Do trans people still kill themselves if they don't get their surgeries and trans care?

submitted by 8thmonitor from self.whatever

Many trans already kill themselves after they receive surgeries and trans care. But do trans without surgeries and trans care also kill themselves? That seems to be what "studies" and stories are saying.

What a strange experience. I will never understand what is going on with them.

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[–]jet199Instigatrix 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Yep, bear in mind though that personality disorders like BPD have some of the highest suicide rates and most troons have one of those.

The disorder with the highest suicide rate is actually anorexia and you never hear about that so the trans stats are being used to push a political agenda.

[–]karma_police 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting. Seems these are the main causes:

Borderline personality disorder (BPD): Up to 10%Trusted Source of individuals that have received a diagnosis of BPD die by suicide.

Depression: Research from 2020Trusted Source indicates that major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most prevalent mental health disorder and has a suicide likelihood of approximately 15%.

Bipolar disorder: A 2019 review Trusted Sourcefound that individuals with bipolar disorder were 10 to 30 times more likely to die by suicide than those in the general population.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): 2016 researchTrusted Source suggests that PTSD is associated with an elevated chance of suicide.

Substance use disorders: Findings from a 2020 case-control study Trusted Sourceindicate an elevated likelihood of suicide in those with substance use disorders, and the chance for suicide increases if you use multiple substances.

Psychosis: A 2020 review notes that people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are 5%-7% more likely to die by suicide than those without psychosis, and the likelihood is higher in the first year after being diagnosed.

Stress: Findings from 2019 researchTrusted Source indicate that stress is linked with suicidality in youth.

Anxiety disorders: A 2016 literature reviewTrusted Source of anxiety disorders and suicidality indicates a statistically significant but weak link between anxiety disorders and suicidality.

Eating disorders: A 2019 studyTrusted Source of 36,171 respondents found the rate of suicide attempts among those with eating disorders to be 5-6 times higher than those without specific eating disorders.

[–]Clownfall 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

If a person is suicidal before surgery.... it's not likely to be improved by the long+painful recovery process after surgery, with complications that may leave you unable to pee, let alone ever experience an orgasm again.

[–]gloomy_bear 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Yes. Regardless of a genital mutilation or not, they usually anhero themselves anyways.

[–]IkeConn 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I would hope so.

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is no doubt that the suicide rate among trans people is higher than that of non-transgender people, but it isn't clear why.

  • There seems to be no difference in suicide attempts between countries that are more accepting of trans people, and those that are less accepting.
  • However there does seem to be some difference between those people who have strong family support and those who don't.
  • Many, possibly a large majority, of trans people also suffer from other mental illnesses, which may contribute to the suicide rate.
  • There is little information as to whether trans people with sexual dysphoria commit suicide more or less than autogynephiles.
  • There is no good quality data showing that transition, or "gender affirming care", reduces suicide.
  • Although there are lots of bad quality studies that claim to show this.

Most of the studies and data involving trans people predate the sudden explosion in trans rates from about 2016, so we don't know whether the post-2016 trans population has the same behaviour as the pre-2016 population. How big a role does social contagion play? How about the role of the medical profession in encouraging, if not pushing, teens to transition? Are there more autogynophiles transitioning now? Have the number of detransitioners gone up? (Anecdotally, the answer to the last two are both "Hell yeah!")

Historically, most transsexuals were either dysphoric gay males, about 90% or more who would grow out of it and become well-adjusted gay men, or autogynophiles. Today the number of female to male transsexuals seems to have increased greatly. While social media is full of stories about heterosexual men cosplaying as women and demanding access to women's spaces, the sudden increase in teen girls transitioning is also a great concern.

And let's not forget the number of opportunistic straight male sex offenders who suddenly discover they are trans the instant the handcuffs go on, and stop taking hormones once they are in a women's prison.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes. Unfortunately it's a real condition, but none of the solutions are real.

[–]TheMaharishi 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

The only solution is deprogramming. But that only works for the people who were tricked into it. Which on the other hand is the vast majority. Before trannyfaggery was blasted in the mainstream. People suffering from it was like one in a billion or less.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's not quite as rare as one in a billion, but it isn't common. We don't think it's something to brag about and shove in everyone's face either, so it didn't used to be something people thought about unless they were dealt that card.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

People suffering from it was like one in a billion or less.

Closer to one in a hundred thousand, but that includes both people suffering from gender dysphoria and autogynephiles motivated strongly enough to fake dysphoria in order to get some form of medical transition.

In the 2016 Australian census the rate of "gender diverse" people was about 5.4 per one hundred thousand. About a quarter of those identified as some form of transgender, so something like one in a hundred thousand.

It's a complex question because you have at least two unrelated group under trans: people (mostly gay teens) suffering from what used to be called "gender identity disorder" (GID) but is now called gender dysphoria, and people (mostly adult men) for whom "being the opposite sex" is a sexual fetish.

The shift to renaming GID "gender dysphoria" was accompanied by an almost simultaneous shift to so-called "gender affirming care", and a few years after that a massive social contagion (especially among teen girls) driven by Tumblr and Instagram. Before that most teens people presenting with gender dysphoria were not transitioned, and they grew out of it.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Surgery helps the gender dysphoria, but not the social bullying, in particular transgender related violence.

Their suicide rate is still higher than background, but gender affirming care, including surgery reduces it.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2789423

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419891003634430

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419891003634430

Did you chose that paper on the basis of the title, without reading it? Nice one.

For those who actually do want to read the paper, you can access it here. Some notable features:

  • The study was performed in the US in 2009, before so-called "gender affirming care" was mainstream. It is highly unlikely any of the subjects had received gender affirming care.
  • The study did not ask participants whether they had gender dysphoria.
  • Nor did it ask whether they had received any sort of treatment for such dysphoria.
  • And it certainly did not ask whether the suicide attempts occurred before or after any such treatment.

Since the study does not look at gender-affirming care at all, it cannot support your contention that gender affirming care reduces suicide attempts.

In addition, the study is not a good match for transitioning teens today, who are mostly girls transitioning to male:

  • The study is overwhelmingly made up of straight or bisexual white males who identify as women (78% are bisexual or heterosexual natal males; 58% are natal males who identify as "female", "somewhat female", or "equally both").
  • The study proclaims itself as having subjects from multiple ethnic backgrounds, but just 5 out of 153 subjects are non-Caucasian.
  • More of the subjects identify as "cis" than of non-Caucasian ethnicity (6% of the natal males identify as exclusively male, and 7% of the natal females as exclusively female, making at least 9 individuals; if we include those who identify as "somewhat" their natal sex, that increases to 40 individuals).
  • The study involved only subjects over 18, not teens, with an average age of 47.

Regardless of the strengths or weaknesses of the study, it is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not gender-affirming care reduces suicide amongst trans people.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Their suicide rate is still higher than background, but gender affirming care, including surgery reduces it.

We really should distinguish between European-style gender-affirming care and American-style rapid "affirming care" which often includes teens and even children being put on hormone disruptors on the basis of a single, short, medical consultation. Even European proponents of GAC are shocked at how fast and how few checks and balances the American system is.

Quote:

The American Journal of Psychiatry has issued a major correction to a recent study. The Bränström study reanalysis demonstrated that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” reduced the need of transgender-identifying people for mental health services.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2789423

An interesting study, but:

  • It was a short-term study (only one year). Many trans people report a short term euphoric "honeymoon period" over the first year or so after gaining gender-affirming care, so this suggests that short-term improvement in mental health cannot be extrapolated to longer term outcomes.
  • The study shows an increase in depression following gender-affirming care (but that's okay, it's not statistically significant) followed by a return to baseline.
  • The study also finds no statistical trend over time. If the GAC was causing the lower rates of depression and suicide, you would expect that the more GAC they got (i.e. the longer it went on) the better the mental health outcomes would be. But that's not what the study found.
  • The drop-out rate was very large. From 104 subjects, 39 dropped out of the study over twelve months.

People can drop out for many reasons, but in this sort of study, some important reasons include suicide and detransition.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Many trans people report a short term euphoric "honeymoon period" over the first year or so after gaining gender-affirming care, so this suggests that short-term improvement in mental health cannot be extrapolated to longer term outcomes.

Please link to the study that shows this.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I said Many trans people report -- go and spend some time on trans subreddits and see how people discover their euphoria after beginning to transition. Or listen to their lived experiences and stop being a bigot.

There are relatively few studies on this aspect. I suspect because people really don't want to emphasis the fact that many trans autogyns are getting sexually turned on by this.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I said Many trans people report

I had assumed that since you were discussing a scholarly paper, your refutations would be of a similar quality.

go and spend some time on trans subreddits

You're concerned about the impact of the dropout rate in the conclusions of the study i linked, on the grounds that if dropout is correlated to a particular outcome it may bias the results.

Can you imagine any possible biases in this "browse subreddits" analysis?

That "short-term improvement in mental health cannot be extrapolated to longer term outcomes" is the part that needs data if you want to overturn the findings about it being protective against suicide.

Or listen to their lived experiences and stop being a bigot.

Sorry?

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That "short-term improvement in mental health cannot be extrapolated to longer term outcomes" is the part that needs data if you want to overturn the findings about it being protective against suicide.

What findings would they be?

You posted two links, one which said nothing at all either for against so-called "gender-affirming care" (GAC) reducing suicide rates. The other one was a poor-quality study with a high drop-out rate and of a completely different demographic to the majority of teens receiving GAC today. It showed an increase in depression, and no time trend, both of which suggest that their major finding of reduced suicide was just a statistical artefact, not a real effect. If it were a real effect, it should show a time trend and a decrease in depression.

The whole field is, sadly, in a very poor state:

  • Most studies on GAC are poor quality, at high risk of bias, and with low confidence in their results including landmark studies such as De Vries et al. (2011).
  • The evidence base for GAC is very poor with few studies using controls (whether matched or unmatched) and lack of randomisation. With these studies involving so many subjective elements and being at such high risk of bias, the lack of blinding is a severe problem.
  • GAC is also at high-risk of confounding due to the placebo effect.

Finland, Sweden and France have moved away from GAC in the last few years, expressing serious doubts that the benefits are greater than the risk of side-effects and harms. Norway has recently done the same. And after the Tavistock scandal, the British NIH have distanced themselves from from GAC for youth as well.

The so-called "Dutch Protocol" is intentionally conservative towards patients suffering from confounding mental illnesses. Whereas in the US especially, having multiple mental illnesses is treated as all the more reason to fast-track "gender affirming care" and rush children and teens into irreversible treatments.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Regarding the risk of suicide specifically, Gender HQ does a good review of studies with both positive and negative results.