that they know deep down that transitioning is the answer.. what do you do? Thankfully there is a lot more information about this now and some parents will feel empowered enough to work through this, to unpick their child's feelings. But many won't have a clue where to start.

@IwantToRetire sorry, that should have started with "I agree".

sorry, that should have started with "I agree".

Thanks - no need to apologise as your post expanded on what I was trying to say.

Its not just that (some) younger people can be really convinced of their beliefs, but also lack of life experience means they have no framework to measure themselves against.

Obviously nothing the same as other teenage rebellions "I'm never going to cop out and do a 9 - 5 job" and your parents laughing at your niavety and saying "of course not dear, you are too special to be made to do that".

As it is, especially within online reinforcement, the child is effectively trapped by their own acceptance of a set of beliefs.

Just torture for parents.

Coroner Sarah Clarke said she would be highlighting concerns including delays in gender affirmation healthcare and a lack of clarity for clinicians.

Ms Clarke said she would be writing a preventions of future deaths report, raising the following concerns:

• The knowledge and training for those in the mental health setting for managing and offering care to those in the transgender community
• The delays in access to gender affirming healthcare
• The lack of provision of mental health care for those waiting for gender affirming treatment
• The lack of clarity for clinicians who are in place to support young transgender individuals in primary care
• The lack of clarity for clinicians who are in place to support young transgender individuals in the mental health setting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-67100724

I'm sure just about everyone would agree mental health support needs huge improvements and more funding.

The rushing towards 'gender affirming' care however is lunacy in light of actual facts and reality. Conversion therapy, just the other way around.

This is a post affirmation and post transition suicide, and it's not the only one. Why would you automatically conclude that earlier affirmation and transition would be better?

There seems to be an automatic assumption yet again that being 'trans' is somehow an innate condition requiring affirmative treatment. The possibility that it's a manifestation of more general psychological distress or other mental health issues isn't discussed in the news story, but I hope the coroner had an open mind on that.

From what I'd read I thought that Alice was accessing cross-sex hormones privately. The big failure seems to have been in the lack of mental health support/psychiatric treatment. That may have been partly because of the focus on "gender affirming care" being the only valid treatment. It's conjecture that earlier transition would have prevented a decline in mental health. I doubt whether there's a single answer and I think it's likely this awful case is being exploited by some unscrupulous campaigners.

Coroner Sarah Clarke said she would be highlighting concerns including delays in gender affirmation healthcare and a lack of clarity for clinicians.

FFS. Absolutely nobody should be given access to "gender affirming healthcare" and it is completely irresponsible to attribute a suicide to lack of access to it.

Anybody who feels a distress in relation to their body should be given access to good mental health care to do a differential diagnosis and understand why. I would agree that gender dysphoria needs a specialist understanding, but not because "being trans" is innate. Instead, because it involves understanding someone's distress through the lens of a belief. It involves a careful balance of not directly challenging a belief that someone holds (their belief that they have a gender identity) whilst also exploring how they came to believe in it, whilst also exploring their distress without any reference to it at all.

Its a shame that the Coroner wasn't able to say lack of access to support whether mental health therapy, or an ongoing assessment of gender dysphoria, rather than implying (as though to please the parents) that the correct path was affirmation and it was the lack of affirmation that was the problem.

I think this is where someone in hock to someone else witholding something if they say the wrong thing shouts 'that would be an ecumenical question!'

Logic is transphobic.

Indeed. It feels like a dangerous precedent, given Labour are most likely the next government and the NHS is already starting to circumvent the Cass Review with its latest draft policy on supporting adolescents who are confused about what gender identity means for them.
With Labour's plans for a very misguided "complete ban on conversion therapy", these things are combining to make it public policy that anyone who says they are trans should be immediately affirmed and to do otherwise would be illegal.

Agreed. At this point it's as mad as shouting 'hand out that thalidomide/lobotomy/ ship those kids off to Australia, and let's do it faster!'.

And what are those actual facts? That 98% of people who transition have a better outcome? From the few trans people I encounter that all seem rather happy and do their best to fit in, and live their life. I embrace the diversity and celebrate it.

That's the second post of mine you've answered without apparently reading it.

You identify with whatever statistics and diversity you want, and I'll worry about the real ones.

@MishyJDI

That 98% of people who transition have a better outcome?

You have any long term (over decades) studies for that, that use randomised controls?

Let’s wait for those studies shall we? I happen to know of at least one long term study showing the very opposite. And, of course, one of the only other ones had to be corrected to say there was no evidence at all for any ‘improvement’.

Plus plenty of anecdotal evidence of trans people stating that they were trapped in a spiral of brief euphoria leading up to, while getting the procedure and after a procedure and then starting that cycle again to up the euphoria again. Until they realise that nothing they do will change the material reality of their lives. Then it causes even greater fragility in their mental health.

But sure Mishy, do produce the evidence! It would be the first time ever that you did…

Let’s be also very clear. Posting “That 98% of people who transition have a better outcome” on this particular thread is gross misinformation UNLESS it is backed up with robust peer reviewed evidence. And it would show exactly what motivates such a person to post this. Ie. Not movtivated by any care for a trans person.

As a former clinical researcher I would be very interested to read those studies. I look forward to checking back for the links later.

Which studies? The ones that Mishy claims or the one long term one I mentioned and the one that had to retract its conclusion as being falsely asserted (that one was the Branstrom and Pachankis one).

Sorry, I meant the ones Mishy mentioned.