Transactivists 'must stop invoking suicide'

[IcakethereforeIam]

About time someone with knowledge in this field stepped up and said this

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/14/transgender-activists-suicide-puberty-blockers-debate-stop/

https://archive.ph/I47Ga paywall bypass

Unless they've been saying it for years but it's just now being reported. I've never understood why tras and tra organisations got a pass over this, when everyone else is very careful. Even being very careful about reporting the suicide of someone in the public eye, usually reported as a sudden death.

I think even organisations that do know better (I think it was the Samaritans?) throw sense, truth and compassion out the window.

I thought this article deserved its own thread.

And if the tras* could lay off the death and rape threats too. You know, actually behave like decent human beings, instead of just identifying as decent, that would be nice.

*Obviously NATRAALT

Hard Agree

This is the first time he’s intervened and it’s good to see

I find it horrifying that adults push this narrative about suicide at children.

"Groups like the charity Mermaids, which have been accused of pushing <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/I47Ga/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/26/use-of-puberty-blockers-doubled-since-nhs-clampdown/" rel="nofollow" target="blank">puberty blockersrs on children, have claimed that denying a child’s right to change their gender identity could increase the risk of suicide.^

MPs have also used the argument in the Commons.

Prof Appleby, a psychiatrist who leads the National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, said: “Children with gender distress may face bullying, isolation and family conflict, [which are] reasons to be alert to suicide risk.

“Empathetic support is vital but evidence that puberty blockers reduce risk is weak and unreliable.

“Invoking suicide in this debate is mistaken and potentially harmful.”

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he added: “We need to see an end to that line about choosing a living daughter or a dead son.

“It is not based on evidence. May add to distress in young people and mislead worried parents.

“Deeply insensitive to 200 families a year to whom the suicide of a teenager is more than a slogan.”

Well said Professor Sir Louis Appleby.

I can never get the archive links to open but I found it here

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trans-activists-must-stop-invoking-150225322.html?guccounter=1&gucereferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guceereferrersig=AQAAAN5CD8jLtm3tBtD-NeJMo4EHP3-9rxRaUeiy8G9k8yWBzcMcX691MTFJHLQWHBqFv9kOxUuwSWVD6Fum3ZEVvLuUlUVQm0i6Vm4E4GO6Rl7tP8lWEtkkwIZ-ZXk41ceELvCC0w8wUJCEMldPrtxRPboTYylJGw7aK-WZRHZp3xjA

Agree, this is good to see finally being put forward officially.

We now need mental health professionals to begin explaining that threats of self harm in response to other people setting boundaries are a known thing, that there are helpful and unhelpful ways to respond, and an unhelpful way is to suggest that people take down their boundaries.

We now need mental health professionals to begin explaining that threats of self harm in response to other people setting boundaries are a known thing...

As in the dumped boyfriend calling his ex, telling her he's on a bridge. I know two blokes who've done just that. It's emotional blackmail and nothing more.

I've been a victim of that as coercive control myself.

Tbh I was called an insensitive bitch for suggesting to a former friend that if her ds was threatening suicide she should have him committed for assessment. I might have also pointed out that it would get him the help he needed or teach him a lesson about emotional blackmail never working

I don't think relatives can 'have someone committed'. And if someone spoke to me about involuntary detention as a means to 'teach someone a lesson' I would be pretty furious too.

I do see the similarity between the controlling partner threatening suicide if you leave them (with absolutely no intention of doing so) and TRAs barraging worried parents with the potential suicide of their child (and knowing it is extremely unlikely). It’s just the same kind of emotional blackmail shit dressed up as caring.

My experience of a partner coercively controlling me through (actual) self harm and threats was of a partner in serious distress, very unwell and in need of professional help by those who knew how to respond with accidentally enabling or reinforcing the beliefs and expressions of their illness. I didn't have that in depth understanding or professional distance, and my first impulse was just to do whatever calmed them down. Which just moved the distress to the next situation they were unable to cope with.

MPs are speaking without this understanding, in situations of unwell and distressed people and desperate parents, it's a hugely missing piece of the puzzle, not to mention the repeating of basically incorrect information in this hugely sensitive subject.

I do see the similarity between the controlling partner threatening suicide if you leave them (with absolutely no intention of doing so)

It's still abuse for a person to try to control other people's behaviour with suicide threats even if they are in fact mentally unstable enough to be at risk of harming themselves. And this obviously goes for TRAs too.

It's possible to be both vulnerable and dangerous to others, or abusive.

This 100% and in my experience is common with a significant number of TRAs. I don't actually doubt that many of them are experiencing significant mental distress but that doesn't give them a free pass to distress others.

So pleased to see this being highlighted. The weaponising of suicide has been unforgivable, both as a tool to control parents and to to coerce and frighten gender confused children. We know that social contagion is a major factor with suicidal ideation and nobody should be misusing it in this way.

Very glad he's made this intervention - it took him a while, but better late than never.

I think he's the first person in a position of influence (other than a politician) to say this. Even the Samaritans have gone along with the narrative that trans children are at particular risk of suicide, contradicting their own guidelines on reporting suicide, which include:

"Steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity. This can contribute to unhelpful and risky normalising of suicide as an appropriate response to distress."

"Oversimplification of the causes or perceived ‘triggers’ for a suicide can be misleading. As mentioned in the previous section, the suggestion that a single circumstance or incident, such as bullying, job loss, relationship breakdown or a bereavement, was the cause increases the risk of contagion. Vulnerable people experiencing similar issues are more likely to over-identify with the deceased when a single reason is given."

We can only hope now that Appleby has spoken out, it will give others the courage to follow.

Has anyone looked at his tweets? What sort of a response, if any, is he getting?

I've always said of you're in enough mental distress to threaten suicide you aren't in a mental place to make life altering decisions. Get help for depression first and make sure other areas of your life are working healthily before changing hormones or having surgery. Messing around with hormones is really the last thing a suicidal person should be doing anyway as they make moods unstable!

It is all a bit chicken and egg isn't it?

A spokesman for Mermaids said multiple studies show that “trans young people are disproportionally at risk of experiencing depression, self-harm, substance misuse, suicidal thoughts and behaviours, linked to factors such as discrimination and transphobia”.

I would argue that the risk comes from the comorbidities that are so often seen. The risk remains because these are never dealt with in the pursuit of affirmation only.

This should be common sense really.

Don't take scissors to your own hair because you're having a mental crisis, so definitely don't make life altering and irreversible changes when you're in mental crisis either.

It's appalling the way TRAs have managed to get so many official bodies and charities to completely disregard the normal safeguarding of vulnerable children over this.

Lots of organisations seem to have caved to the same emotional blackmail and social contagion that they should have known to guard against. It can't all be down to activists can it?

We do need an enquiry into how we found ourselves here. Why, in this one area, common sense, reality, safeguarding, the normal rules, were all jettisoned.

James Kirkup did a good column on this @IcakethereforeIam

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/

Is there an archive link for that?

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/2023.08.11-151401/www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://archive.ph/2023.08.11-151401/www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/

here :)

Unfortunately I don’t think TRAs employ any genuine compassion or care for who they harm with their rhetoric and terror tactics. They are misogynist bullies. It’s what they do.