Suicide - Reality vs Misinformation
Text from Our Duty
Parents of children that have Gender Dysphoria have been told that half of these kids
attempt suicide. It is used to convince parents in front of their child, that medical
transition is not only recommended but life-saving. Most parents have been told “Better
a trans daughter than a dead son (or vis versa).” Most citing those alarming figures have
not read the actual studies on which this claim is based.
Reality
There is no data to support the claim that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender
surgeries are life-saving. There is no record of scores of teen suicides due to gender
dysphoria prior to the 2016 exponential rise in medicalization of minors seeking gender
transition. There is no record of scores of teen suicides due to minors seeking gender
transition who were unable to get treatment.
According to Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper, PhD, who brought pediatric gender-affirming care
(the “Dutch Protocol”) from the Netherlands to the US, “As far as I know, there are no
studies that say that if we don’t start these kids immediately on hormones when they say
they want them that they are going to commit suicide.”
Self-harm risk among These children is about the same as other children with mental health disorders.
At the world’s largest clinic for transgender youth, the UK’s Gender Identity Development
Services, from 2010-2020, only 4 out of 15,000 minors treated or on the waitlist and unable
to access services committed suicide. At the only Belgium Pediatric Clinic, 2.8% of trans-identifying
minors completed suicide from 2007-2010.
There is no record of large numbers of adults over 30 seeking to medically transition now that
medical treatments are vastly more available. The dramatic rise in treatment is exclusively in
minors and young adults, and primarily in females.
There is no evidence that medical transition reduces suicide risk of trans-identifying adults;
if anything, there is evidence that suicide rates increase post hormones or surgeries.
In California from 2012-2018, suicide attempt rates were twice as high after vaginoplasty or
phalloplasty as before (3.3% post vs. 1.5% pre); rates of psychiatric emergencies were no lower
during the 2 years post-surgery than before surgery.
In Sweden, a country with a long history of tolerance, a 30-year study of sex-reassigned adults
found that compared to same birth sex controls, rates of all-cause mortality were 2.8 higher post
hormones and surgeries, completed suicides 19.1 times higher, suicide attempts 4.9 times higher,
and psychiatric inpatient care 2.8 times higher. Transgender mortality rate diverges sharply from
that of all adults starting about 10 years post-medical intervention.
Misinformation:
48% of all trans youth attempt suicide.
2015 RaRE Research Report, conducted by the UK LGBT charity, Project for Advocacy Counselling and Education
Of the 27 respondents under 26 years old, 13 reported having attempted suicide, resulting in the oft-repeated 48% suicide statistic.
The survey does not distinguish whether suicide attempts occurred before or after transition.
The survey does not provide any information on what, if any, mental health issues the 27 respondents suffered.
The survey does not provide any information about the sexuality of the respondents — LGB in and of itself is a risk factor for suicide.
Misinformation:
Transgender and nonbinary youth who received gender affirming medical care experienced greatly
reduced rates of suicidality and depression over the course of 12 months.
Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care,
University of Washington
University of Washington researchers knowingly published a seriously flawed paper describing
their study results in JAMA Network Open in which they initially claimed that for children on
puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, depression and/or suicidality dropped or plummeted.
One of the authors made the following public claims:
“What our study found was just vast reductions in depression and suicidality, a reduction of
depression of 60%, suicidality 73%. More to the point, we also saw worsening of these, as much
as two- to three-fold and severity for the folks who did not receive similar care. We don’t see
these sorts of improvements with any sort of other treatment.”
“Also, for the folks who did not receive this care, the severity of the depression itself was much worse.”
None of these claims were supported by the data in the researchers’ own supplemental table:
The medicalized children experienced no statistically significant mental health improvement during the study.
80% of the children not medicalized left the study, rendering the results worthless.
A member of the research team admitted: “We did not observe a decrease in rates of depression.”
