That's not the message I got from your earlier posts, which to me were saying that people who are trans are not at very much increased risk (whatever the cause might be) of attempted suicide.
Which was weird to me because from the evidence we have they are.
Giving someone the wrong hormones is one way to induce gender dysphoria in non-trans people, so suicide rate there should be similar to that of trans people with unmanaged gender dysphoria.
Suicide rates among people who transition are generally correlated with minority stress [1,2], not transition itself: "The myth that transition leads to SITBs continues to be
used to deny transgender health care access and legislative rights, despite a lack of empirical support for this position and repeated research debunking it." (SITB= suicidal thoughts and behaviors) [3]
It supports believing people about what their gender identity is instead of imposing it on them.
The rate of attempted suicide in transgender people is over 40% if they are not socially supported. That rate drops to general population levels in trans people who have familial and community support when transitioning.
Transgender people have an alarmingly high suicide rate. It appears that about 40% of transgender people attempt suicide, while anorexia results in death for about 4% of those afflicted.
In this specific case, my point is meant to caution people (like another commenter) from considering surgical and hormonal transition a "cure" that can reduce this suicide attempt rate, whatever the actual number turns out to be.
The data simply does not support that conclusion, according to the study itself.
"Respondents who said they had received transition related health care or wanted to have it someday were more likely to report having attempted suicide than those who said they did not want it."
"The survey did not provide information about the timing of reported suicide attempts in relation to receiving transition-related health care, which precluded investigation of transition-related explanations for these patterns."
I agree that society should be more accepting of gender-nonconforming people regardless of their gender identity or approach to transition, if any. I wonder if this lack of acceptance is the cause of suicide, rather than dysphoria which in some cases is alleviated through medical intervention.
> Forty percent (40%) have attempted suicide in their lifetime, nearly nine times the rate in the U.S. population
In their lifetime, not "since transitioning". If you felt like you were trapped inside someone else's body, you might attempt suicide too. A huge number of trans people go into the transition already fairly psychologically harmed by this, so none of these numbers are saying what you're implying they're saying.
You have trouble believing that trans people, whose problems are ignored by most population, choose to help people experiencing the same problem, that they know may lead to suicide if untreated, when nobody else does? How is it surprising? The only proper solution to this problem is to give all trans people equal and quick access to properly trained medical professionals who can treat them correct way, and that’s not happening.
How do those rates compare to people who were not allowed the reassignment?
"Trans people have a higher rate of suicide than the general populace even after reassignment" isn't disproving either the 'innate' or the 'societally-driven' risk model here.
No. Here's a paper which is frequently misquoted by people failing to read its open-access text in its entirety, and relying on third-parties often creative interpretations of it. It has been discussed by its author - Cecilia Dhejne - multiple times over the last decade, notably during her Reddit AMA https://thewinnower.com/papers/7252-science-ama-series-i-m-c...
> Thank you for your question and I am happy I was invited to AMA.
> I am aware of some of the misinterpretation of the study in Plos One. Some are as you say difficult to keep track since they are not published in scientific journals. I am grateful to friends all over the world who notify me of publications outside the scientific world. I do answer some of them but I can’t answer all.
> I have no good recommendation what to do. I have said many times that the study is not design to evaluate the outcome of medical transition. It DOES NOT say that medical transition causes people to commit suicide. However it does say that people who have transition are more vulnerable and that we need to improve care. I am happy about that it has also been seen that way and in those cases help to secure more resources to transgender health care.
> On a personal level I can get both angry and sad of the misinterpretations and also sometimes astonished that some researcher don’t seem to understand some basics about research methology.
The appropriate comparison to judge the treatment is not "suicide rate in trans people vs in the general population" but "suicide rate in trans people vs in people who experience dysphoria but do not transition".
what does being trans have to do with any of this? why bring that in here?
while we're off-topic, please also consider the "potential harm" of suicide within trans communities and compare how access to HRT influences that. most of my trans friends who have considered suicide recently have done so in part because of the increasing hatred & vilification of trans people. your words already have "potential harm."
There is no group (including trans people) with such a "high risk" of suicide, outside of people who meet the criteria for involuntary commitment because they are at risk of suicide.
How could one formulate an experiment that would enable a research group to determine whether the higher suicide incidence rate in individuals identifying as transgendered be attributed to 1) underlying mental illness or 2) despite performing surgery and therapeutic measures that enables these individuals to fulfill their own personal desires in these areas, are still not satisfied (either based on social or internal psychological pressures) or 3) something else?
Truly honestly curious. I can't admit to understanding the state of mind in this group of clearly marginalized people, but I can't wrap my mind around the decision to not allow others as well as these same people to freely discuss what is effectively open research.
Aren't there statistics that seem to indicate an even higher suicide attempt rate post-op? This seems like something that should be discussed, if it is true (and if its not, then even more so... to set the record straight).
Have 40% transgender people attempted suicide primarily because they are being bullied by society or because they have a mental disorder where their body doesn't match their brain and they become depressed because it is physically impossible to reconcile those differences, so they spiral into despair?
Genuine question, I just don't know how to tiptoe around this in a 2023 acceptable way without asking it bluntly.
Sounds like we need better medical treatment if half of people with the condition want to commit suicide, and telling people on the internet to stop bullying and putting colorful flags in your twitter profile won't suffice. Not advocating for hate, just saying that it seems the medical community delegated this whole thing to society with a note of 'please be nice and everything will sort itself out'.
(I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just making this clear for anyone else reading. also: comment talks about suicide)
> In the old days they pretty much had to learn to accept themselves for who they were and not worry about what other people thought, both because no one was encouraging them they deserved acceptance and because few would have budged.
According to scientific research, around 1/3 of patients with gender dysphoria have attempted suicide in the past. The only medically accepted treatment for gender dysphoria is transition. If you're advocating against that then you're advocating in favor of preventable suffering & deaths.
Also, using human nature as an argument is fallacious.
I understood your comment to be against social acceptance of trans people, (and honestly still do. Admittedly this isn't a best-faith interpretation of your comment, but it made sense in the context I read it in. )
Therefore, my comment wasn't intended to be only about available medical treatment options (including surgical), but also about social acceptance of trans people, which is a kinda important part of all of this.
If that's not how you intended to mean your comment, that's great, because I agree with you on the medial/surgical side of things.
reply