I see the fake suicide statistics have been rolled out again by TRAs I hope Wes Streeting knows they are entirely misleading.
Dr Kaltiala who is a highly experienced adolescent gender medicine expert from Finland, where they were very progressive at one point about affirming gender questioning children, explains how mistaken an idea it is:
Excerpt from article February 2023:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/finland-youth-gender-medicine
Finland Takes Another Look at Youth Gender Medicine.
Turning to the question of suicide, which has become virtually the only argument that “gender affirming” activists make in support of their preferred practice, Kaltiala did not pull her punches. The popular “transition or suicide” narrative used by activists to push back against state reform efforts is, in Kaltiala’s words, “purposeful disinformation, and spreading it is irresponsible.”
Much of the public confusion about the suicide issue stems from a simple correlation-causation fallacy. While there is evidence that teenagers who identify as transgender have elevated rates of suicide and suicidality (a behavior that, researchers emphasize, often involved thoughts of suicide or nonfatal self-harming gestures and should not to be confused with actual suicide or serious attempts to end one’s life), there is no evidence that their elevated risk is because of unaffirmed gender identity or that social and medical transition will reduce their risk for self-harm. Studies purporting to find that hormones reduce suicidality are typically designed in such a way that valid inferences about cause and effect cannot be drawn. Considering that roughly three-quarters of teenagers who present to gender clinics these days have preexisting mental health conditions like depression and autism, which are themselves risk factors for suicidality, it is probably more accurate to say that teenagers with suicidal inclinations are more likely to gravitate toward a trans identity.
Thankfully, moreover, suicide is extremely rare even among transgender-identified youth. There was no epidemic of suicides among gender-distressed teenagers before “gender affirming” hormones became available roughly 15 years ago. A study from the U.K. found that the suicide rate among minors seeking medical transition between 2010 and 2020 was 0.03%—nothing close to the 41% risk commonly cited by American activists. Suicide, according to Helsingin Sanomat, 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.” For Kaltiala, “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.”
Indeed, the suicide discourse that has come to dominate gender transition activism may itself contribute more to youth self-harm than the bans on hormones and surgeries currently being passed in U.S. states. As Alison Clayton has argued in a peer-reviewed paper, “an excessive focus on an exaggerated suicide risk narrative by clinicians and the media may create a damaging nocebo effect (... “self-fulfilling prophecy” ...) whereby suicidality in these vulnerable youths may be further exacerbated.” Tell kids that being suicidal is inherent to being transgender and that only hormones will solve their problem, and many may indeed become suicidal. The “affirm or suicide” discourse also runs counter to the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control, which emphasizes that “[s]uicide is never the result of a single factor or event” and warns against “presenting simplistic explanations for suicide.” It’s hard to think of a better example of “simplistic explanations” than “trans kids kill themselves when not given hormones.”
Why the obsessive emphasis on the suicide issue? The obvious reason is that if suicide is the expected outcome, any risk from hormones and surgeries is probably worth it. The suicide discourse has the effect, and probably also the intent, of preventing patients and clinicians from doing a careful weighing of pros and cons when deciding on treatment options. It strikes fear into the hearts of parents who worry about the risks and uncertainties about blocking their children’s natural puberty, pumping them full of synthetic hormones, and amputating their healthy breasts as early as age 13. It is also a powerful tool for silencing critics and—crucially—deterring those who have questions about hormonal interventions from raising them in the first place.
Kaltiala thinks that the suicide discourse is being pushed by “adults who have themselves benefited from gender reassignment, have a desire to go out and save children and young children. But they lack understanding that a child is not a small adult.” Activists are driven by a combination of motives including misguided empathy, a savior complex, and projection.