Youth Suicide and Gender Dysphoria: Separating Fact from Fiction in the Stats
A brief overview of the commonly cited false statistics used to bolster the mantra "Better a live son than a dead daughter."
There are numerous false statistics being used that promote the idea that regardless of the harm of ‘gender affirming care’, the consequence will be suicide if the child is not affirmed. These are being cited by a number of LGBQTIA lobbies that benefit in pushing medical transitions for children[i] that depend on the suicide myth: “Trans children will kill themselves if they do not receive gender affirming care.”
There is no significant risk of self-harm or suicide if puberty blockers, hormone treatment or gender surgery are not given to young people to transition to the appearance of the opposite sex.
Many parents have been told if they do not comply with 'gender affirmation care' “Better a live son than a dead daughter” Parents report this as emotional blackmail used to pressure them into compliance with drugs, hormones or surgery by Gender Clinics or Trans lobbies. However, in effect no parent will end up with a son from a daughter through body modification. Nor will they retain a fully functional daughter or son. What transition creates is a chemically altered child mimicking old-fashioned ideas of masculinity or femininity. We say this is reckless, children deserve safety and ethical care.
This trans rights narrative, while causing deep concern, is not supported by facts. Every suicide is a tragedy, and one suicide is a suicide too many. However, with such a serious issue, accuracy is critical. Please refer to the following resources:
Suicide Facts and Myths[ii]
Stats for Gender -Suicide[iii]
Time to put the mythology about suicide risks among trans into the dustbin of unscientific, transgender ideology, by Dr Michael Biggs[iv]
Suicide by Adolescents Referred to the World’s Largest Pediatric Gender Clinic[v]
In particular make note of the three false statistics that are frequently cited in support of high suicide rates:
41% by the National Transgender Discrimination Survey
45% by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, commissioned by Stonewall.
48% by the LGBT charity PACE, led by Dr Nuno Nodin from the Royal Holloway University of London
The key takeaways of the resources and articles are:
There is no high quality evidence to suggest that the overall attempted suicide rate of transgender youth is 41, 45 or 48 percent.
People with psychiatric conditions – and sometimes neurodiverse conditions – are much more likely to die by suicide than gender dysphoric people.
Suicide rarely has one cause: it is difficult for statistical studies on suicide to extricate gender dysphoria from other factors.
Advocacy run research[vi] results in biased data[vii].
Endnotes:
[i] https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/06/transgender-activism-pharmaceutical-studies-children/
[ii] https://statsforgender.org/suicide/
https://www.transgendertrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Suicide-Facts-and-Myths-2.pdf
[iii] https://statsforgender.org/suicide
[iv] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888486/
[v] https://segm.org/trans_youth_suicide_study
[vi] https://stoptransingkids.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/activist-driven-transgender-research-methods-are-reckless-and-will-lead-to-harms/
https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/06/transgender-activism-pharmaceutical-studies-children/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346
[vii] https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/06/transgender-activism-pharmaceutical-studies-children/