Finnish study on transition and psychiatric outcomes in sex and gender shows increased psychiatric morbidity

[anyolddinosaur]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.70533 Finnish study shows transition did not help psychiatric morbidity. It got worse.

From Julia Mason on X/Nitter:

Julia Mason MS MD@JuliaMasonMD1
7h
There's a key distinction in the new register study out of Finland that many people are missing: they didn't compare all types of psychological support, or even the use of psychiatric medications. They were looking at "specialist level psychiatric treatment" and this is a thing.

Apr 7, 2026 · 3:01 AM UTC
Julia Mason MS MD@JuliaMasonMD1
7h
They didn't track use of counseling, or routine ADHD medications, or SSRIs. Finland has a two-tiered mental health system, and only the difficult cases end up being referred for specialist level psychiatric treatment. An increase here is significant.

Who could ever have predicted surgically removing the genitals of mentally ill people would not magically cure them.
Gee. Shocker.

Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with why organisations like the Tavistock didnt want to provide records so patients could be followed up.

The research is a great start.

We need more long term reviews from existing records.

meanwhile this tweet is meme worthy.

x.com/lgbwiththet/status/2041234218081005925?s=46

How is this not a bigger story? I can't find this anywhere on the BBC.

This is the first time ever this has been properly looked at - and it shows the exact opposite of what we've been told the last few years. Far from saving someone's life by affirming their gender identity - it actually increases the likelihood of them taking their own life SIGNIFICANTLY.

💯

The logical argument would be to only allow physical transition in cases where mental health issues aren’t skewing perception. However, this would likely be illegal due to discrimination against those with mental health conditions. It is also hard to imagine concluding that someone is mentally well when they are seeking to undermine their health and function through taking exogenous hormones and removing healthy tissue.

QED

I don’t think that the Tavi was trying to cover up known or anticipated findings about poor outcomes. They were so ideologically captured/ driven that they thought that provision of ‘gender affirming care’ was a moral imperative that should not be questioned. I still can’t get over how they operated like this within the NHS - there is no other example of this across any other specialist services.

Fortunately, the Tavi no longer exists as an NHS Trust, it was taken over by the North London NHS Trust on 1st April.

A nice discussion by Stella O’Malley which includes reference to the above study:

stellaomalley.substack.com/p/the-cass-paradox

However, this would likely be illegal due to discrimination against those with mental health conditions.

Not in this country it wouldn't. Preserving the mental health of people who already have a mental health condition is a legitimate aim. And refusing to give them medical treatments which are known to worsen their mental health outcomes is a proportionate means to that aim.

Some kinds of discrimination are sensible and legal.

I don’t think a blanket veto on people with psychiatric conditions accessing gender reassignment treatment/surgery would stand up to legal challenge.

Having said that, I struggle to get my head around it all because it’s all so contradictory and incoherent.

I have been party to many discussions where anxiety had been expressed about the potential ‘oppression’ of autistic people through denying them gender affirming treatment on the basis of being autistic. For many, it’s seen as a right!

It's notably not printed in any notable scientific journals because it's junk science, have a read:

Fact Check: New Finnish "Study" Does Not Prove "Trans Youth Care Leads To Worse Outcomes"

I don’t think a blanket veto on people with psychiatric conditions accessing gender reassignment treatment/surgery would stand up to legal challenge.

It stands up legally if having a particular psychiatric condition means that the treatment will make their condition worse. There are other treatments that are contra-indicated for certain psychiatric conditions - e.g. talk therapy is contra-indicated for some conditions (because it is harmful to the people who have them) and it's legal to refuse. Why would gender reassignment be different?

I have been party to many discussions where anxiety had been expressed about the potential ‘oppression’ of autistic people through denying them gender affirming treatment on the basis of being autistic. For many, it’s seen as a right!

Are those discussions with people who understand the law? People can think it's a "right" but that doesn't mean it legally is a right. People may believe they are being "oppressed" but self-decided "oppression" has nothing to do with the law or even whether they really are being oppressed. People in this country don't have a right to demand that doctors knowingly harm them. Refusal to harm someone is not oppression.

'Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminising gender reassignment and from 21.6% to 54.5% in masculinising gender reassignment. '

I think what is clear with this study and is undeniable, is that mental health does not improve with these treatments. The treatments being pushed by many heavily invested individuals and groups as being 'life saving' and to improve mental health.

anyone wanting to use archive for that Erininthemorning piece, here is the link

https://archive.is/ppnvu

Aye, the Xters are a-buzz with supposed takedowns. It’s all a cope - the study is solid.

What medical quals does this Erin chap have?

Gosh that's quite something.
I'd be very concerned if I was considering transition and cared about objective truth.

I wonder if trans people fare any better if they are those who accept that gender identity is about who you are inside and separate from physical sex. If they don't think that woman = female/ man = male, are they happier?

Good question. Also worth noting disparity in outcomes between males and females. Its almost like sex matters.

But we know that a thirteen year old girl has very different reasons for dysphoria about her body than a forty year old man who likes wearing fishnets and bras.

Well, yes, of all the people for whom sex matters, those undergoing genital surgery are at the top of the list! Their sex must be a huge concern for them for a prolonged period of time.

"Psychiatric treatment, excluding gender identity assessments and appointments with a multi-disciplinary team therein, subsequent to the index contact was defined as continuing two years or more after the index contact, to allow time for the gender identity assessment and potential medical GR initiation."

So that linked article is a bit misleading as it suggests that the reason for the increased psychiatric care was because of gender identity appointment...but, per the study, they are specifically excluded as to include them would obviously render the conclusions meaningless.

Dismissing evidence by questioning the journal rather than engaging with the paper isn’t pretty shoddy.

Reed rightly points out the limitations of measuring psychiatric visits rather than symptoms. However, claiming that the frequenting of specialist services is likely accounted for by surveillance and monitoring doesn’t hold.

Specialist care in Finland is not used for ongoing low-level surveillance of stable patients. Discharge to primary care occurs in these instances. The study’s finding (high and rising specialist-tier utilisation does not resolve post-transition) cannot be explained away as artifactual monitoring. It points to a real, persistent heavy psychiatric burden in this population.

You would have thought that TRAs would want and hope for much better outcomes than this paper reveals. The paper highlights persistent or worsening high level psychiatric needs. If it were any other condition than ‘gender related distress’, activists would be jumping in the findings and demanding better. TRAs don’t want the best outcomes, they want on demand ‘gender affirming’ hormones and surgery regardless of whether this will deliver better outcomes ones. It really disgusts me.

It does explain exactly that.

And why generally science goes into journals that peer review them, to catch "mistakes" like that. But as they could not get into any of the papers that would do so, it's published in something which does not require peer reviews, just posted without question.

Peer review is not some super high bar, it's science 101. Science standard, do you remember that thing, where 96% of trans supportive studies were rejected for supposedly not meeting that super high bar set in Cass review?

This does not even close first of dozen plus hurdles. But suddenly as it fits your narrative, that doesn't matter anymore. Neither did other anti-trans studies used in Cass, but that's another story.