Trans-Related Suicides

Contextual Quote

"When it comes to suicide, the ACLU and its de facto client, the American gender industry, are woefully out of step with a growing international consensus. In January, Riittakerttu Kaltiala, chief psychiatrist of the pediatric gender clinic at Finland’s Tampere University and the country’s top expert in the field, told Finland’s liberal newspaper of record that it is “purposeful disinformation” to say that denial of gender “affirmation” will result in suicides. Presumably recognizing the risk of inadvertently fueling suicidal behaviors among vulnerable youth, Kaltiala said that such messaging was “irresponsible.”

- Leor Sapir [1]

Statistics

Leor Sapir:

"An apples-to-apples study would compare suicidality rates in the first group with suicidality among non-gender-distressed youth with similar mental health comorbidities (e.g., depression). A recent study did exactly that and found that the disparities in suicidality between gender-distressed and non-gender-distressed youth all but disappeared. For example, in Canada, referred trans-identified natal males had almost 49 times more suicidal behavior than non-referred males but only 1.8 times more than referred (non-trans) males. Among females, the rates were 17:1 (referred to non-referred) versus 1:1 (referred to referred). Youth with gender-related distress are more or less in the same category of risk as youth without gender issues but with similar psychiatric problems.

Studies from multiple countries that offer “gender-affirming care” have shown that the majority of minors referred to pediatric gender clinics are teenage girls with no history of gender-related distress before puberty and with at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Typically, these diagnoses precede the advent of gender issues. Researchers in Finland found evidence of “severe psychopathology preceding onset of gender dysphoria” in 68 percent of patients seen in the country’s gender clinics. In the U.K., the review by physician Hilary Cass of the Gender Identity Development Service found that up to a third of the minors referred for services had autism or other neuroatypical conditions. In the U.S., one study found, 70 percent of pediatric patients are diagnosed with autism, ADHD, or some other mental-health problem prior to receiving a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

By now it is well-known that members of Generation Z—and young liberal females, in particular—are experiencing one of the worst mental-health crises on record. The crisis is strongly linked with smartphone and social media use, and the social isolation and lack of psychological resilience they breed. The extraordinarily high rate of comorbid mental-health conditions among teenagers who reject their bodies and their sex must be understood against this background. More importantly for this debate, the common comorbid conditions in this population—anxiety, depression, eating disorders, ADHD, autism, and history of sexual trauma—are independently associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Given the high rates of preexisting psychiatric comorbidities among referred adolescents and the fact that these comorbid conditions are independently linked to suicidality, the transition-or-suicide narrative is very likely a confusion of correlation and causation. It is more likely that teenagers with suicidal tendencies are gravitating toward a trans identity—perhaps believing that the fresh start promised by gender transition will solve their problems—than that some kids are born transgender and are suicidal as a result of being an embattled minority (the “minority stress” theory)."

(https://www.city-journal.org/article/reckless-and-irresponsible)