A 2011 Swedish study proves that trans people are more suicidal due to transition, are likely rapists and that trans women exhibit male socialization. Or does it?
[su_cwtop]
Perhaps you’ve heard that a Swedish study found that trans people who access medical care are more likely to commit suicide. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, former Johns Hopkins chief psychiatrist and anti-LGBT activist Dr. Paul McHugh cited a Swedish study to make the following fact assertion:
A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered [sic], evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered [sic] began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered [sic] after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.
McHugh’s fact assertions were uncritically repeated by The American Conservative, Lifesite, The Christian Post, The Washington Times, Newsmax, One News Now, The Libertarian Republic, and Fox News. While McHugh’s misrepresentation of the study was debunked, the “trans medical care = suicide” meme was born. Since McHugh’s Wall Street Journal article, this meme has managed to worm it’s way into everything from news outlets to comment sections.
Echoing McHugh, TERF opinion leader, author, and lecturer Dr. Sheila Jeffreys wrote in her 2014 book, Gender Hurts:
There is still a remarkable absence of recent studies that follow up those who have SRS to find out whether this treatment is efficacious despite the great expansion of the industry of transgendering [sic]. A 2011 long-term follow-up study from Sweden found that sex reassignment was not efficacious because after sex reassignment transgenders [sic] had higher risks of psychiatric morbidity, suicidal behaviour and mortality overall than the general population, when using controls of the same birth sex. The study concluded that ‘sex reassignment’ may alleviate ‘gender dysphoria’ but ‘may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment’ (Dhejne et al ., 2011 ). 1
Jeffreys’ source for “factual material” on trans issues, Linda V. Shanko (AKA “Gallus Mag”) of Gender Trender wrote:2
The only long-term study of transgender outcomes concluded that “Male to Female” transsexuals retain male-pattern criminality, including crimes against women. Are all transwomen predators? Of course not: They are predators at exactly the same rates as any other males. Now that the public is starting to pay attention, that genie won’t be going back into the bottle anytime soon. What is once seen cannot be unseen.
TERF3 Attorney Elizabeth Hungerford of Sex Not Gender cited the study as evidence of the often appealed to yet never quantified “male socialization” TERFs assert trans women forever exhibit. Hungerford said the study “vindicates the experience of many women that transwomen as a group retain–or are unable to fully discard– some male pattern behaviors associated with male socialization… The criminal conviction rates documented in this study provide empirical evidence for this view.”
Fact Checking the Hyperbole
I’ve only scratched the surface of the amount of anti-trans hyperbole that cites the 2011 study titled, Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden by Dr. Cecilia Dhejne, et al. I contacted Dhejne after I witnessed her work used to support the claim that trans women are rapists and she agreed to the following interview:
Cristan Williams: How did you first hear about trans people and when was it that you first met a trans person?
Cecilia Dhejne: I don’t recall when I first heard about someone being transgender, though I think I first became aware of the existence of trans people as a teenager. In 1985 I took classes in sexology and around that time I also participated in a Nordic Association for Clinical Sexology meeting where I heard Dr. Friedeman Pfäflin speak about his work with trans people in Germany. Additionally, at the same conference, I was able to hear Dr. Espen Esther Pirelli Benestad talk about hir experience. I began working with trans people clinically in 1999 and from there, I started up the gender team in Stockholm.
Williams: Would you please talk about how you became interested in researching trans health outcomes?
Dhejne: In 1999 when I started the Stockholm gender team, we were conducting diagnostic evaluations to help trans people start their social and medical transition. Our team included psychologists and a social worker, and we worked in close collaboration with endocrinologists, plastic surgeons as well as speech and language pathologists at the Karolinska University Hospital.
At that time, the need for quality research was obvious to our team; we wanted our work to be evidence-based. For instance, the endocrinologist had continued to see patients post-transition and while many reported that they were quite happy, others reported difficulties. We, therefore, wanted to better document, measure and understand the needs of our patient population.
If we found a need for a more robust service delivery model to increase treatment efficacy, that would invariably impact programmatic budgets and, of course, those changes would need to be justified by a documented need. Moreover, data-driven treatment models can present opportunities to publish findings which, in turn, helps increase the overall quality of evidence-based trans care.
Williams: Before I contacted you for this interview, were you aware of the way your work was being misrepresented?
Dhejne: Yes! It’s very frustrating! I’ve even seen professors use my work to support ridiculous claims. I’ve often had to respond myself by commenting on articles, speaking with journalists, and talking about this problem at conferences. The Huffington Post wrote an article about the way my research is misrepresented. At the same time, I know of instances where ethical researchers and clinicians have used this study to expand and improve access to trans healthcare and impact systems of anti-trans oppression.
Of course trans medical and psychological care is efficacious. A 2010 meta-analysis confirmed by studies thereafter show that medical gender confirming interventions reduces gender dysphoria.
Williams: Earlier this year an Ohio news outlet cited your study to support the following fact assertion as part of an argument for denying trans people equal rights:
Would the proposed ordinance truly advance the public good and the dignity of our transgender citizens? Significant evidence shows that, after sex reassignment, transsexuals “have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population,” according to a long-term cohort study in Sweden reported in 2011.
If current treatment, that is, psychiatric support in dressing and living as the opposite sex and ultimately sex-reassignment surgery, does not benefit transgender individuals, then neither will access to the preferred bathroom. Rational thinking concludes that the proposed ordinance benefits neither the transgender individual nor the general public.
The story references your 2011 study. This study states, “The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9).” However, those citing your work never seem to note that your study also includes the following very large caveat:
It is therefore important to note that the current study is only informative with respect to transsexual persons health after sex reassignment; no inferences can be drawn as to the effectiveness of sex reassignment as a treatment for transsexualism. In other words, the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment. As an analogy, similar studies have found increased somatic morbidity, suicide rate, and overall mortality for patients treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This is important information, but it does not follow that mood stabilizing treatment or antipsychotic treatment is the culprit.
Moreover, people using your study to support spurious anti-trans fact claims also seem to not understand that your study findings aggregate two chronological groups. In simple language, would you please explain what the above paragraph means and what your study findings show for those trans people transitioning after 1989?
Dhejne: The aim of trans medical interventions is to bring a trans person’s body more in line with their gender identity, resulting in the measurable diminishment of their gender dysphoria. However trans people as a group also experience significant social oppression in the form of bullying, abuse, rape and hate crimes. Medical transition alone won’t resolve the effects of crushing social oppression: social anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress.
What we’ve found is that treatment models which ignore the effect of cultural oppression and outright hate aren’t enough. We need to understand that our treatment models must be responsive to not only gender dysphoria, but the effects of anti-trans hate as well. That’s what improved care means.
Williams: Would you please comment on the below examples of the way your work is being used and represented within the media:
Source: Washington Post
Source: TownHall
Source: Dr. Paul McHugh via LifeSite
Source: Medium
Source: The Dr. Drew Show as noted on Twitter
Dhejne: People who misuse the study always omit the fact that the study clearly states that it is not an evaluation of gender dysphoria treatment. If we look at the literature, we find that several recent studies conclude that WPATH Standards of Care compliant treatment decrease gender dysphoria and improves mental health.
Williams: Other anti-trans activists have seized upon your study to make certain fact assertions about a supposed inherent criminal nature trans women possess, as exemplified by the following Twitter exchange:
Using simple language, would you please speak to those using your work to support the fact assertion that trans women and cis men are alike when it comes to perpetrating incidences of rape, murder, torture, etc? In other words, would you please clarify the following:
A.) As to the “male pattern regarding criminality” your study reviewed, would you please speak to whether your sample is representative of the trans population as a whole?
B.) Does your study support the notion that trans women, epidemiologically speaking, are likely rapists?
C.) Did your study show that trans women, epidemiologically speaking, are just as likely to rape cis women as cis men?
D.) In the way that your study’s morbidity and mortality sample is reviewed as two chronological groups, did you use the same chronological metric for your criminality sample and, if so, what did you find?
E.) Is your “male pattern regarding criminality” a simple comparison of percentages of overall conviction rates between cis males and trans women or is it a quantitative conviction category comparison between the two? In other words, trans women (who may experience around a 50% unemployment rate4 5 6) will generally bear a greater burden of convictions associated with social oppression, poverty and homelessness (squatting, loitering, panhandling, prostitution and non-violent crimes such as drug use and petty theft) than cis men. When your study looked at the “male pattern regarding criminality” between cis men and trans women, are you saying that your data shows that cis men are being convicted for crimes associated with oppression, poverty and homelessness at a rate similar to that found in the trans population?
Dhejne: The individual in the image who is making claims about trans criminality, specifically rape likelihood, is misrepresenting the study findings. The study as a whole covers the period between 1973 and 2003. If one divides the cohort into two groups, 1973 to 1988 and 1989 to 2003, one observes that for the latter group (1989 – 2003), differences in mortality, suicide attempts, and crime disappear. This means that for the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality.
As to the criminality metric itself, we were measuring and comparing the total number of convictions, not conviction type. We were not saying that cisgender males are convicted of crimes associated with marginalization and poverty. We didn’t control for that and we were certainly not saying that we found that trans women were a rape risk. What we were saying was that for the 1973 to 1988 cohort group and the cisgender male group, both experienced similar rates of convictions. As I said, this pattern is not observed in the 1989 to 2003 cohort group.
The difference we observed between the 1989 to 2003 cohort and the control group is that the trans cohort group accessed more mental health care, which is appropriate given the level of ongoing discrimination the group faces. What the data tells us is that things are getting measurably better and the issues we found affecting the 1973 to 1988 cohort group likely reflects a time when trans health and psychological care was less effective and social stigma was far worse.
There you have it. To be clear:
- No, the study does not show that medical transition results in suicide or suicidal ideation. The study explicitly states that such is not the case and those using this study to make that claim are using fallacious logic.
- No, the study does not prove that trans women are rapists or likely to be rapists. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a euphemism for rape.
- No, the study does not prove that trans women exhibit male socialization. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a claim that trans women were convicted of the same types of crime as cis men.
- Jeffreys, Sheila. “Doing Transgender: Really Hurting.” In Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, 60-61. NY, NY: Routledge, 2014.
- “I am grateful, too, to the new wave of radical feminism both online and offline. Radical feminist bloggers such as Gallus Mag from ‘GenderTrender’ (n.d.a) and Dirt from ‘Dirt from Dirt’, among others, have provided invaluable factual material, references and ideas on their blogs, without which it would have been harder to write this book.” – Ibid, viii.
- “It’s just that I DO want to exclude some trans people from some situations, depending on the context… So yeah, I am a TERF. And I’m not ashamed. At all.” – Hungerford, Elizabeth “June 11 at 2:47 pm.” Facebook. June 11, 2015. Accessed June 19, 2015. http://i.imgur.com/GVrakZz.png
- 37% Unemployment: Xavier, J., Bobbin, M., & Singer, B. (2005). A needs assessment of transgendered people of color living in Washington, DC. International Journal of Transgenderism, 8(2/3), 31-47. doi: 10.1300/J485v08n02_04
- 67% Unemployment: Kenagy, G. (2005). The health and social service needs of transgender people in Philadelphia. International Journal of Transgenderism, 8(2/3), 45-56. doi: 10.1300/J485v08n02_05
- 42% Unemployment: Kenagy, G., & Bostwick, W. (2005). The health and social service needs of transgender people in Chicago. International Journal of Transgenderism, 8(2/3), 57-66. doi: 10.1300/J485v08n02_06
So, the argument is that increased mental distress and suicidal tendencies post-transition are due to societal oppression. What is the proof for existence of societal oppression and it’s effects? Is bigotry widespread and common in Sweden? In USA the African-Americans are facing oppression and racism, yet their suicide rates are lower then those of whites. Is there a study substantiating assertions in this interview?
“”Differences in mortality, suicide attempts, and crime rate disappear.” Cecilia Dhejne says, deceptively, differences in mortality disappeared, she never specified suicide, suicide rates being the topic at hand.”
Talk about self-refuting.
“the study refused to include the 1989-2003 cohort data”
If you read the study, you can find the 1989-2003 cohort data. I won’t say you will find it, since your reading comprehension is evidently challenged.
When trolls can’t read, their arguments are proven to be fake, and in this particular case the subject covered is an armchair anthropologist with more assertions pulled out his ass than brain cells to rub together.
I suppose it could create huge problems to realize, at some point, that one is neither a man nor a woman. Sex “reassignment” (and various other euphemisms) is an illusion; it doesn’t exist in any sort of physical/mental/emotional entirety. And once surgery is undertaken–and discovered not to be everything that was hoped for–it’s extremely doubtful that there’s any sort of backtracking to be had. I can certainly understand how these things could lead to suicidal thoughts. Seems to me it would be far wiser to live with what you are than to try to become something you can never totally achieve.
I had surgery many years ago and have no regrets. My experience is the same as that found in this study.
What makes me sad is to think about all the hours wasted by gencritters, spreading myths that then have to be debunked. I mean, go volunteer with habitat for humanity if you want to actually do some good.
Just one question, Are you happier now than before? Just seeking guidance, just read the screen name.
On the whole, yes. Specifically, I no longer contend with gender dysphoria. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get sad if my dog dies, or if something else goes wrong in my life. I tend to put it this way: without gender dysphoria my worst day today is better than my best day when I lived with gender dysphoria.
You might enjoy this: http://www.transadvocate.com/dealing-with-gender-dysphoria_n_21864.htm
I plan on seeking counseling and goin through the steps at the end of this spring. Things can only get better. Thanks.
Nothing about transition is simple or easy. I very MUCH support folks working with a competent therapist 😀
I was also wondering about the natural hormone therapy pills such as Transformation Labs. I read comments and understand they are not really strong but did allow one user to begin to just feel more at ease with who they are in public. I’m not one for popular opinion but I wouldn’t appreciate being harassed by ignorant Red Necks for who I am. I do know they don’t like me anyway just because the only conversation they can hold contain words with four letters or less. Explaining anything around here is worst than the conversation you just had with “Nobody” on here. I just want to live my life the way I like with who I am. Thank you for reading and answering believe it or not it does help.
And I’m supposed to trust “transadvocate” to do a “fact check” on such a study? Don’t make me laugh! You are FAR too biased to accept any of the evidence presented in such studies.
if you’d bother to read it you’d know the very study you are talking about is being explained to you in interview by the guy who ran it.
ANYTHING with McHughs name on it is biased against this surgery.
Yet he’s the nation’s most educated psychiatrist in the area. And John’s Hopkins discontinued transition surgery – until it was restarted recently by a trans director.
Too funny. The mentally ill just love trying to tell us what comprises mental illness…
“Yet he’s the nation’s most educated psychiatrist in the area.”
Really? Because he wrote that “It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it.”
McH arrived with certain ideas about the program and pushed it though. His work in the field is only well-regarded in right-wing ideological and religious publications and all of his assertions are out of step with modern standards of care and are rejected by practically all medical, psychological, and sociological organizations.
What peer-reviewed scientific publication are you citing when you assert that McH is “the nation’s most educated psychiatrist in the area”?
Are you saying that any ideas he had before immigrating are moot because he was a foreigner then? Or that his education was wrong because he wasn’t in Baltimore until 1975?
I don’t see your point. All I see is you covertly being a racist/xenophobe to slander the guy.
Obtuse troll is obtuse
This is total fabrication! I have worked with hundreds of transparent, all of which are happier since their transitions. I even know a few of McHugh’s patients who went to other clinics after they went to him. They transitioned anyway and are happier.
I have new for you people Mchugh is a quack. He was never on any transgender team. He was on a psychiatric team that is and was biased against sex transformations. He is retired now. His opinion shouldn’t count anymore.
Which terms of ‘happy’ are you talking about? Weeks? Months? There is NO proof whatsoever that transition provides any positive life perspective to any transgender. There has never ever been statistical proof and there never will be, cause the truth will always prevail.
“There is NO proof whatsoever that transition provides any positive life perspective to any transgender”
This is demonstrably wrong. Shall I began listing peer-reviewed studies? If so, how many decades should I go back? I mean, if we just focus on the last decade, there’s quite a bit of data out there you seem to be ignoring on purpose.
Nope. Look up Anderson School UCLA studies on suicide attempt amongst transgenders, it’s on Google. 40% of *all* transgenders is suicidal regardless of societal impact. Yes transgenders are depressed even after ‘transitioning’, even when they’re not being questioned about being transgender. The only comparable rate to suicide tendency that great amongst the members of one specific group of people was for jews under Nazi-German rule. You can be assured that trangenders are not being treated like jews under Nazi-German rule. Transgenders have a mental illness, and while it’s clear that transition could be a temporary ‘fix’, it absolutely and most clearly doesn’t heal one’s mental illness. In the best case transition doesn’t make things worse. But it certainly doesn’t improve one’s health statistically.
Since you apparently like to think of yourself as someone who relies upon evidence-based peer-reviewed published data when making fact assertions, I’m sure that you’ll be happy to know that numerous studies have shown that the suicide rate is linked to *anti-trans oppression,* not merely being trans. Moreover, the APA itself makes this distinction in its publications.
Would you like me to share these evidence-based peer-reviewed published studies with you? I mean, surely you don’t want to go around sounding like someone who trolls trans comment sections to bloviate over their demonstrably false and exceedingly uncharitable anti-trans ideology, right?
But since you cited the “Anderson School UCLA studies on suicide attempt amongst transgenders,” allow me to quote from the report you yourself cite:
[Respondents who experienced rejection by family and friends, discrimination, victimization, or violence had elevated prevalence of suicide attempts, such as those who experienced the following:
— Family chose not to speak/spend time with them: 57%
— Discrimination, victimization, or violence at school, at work, and when accessing health care
• Harassed or bullied at school (any level): 50-54%
• Experienced discrimination or harassment at work: 50-59%
• Doctor or health care provider refused to treat them: 60%
• Suffered physical or sexual violence:
— At work: 64-65%
— At school (any level): 63-78%
— Discrimination, victimization, or violence by law enforcement
• Disrespected or harassed by law enforcement officers: 57-61%
• Suffered physical or sexual violence: By law enforcement officers: 60-70
— Experienced homelessness: 69%]
In public health lingo, this effect is called “social determinants of health.” You might want to Google it.
Anecdotes prove nothing. Where is your actual evidence?
[…] claim that transition makes us worse. This study has been so poorly misrepresented that the actual author herself had to come out and clear this up, but it seems to no avail as people still cite this […]
[…] a study on trans people’s suicide rates so badly that its author spoke out and publicly corrected this, McHugh has been a reliable purveyor of half-baked scientif-ish statements used to prop up […]
I only read the first 3 sentences of your reply since all 3 sentences contained factual errors:
A.) First sentence: Disqus moded you because you have a shitty Disqus rep, not because we are a “Marxist blog”.
B.) Second sentence: We are not a Marxist (or any other -ist) blog.
C.) Third sentence: You have to attempt suicide to commit suicide.
Well that’s a good reason to give up on a discussion.
Higher suicide rates of SRS recipients is still a valid argument. Successful suicide rate is a much more important statistic than suicide attempt. Many attempts are cries for help, not actual attempts of killing zimself.
Had you bothered to inform yourself of the facts, you would have found that the data shows that in societies that become more accepting of trans people (ie, post-1989 societies), trans people who undergo transition do not, as a demonstrable fact, have a rate of suicide different than that of the general population.
While, if you wish to go around making the assertion you’ve just made, I’m sure it will be well received in your own ideological bubble, their congradulatory egaculations wont change the demonstrable facts, as laid out by the researcher herself.
The comparison is trans that undergo surgery versus trans that do not undergo surgery, not the general population.
You don’t even know my backround and you assume I am going to sit in an ideological bubble. If you knew me and my acceptance of people as well as my promotions to societal freedoms, you’d be embarassed by what you just wrote.
Yes, I know it’s incredibly silly of me to presume that you are commenting on the research found in the article you’re commenting on. Since you’ve apparently shifted the goalposts, here’s some relevant peer-reviewed research:
A meta-analysis published in 2010 by Murad, et al., of patients who received currently excluded from public and private insurance policies treatments demonstrated that there was a significant decrease in suicidality post-treatment. The average reduction was from 30 percent pretreatment to 8 percent post treatment. De Cuypere, et al., reported that the rate of suicide attempts dropped dramatically from 29.3 percent to 5.1 percent after receiving medical and surgical treatment among Dutch patients treated from 1986-2001. According to Dr. Ryan Gorton, “In a cross-sectional study of 141 transgender patients, Kuiper and Cohen-Kittenis found that after medical intervention and treatments, suicide fell from 19 percent to zero percent in transgender men and from 24 percent to 6 percent in transgender women.” Clements-Nolle, et al., studied the predictors of suicide among over 500 transgender men and women in a sample from San Francisco and found a prevalence of suicide attempts of 32 percent. In this study, the strongest predictor associated with the risk of suicide was gender based discrimination which included “problems getting health or medical services due to their gender identity or presentation.” According to Gorton, “Notably, this gender-based discrimination was a more reliable predictor of suicide than depression, history of alcohol/drug abuse treatment, physical victimization, or sexual assault.”
While I completely expect you to, once again, shift the goal post while simultaneously crowing about how smart you believe yourself to be, I want to note that it is YOU who are making the positive fact assertion with regard to your support of the initial troll’s conspiracy theories. Since it is YOU who support the notion that medical transition doesn’t diminish suicide within the trans population, I will eagerly await your citations of the various peer-reviewed research you used to inform your opinion.
Never shifted the goal post, you misrepresented my argument. You assumed my argument was that of the “initial troll”.
Please send links to the peer reviewed published studies. Do not bother with professional opinions or “suicide attempt” related articles because neither have anything to do with the argument.
You can obtain my citations when you provide me with links to these studies, which I would like to examine. When you’re ready to stop judging me for being an ideolog and for shifting the goal post, then that would also be a lot more pleasant. It’s ironic, someone defending the importance of transgender acceptance…you would think that you wouldn’t be so quick to judge. Shameful.
If you’re not making fact claims with regard to transition and suicidal ideation, what is your assertion?
If, on the other hand, that is the subject at hand, you have the citations. Go to crossref and educate yourself. Look at the studies cited; if you choose to continue banging your spoon on your highchair because doing a crossref search is just too much effort to expend, then you’re making a choice to remain ignorant. If you’re not going to even look up the research I’ve cited, you can take your uninformed opinions, then interacting with you further is a waste of my time.
You’re acting childish. Links please. I googled the names provided, no articles found. I am inclined to think you’re either lying or don’t actually care about this cause and only your narcissitic personality.
Use crossref for research, not google.
requires application for membership and requires a billing address?
No, it doesn’t. Crossref searches are free.
Through the main page, it won’t let me do the search, but by googling Crossref search, I was able to get to the database. Now I typed in Murad et al…do you have a title or should I just dig through all the 2010 studies, so about 4,980,483 pages of results?
You realize googling this is just easy, I need titles of these studies you are not citing properly. If you don’t want to give me a direct link to the page you’re looking at, that’s fine but how about a title?
Here you go. If you can’t find the research after this, I can’t help you further:
– De Cuypere, G. E. (2006). Long-term follow-up: psychosocial outcome of Belgian transsexuals after sex reassignment surgery. Sexologies, 15, 126–133.
– Gorton, R. N. (2011). The Costs and Benefits of Access to Treatment for Transgender People. Prepared for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco.
– Kuiper, M., & Cohen-Kittenis, P. (1988). Sex reassignment surgery: A study of 141 Dutch transsexuals. Arch Sex Behav, 5, 439-457.
– Clements-Nolle, K., Marx, R., & and Katz, M. (2006). Attempted suicide among transgender persons: The influence of gender-based discrimination and victimization. Journal of Homosexuality, 53(3), 53-69.
“If you can’t find the research after this”
Thanks for sharing the titles because without them its a bit ridiculous for someone to take Murad et al 2010 and think that will be enough. I will also check to see which of the ones you listed is Murad 2010 because none of these are listed as 2010.
Murad, M., Elamin, M., Garcia, M., Mullan, R., Murad, A., Erwin, P., & Montori, V. (2010). Hormonal therapy and sex reassignment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes. Clinical Endocrinology, 72, 214-231.
i am 12 years old and what is this
[…] voice from my “both sides” reblogs the last time around. I am commending my readers to this interview by Cristan Williams with Swedish researcher Cecilia Dhejne. I’ve chosen it because Dhejne […]
This was very interesting and informative. I was glad to hear from Djehne about what conclusions she feels one can fairly make about her work. It’s so frustrating that people have twisted the statistics about crime to imply something about trans women’s rate of violence or their character.
[…] many times do I have to debunk the myth that medical transition doesn’t […]
[…] of a 2011 study undertaken at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Indeed the author of this study, Dr Cecilia Dhjene has gone on record many times to debunk such misrepresentation. “It’s very frustrating!” she […]
sorry liberals, you just can’t change reality
“No, the study does not show that medical transition results in suicide or suicidal ideation”.
You mistake causation with actuality.
Transgenders enjoy up to 41 percent suicide rates.
Transgenders that transition also enjoy high suicide rates. Not as high as the non transitional, but significantly higher than the baseline.
And you mention that mental health access seems to be improving this.
I have to ask, what does better access to mental health service do for transgenders before they allow their bodies to be surgically and hormonally altered??
Does this also elicit the same results as mental health care access after surgery and hormones?
If it does, then the doctors need to lose their for operating on the untreated mentally ill.
Granted, some individuals do fine, like the guy I worked with. We used to discuss how irritating it was to come down with male pattern baldness, and how God had a wicked sense of humor.
Are you trying to be incredibly obtuse in order to play identity politics, or did you make this comment because you’ve really not put critical thought into this?
One part of Pat Orsban’s comment made sense: Is mental health counseling equally effective before/without transition surgery as it is with/after transition surgery? If the answer is “yes,” then it suggests that the problem is psychological and psychiatric—not to be treated with surgery.
But that presumes this exact question hasn’t been intensely studied, published, and verified. Even Drs. Zucker and Blanchard repudiate the postulation you make.
The 2010 meta-analysis you cited above, in its abstract, says that almost none of these studies have control groups and that “very low quality evidence suggests” that sex reassignment surgery improves quality of life, etc., for a transsexual person. Could you be more specific about where this question has been so thoroughly answered in favor of gender reassignment surgery?
With regard to the trans pop, are you making an assertion about α, p, or ŷ… or are you merely positing an Ho?
Would you mind posting the DOI of the analysis?
You claimed that the question above had been decisively answered. I went back through your article and found the relevant analysis that you cited (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x/abstract) which suggested that _almost nothing_ had been decisively answered.
My question still stands: If mental health counseling for those with transgender dysphoria equally effective for those who do not have reassignment search as it is for those who get reassignment surgery and then receive counseling? If the answer is affirmative, then you have your “null hypothesis”: sex reassignment surgery may not be an appropriate treatment for gender dysphoria. The only fact confirmed—that more care is needed for those who undergo reassignment surgery—already points to the need for psychiatric intervention. My question is just the next step: maybe one only needs psychiatric intervention; maybe all of the great effects that one assumes are coming from surgery are actually coming from something other source like counseling. The lack of controls (groups undergoing surgery who do or do not receive counseling) means that we cannot decisively say anything about the benefit of the surgery. It seems, rather, that because the surgery on its own is not an effective treatment, then it might not be a treatment at all.
You would have to ask as many post-op transgender women if the surgery did more for them than previous counselling alone.
You would also need to ask if they needed much counselling after surgery. — I didn’t and it was the surgery plus my HRT that
gives me the most benefit to this day .
That would not be acceptable to Philip it is qualitative and not quantitative data. Philip is suggesting that the only way we can know if people with a gender dysphoria agree to be in a long-term study where medical intervention is randomly withheld as a control. Certainly Philip understands that such a thing is unethical in the extreme; they’re merely falling back on the claim as a way to tacitly support their belief that decades of clinical observations leading to a set of best practices must somehow, someway indicate that medical interventions should be abandoned in favor of reparative therapies.
Ah, I see. You seem to be conflating controls with CI, I² and drawing erroneous conclusions.
Qualitative self-report and/or ethnographic studies are generally, from a pure data perspective, of lesser value than quantitative data. This does not mean that decades of continued peer-reviewed qualitative self-report data is incoherent, as you suggest. The ethical implications of randomly withholding Tx to a GD individual in order to produce a quantitative dataset makes it unlikely that the type of research you’ve moved your dialectical goalpost to can be attained… nor should it. That the unethical research you now want will never (hopefully) be sanctioned, does not, in any way, suggest that the decades of multiple complementary QQL assessments indicate the reality of some imagined huge p-value.
So, instead of asserting a postulation, please plainly state your Ho.
Typo correction. The restated question above should say, “IS mental health counseling for those with transgender dysphoria equally effective for those who do not have reassignment SURGERY as it is for those who get reassignment surgery and then receive counseling?
Cristal, I am not demanding unethical experimentation, nor am I conflating what qualitative and quantitative analyses can accomplish. My point was in response to your claim that the answer to my question above had been “verified.” Nothing has been verified, and the question still stands. I am not drawing erroneous conclusions; I am saying that you are overstepping what the research *does* say: at best, sex reassignment surgery needs psychiatric or psychotherapeutic follow-up; and at worst, it deepens the need for psychiatric or psychotherapeutic intervention, which is the actual treatment. The common element of a psychological treatment suggests that sex reassignment surgery may not be a treatment as such.
The null hypothesis is that there may be no correlation between sex reassignment surgery and the longterm psychic wellbeing of individuals with gender dysphoria. (The research program would involve having a large group of people who have received similar diagnoses of gender dysphoria, and would establish parameters for following those who had opted to undergo sex reassignment surgery with counseling and those who had opted for counseling only.)
I think you misunderstood what I said. I DID NOT say that you were conflating qualitative and quantitative data. I said that you seemed to be conflating controls with CI, I². As for your null hypothesis, the study we’re talking about rejects your null hypothesis.
Another typo: Cristan. Sorry.
[…] suicide rate decreases after transition, which we know from a wide variety of sources. Like, seriously, just bucket-loads of credible sources. As do, typically, anxiety rates, […]
Hi Cristan,
It appears that Dr. Cecilia Dhejne’s study has been misrepresented, which is unfortunate. Thank you for the clarification, but I do have a question for you that is a bit out of scope…do you believe that trans people should be “tolerated” or “accepted?” If so, what arguments are good for supporting this point?
Thank you
[…] Also, since people misinterpet Dhejne’s study too damn much, here’s her clarifying what she said: http://www.transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transition-makes-trans-people-suicidal_n_15483.htm […]
[…] dat gender-dysforie in de meeste gevallen van voorbijgaande aard is, het is aangetoond dat het zelfmoordpercentage onder aangepaste transgenders er niet om […]
How does writing a lot about how you don’t agree with the study – disprove the findings of the study?
If you want to disprove it you need facts, not the opinions from people who don’t like its findings, no matter how many letters they have after their name
Oh, this comment is absolutely GOLDEN! LOL!
The study’s own author tells you in this article that the ways her study is being quotemined is contrafactual, SHE has to somehow “prove” to you that her own study doesn’t say what transphobes say it does.
Again (see my unanswered comment above) the article says much about what the study does *not* say. Could you inform us about what the study *does* say? What are its positive findings?
Here’s the paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
If you’d like to invest your time and attention, the study’s findings are available for your review.
[…] And besides, trans women commit crimes (like rape and pedophiliat) at the same (or even greater!!11) rate that cis men do!!! (except that’s all a long-debunked lie) […]
[…] dysphoria, that suffer into adulthood whether they transition or not. And as adults, they suffer a 41% suicide attempt rate which increases AFTER gender re-assignment to 20x the national averages, high rates of depression, […]
The article ends with what the study does *not* show.
Can you remind us what it *does* show?
[…] following link to the transadvocate is about how a scientific Swedish study was twisted beyond all recognition to show what opponents […]
It’s all a bit like male pattern hair loss in women !!
Not all women experience it and not all men experience it.
There may well be a few criminals who are transsexual women. I know of one who was well into crime and now works as a transsexual activist . That doesn’t prove
that all transsexual women will become activists after a life of crime prior to their transitioning.
This Mc Hugh person and others need to improve their academic thinking to a level that will endorse their qualifications . As it is all they are managing to prove is their own poverty of any real intellect .
Think you have that all wrong, they die cause they get no options or care.
That’s actually… Exactly what she said here.
[…] at best. The claim about trans women being proven to be violent is one of several claims debunked here. It is absolutely untrue that doctors are “sterilising” children. And to claim that […]
[…] Dhejne, the lead author of that study, later told TransAdvocate that her work was being willfully […]
I’m transfemme, but I find it extremely frustrating that you didn’t ask and Dhejne did not clarify exactly how MtF criminality compared to male criminality post-1989 in quantitative terms (with the documentation too back it up, since the published study does not divulge those specifics). I get the impression that even in the group after 1989 criminality was still significantly higher than for natal females and that’s not unimportant.
Also, while I appreciate that you conducted this interview, Cristan, some of your language is a bit loaded in a way I find unfair and and unhelpful. When I’ve heard “TERFS” cite this study re:violence, it’s never been to suggest that trans women are “probable rapists” but merely that they retain male pattern criminality, which is a question worth looking into, and I wish there was more research on it.
[ I get the impression that even in the group after 1989 criminality was still significantly higher than for natal females and that’s not unimportant.]
I think that’s an inference you’re bringing to the subject.
[When I’ve heard “TERFS” cite this study re:violence, it’s never been to suggest that trans women are “probable rapists” but merely that they retain male pattern criminality…]
You don’t read GenderTrender’s comment threads much, do you?
[…which is a question worth looking into, and I wish there was more research on it.]
The study’s author has *just* told you that they don’t “retain male pattern criminality.” I find it interesting that you seem to rhetorically cling to this notion.
As to seeing if widely varied groups are “more likely” to be abuses, would you also support looking into seeing if “intersex women” are more likely to rape than “cis women”? If we’re going to do that, would not it then be just as important to look into other social categories… like, are “abuse victims” more likely to sexually abuse others? Why not look at whether people with “mental illness” are more likely to sexually abuse others? What about other categories? Shall we institute social control policy based upon these “findings”?
My point is that the social implications you seem eager to embrace in order to ontologically define groups of diverse and varying populations is nothing more than epistemological demagoguery.
That they didn’t exhibit male-pattern criminality is not the same thing as saying they exhibited female-pattern criminality. Hello? It could be that the trans woman pattern of criminality–or, rather, convictions in this case–is in-between these averages. That would be worth knowing.
It’s been a while since I made the original comment and read the study, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I believe the inference I made about even post-89 trans women likely having significantly higher criminal convictions than cis women was based on a reasonable interpretation of the averages cited in the study. IIRC, the figures would pretty much have to indicate either that pre-89 trans women would have had to have had crime convictions waaaay above those of cis men with a bizzarely sharp drop post-89 (and it seems unreasonable to posit a shift *that* huge as being the likeliest case) OR that post-89 still had much higher rates of conviction than cis women.
I’ll let the mental gymnastics in your last paragraph be, short of remarking that if you believe pursuing that information to be worthless or irrelevant or oppressive, then that sure makes this whole piece looks a bit disingenuous and questionably trustworthy and calls into question whether your failure to inquire about how post-89 convictions quantitatively compared was an innocent omission or not.
And my comment re: TERFs is based mostly on pretty extensive interaction I used to have with them in the Discussing gender critical and gender identity group on facebook, which hosts heavyweights like Elizabeth Hungerford. They’re a pretty sour, dogmatic, one-sided bunch (which is why I eventually left the group, when it became clear that extremely little bridge-building was being sought), but I do not think the great majority would cast trans women as *probable rapists* but as being equally threatening as men or almost so. That means a much higher risk, but that is certainly not the same as saying a probable risk.
*as saying probable offenders.
[…] Cristan. Fact Check: Study Shows Transtion Makes Trans P eople Suicidal. (n.d.) Web: Transadvocate. http://www.transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transition-makes-trans-people-suicidal_n_15483.htm. Retrieved June 18, […]
Hi, I was just wondering, does the latter cohert not having a male criminality pattern mean that they have a female criminality pattern, or do they have their own unique pattern?
She found no difference between cis and trans women. I would guess that she would say that there is no “statistically significant” difference; which, of course means there might, in fact, be some slight frequency “difference” up or down, but not in any meaningful way/outside the margin of error.
I’m not even sure I have have words to describe how I feel about this. To put children through this is criminal to say the least.
The Scary Science at Johns Hopkins University. An article by the advocate magazine, Written by BRYNN TANNEHILL
Doctors at the esteemed institution are perpetuating dangerous myths about transgender people — and the university is not doing enough to stop them.
BY BRYNN TANNEHILL
DECEMBER 15 2015 5:36 AM EST
The name Johns Hopkins University connotes an institute of higher learning in medicine to most people. For those paying attention, it represents one of the most unapologetically transphobic institutions in America. JHU professors have headlined conferences on reparative therapy, cozied up with many Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate groups, and taken money from the government to argue in court that transgender people don’t need medical care.
Administration has allowed staff members at JHU to ignore standards of care, reject evidence based medicine, and skip over guidelines of their professional organizations as long as the transgender community is at the receiving end of such malpractice.
Just prior to an October gathering of the World Congress of Families (which is an SPLC-certified hate group), a radio station in Utah held a pre-conference event called STAND4TRUTH 2015, sponsored by the Family Research Council (another hate group), American Family Association (another hate group), and MassResistance (yet another hate group). Their speakers included some of the most radical anti-LGBT leaders from these groups such as Peter Sprigg, Peter LaBarbera, Michael Brown, Dave Welch, Matt Staver, and Brian Camenker.
And then there was Dr. Paul McHugh of JHU, prominently displaying his JHU credentials in support of reparative therapy and anti-LGBT animus.
When I contacted JHU regarding Dr. McHugh’s participation in this conference, the university informed me he had “declined the invitation” and that “Johns Hopkins Medicine lives by its mission and its vision and embraces diversity and inclusion.”
However, when I spoke with the STAND4TRUTH 2015 organizers, they informed me that McHugh was in town for the event but missed his panel because he set his alarm to the wrong time. They also claimed he came to the conference after his panel. STAND4TRUTH organizers deny that McHugh declined their invitation. Wherever the actual truth lies, however, the conference’s brochure suggests he had said yes at some point.
Dr. McHugh has a lot in common with these right-wing, religiously -motivated hate groups. He is a self-described orthodox Catholic whose radical views are well documented. In his role as part of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ review board, he pushed the idea that the Catholic sex-abuse scandal was not about pedophilia but about “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.” He filed an amicus brief arguing in favor of Proposition 8 on the basis that homosexuality is a “choice.” Additionally, McHugh was in favor of forcing a pregnant 10-year-old girl to carry to term even though she had been raped by an adult relative.
His words and actions toward the transgender community are the most radical and egregious, however. He has compared medical care for transgender people to “the practice of frontal lobotomy.” McHugh’s disdain for his own patients is evident, calling them “caricatures of women” and pushing the demeaning narrative that all transgender women are either self-hating gay men or perverted heterosexuals. Worse, the damage McHugh has done to transgender health care is incalculable. McHugh shut down one of the few gender clinics in the U.S. in 1979, and his lobbying in 1981 was instrumental in getting a national coverage decision forbidding the government from covering gender-affirming care. It wasn’t reversed until 2014. As a result of his outspoken desire to see transgender people shoved back into the closet, Dr. McHugh has become the go-to “expert” for right-wing organizations.
While Johns Hopkins claims “respect for patients’ backgrounds and beliefs” is vital in its Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement, the actions of staff members and administration should make it clear that these are just words where transgender patients are concerned. When other JHU staff members have made controversial and public anti-LGB statements, the organization has been quick to put space between themselves and the positions of their staff. Dr. Ben Carson (also of JHU, also of bizarre and offensive beliefs about lesbians and gays) went a step too far by comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality and the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Johns Hopkins University publicly distanced itself from him as a result.
“Controversial social issues are debated in the media on a regular basis, and yet it is rare that leaders of an academic medical center will join that type of public debate,” said Dr. Paul Rothman, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, in a statement in April. “However, we recognize that tension now exists in our community because hurtful, offensive language was used by our colleague, Dr. Ben Carson, when conveying a personal opinion. Dr. Carson’s comments are inconsistent with the culture of our institution.”
Rothman’s statement highlighted JHU’s nondiscrimination policy as being inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity, noting that Carson’s statements mean “the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect.”
And then there’s McHugh, who has also very publicly gone against the World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards of Care for transgender people and the positions of his own professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association, in his 2014 Wall Street Journal article. McHugh suggests in the article that he speaks for Johns Hopkins when he states, “And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs. … It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one.”
This biased and dangerous misrepresentation of evidence on transgender people was called out by prominent members of the American Psychiatric Association in a rebuttal letter to the Journal, as was his flagrant misuse of a 2011 study on outcomes for post-operative transgender people by Dr. Celia Dhejne. His deliberate misinterpretation of the 2011 study led Dr. Dhejne to publicly denounce McHugh’s actions as “unethical.”
McHugh has a history of engaging in behavior that endangers people he disagrees with for religious reasons. Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison issued a cease and desist legal orderin 2007 against McHugh for appearing in an inflammatory video that railed against Dr. George Tiller and which was arranged by anti-abortion activists. It ended up on Bill O’Reilly’s show, and right-wing outrage spread in response to the Fox News segment. Then Dr. Tiller was assassinated in 2009.
If it were just McHugh, though, it wouldn’t be a pattern. However, other members of JHU’s staff have become the “go-to” people whenever a defendant needs to justify denying transgender people health care. JHU’s Dr. Cynthia Osborne has been a witness in at least three cases in which transgender people were seeking health care. She says prisoners should never receive gender-confirmation surgery. As a result of her testimony, all three inmates lost their cases, and two of them resorted to self-castration out of desperation.
The university’s Dr. Chester Schmidt has also been a star for defendants who wish to ignore standards of care. Schmidt testified that he has never recommended transgender surgery out of the 300 transgender patients he’s had. During his testimony, Schmidt stated (against WPATH standards of care) that the correct course of treatment for gender dysphoria is, in his opinion, “psychotherapy and medication.” Schmidt has availed himself of right-wing news outlets to make a case that transgender people should not be given affirming care.
For both Osborne and Schmidt, their positions at Johns Hopkins lent credence to their opinions in court, despite violating both the WPATH Standards of Care and the positions of their own professional organizations. A First Circuit Court of Appeals decision cites their positions at JHU as authoritative in their decision against providing health care to transgender inmates. Schmidt was also brought in by government as a defense witness in an employment discrimination case, where he testified that transgender people should not be legally protected under Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, since he viewed being transgender as a matter of sexual deviance rather than one of gender.
Anti-transgender bias at JHU has a long and sordid history. The study McHugh ran in the late 1970s was deeply flawed and biased, having been designed to get a particular answer. As a result, the psychiatric community no longer considers this study persuasive or credible. Fellow psychiatry staff member Dr. Thomas Wise has also espoused similarly outdated, offensive views on transgender people, including a belief that transgender people need reparative therapy, and not affirming medical care. In 1979, Dr. Wise wrote:
“The genesis of this perversion appears to be identification with a phallic maternal figure. … Identification of important losses in this patient’s recent life allowed proper diagnosis and appropriate ongoing therapy to prevent the patient from irreversible surgery for a condition that was a symptom not an ingrained belief of gender dysphoria.”
McHugh, Schmidt, and Wise have made it clear that their opinions on medical care for transgender people have not wavered in the last 35 years, despite the rest of the medical and psychiatric community moving on.
These biases and adherence to discredited hypotheses has had a direct effect on the quality of patient care. Transgender patients have described humiliating, abusive, and demeaningtreatment by JHU staff for years. Jennifer McCandless, a transgender woman, described to me in an email how she was treated by Dr. Schmidt and JHU staff:
“I was sent to JHU by a sympathetic doctor who just didn’t know what dosages of hormones to give me. JHU charged me $900 out of pocket for the appointment. During intake, they asked lots of sexually leading questions on their background questionnaire. They kept trying to want to find some kind of underwear fetish in my past. Chester Schmidt came in and chewed me out for being nothing more than a closet transvestite, then ranted about how my therapist must have filled my mind with these crazy ideas. I was grilled for an hour. I was constantly challenged about my identity by a bunch of white-coat underlings … just grueling. Schmidt also called my therapist and chewed her out; she said he (Schmidt) was really arrogant and obnoxious during the call.”
She never went back, and sought medical and therapeutic help elsewhere.
Some might note that the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently published a study supporting insurance coverage of transgender specific health care. However, this study is 10 years behind the research done by advocacy organizations, and half a decade behind the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. This is the public health policy equivalent of the physics department confirming Newtonian theory. The School of Public Health doesn’t treat transgender patients either. In the end, this study does not change the equation at all, since mainstream medicine already agrees with it, and JHU’s staff is still actively and deliberately doing more harm than good to the transgender community.
The abysmal treatment of transgender people and failure to follow evidence-based medicine have been noticed by younger staff members at JHU. They are also upset at how McHugh, Wise, and other members of the psychiatric staff are protected by the administration. One younger doctor at JHU spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. He stated flatly that the institutions mistreatment of transgender people directly affected his decision to leave.
A number of disturbing facts emerge from all of this. Staff members at JHU appear free to participate in hate groups, ignore standards of care, disregard the positions of their professional organizations, deliberately misuse and misrepresent research, advocate for and practice medicine that isn’t evidence-based, and let their biases affect the quality of care that patients receive.
This raises the question, Is the staff always allowed to do this, or only where transgender people are concerned? If the former, it speaks very poorly of the organization as a whole. If the latter, it means the organization is actively supporting discrimination against, and mistreatment of, a community that is already extremely vulnerable.
Either way, there is a lot of explaining to do.
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Transphobia, suicide rates and still the ‘stop hating and start accepting transgenders’ routine syndrome does not work
March 22, 2016 by TheHumanExtinction
I’m linking this article i read and there’s just such a lack of logic here, read it..
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/03/transphobia-and-suicide-rates
are you done yet? Ok, well i have read an article similar to this and it’s really strange how some points are exactly the same as the one i read sometime in the past 6 months or so.
But here’s my problem and i’m going to quote certain things about this article starting with this one..
Those who want to drive transgender people into the closet, legislate against us, and stigmatize us, talk about all the time in order further marginalize us. It is literally a matter of life and death.
It is suicide.
To start off with humans have always been pretty great innovators and often times uses words to describe or label something. Gender; man, woman – Sex; male, female. And instinctively, since it seems logical our ancestors have always linked male with man and female as woman. Basically gender identity. It was also so we could tell one another apart since the dawn of time clothing has been a normal way of living because naturally humans are shameful of their bodies, or maybe shy and would prefer to wear clothes from peeping toms.
Now enter Transgenders. It’s seems that they are incapable of understanding this simple, basic logic and reasoning based on my first paragraph, sex and gender and the reason we identify the way we humans do. Now i’m not completely disregarding that a minority of individuals are claiming they have gender dysphoria and whatever science they might have to back up their claims like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the transgender activism generally uses the AAP as a hard scientific approach to the reason transgenders exist and that people really should listen to them. But the problem with the AAP is, well…
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study.
Transgender people in states without LGBT legal protections are at higher risk of suicide.
Internalized transphobia is when a transgender individual applies negative messages about transgender people in general to themselves. It’s not hard to find such messages in our culture, especially since a multi-million dollar smear campaign in Houston successfully convinced an uninformed populace that transgender people should be treated like rapists and pedophiles. When transgender people start applying such messages to themselves, the suicide attempt rate skyrockets.
Well, it seems like there are plenty of issues, i didn’t quote them all but the main factors, and there’s 6 reasons transgenders attempt suicide or at risk for attacks/homicide. Well one would think that maybe it’s not really wise to allow transitioning. The AAP should be aware of this and come up with a better solution, i mean after all they are supposed to be a reputable organization. But that’s what is wrong here. The AAP can list scientific reasons, even if it sounds absurd which in fact i don’t even trust the information they are giving let alone understand why the AAP is really not doing anything about this like working on something better for instance.. but well i wonder if it has to do with greed. It’s really a factor in all this. As i was saying the logical course of action is to understand transitioning is a dangerous course of action and there just has to be a better solution, however…
Notice a pattern here? None of these risks for suicide are about being transgender. They’re about what is being done to transgender people. And therein lies the rub.
Wait what!? So the risks for suicide has nothing to do with being transgender? That makes no sense!! Just a minute…
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study.
Hmm, so maybe they are right all along? Well yes and no. Surely there’s less risk of suicide if transgenders was more widely accepted but this doesn’t change the reality of the situation at hand.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being transgender .
There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the way we as a culture treat transgender people.
ººº
This doesn’t change the fact that people who push for discrimination against transgender misuse studies, and use “experts” who are proponents of reparative therapy for all LGBT people, and haven’t seen a transgender patient in 35 years. Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
Their pray-away-the-trans “solutions” to bringing down the suicide rate in the transgender community are almost a guarantee of more suicides. Studies show religious counseling increases the suicide rate in LGB people. Reparative therapy has never been demonstrated to be successful on transgender people, isn’t approved by any psychological organization, has no guidelines on how to conduct it, and no standard metrics of success.
In other words, any attempt to suggest that the solution to the problem of suicide in the transgender community is to stop being transgender is nothing more than chaff. These individuals are more interested in enforcing their brand of Biblical morality on society than the actual well-being of transgender people.
They’re hoping that no one will read this article. They’re hoping that no one will think the problem through. What happens when you rape, beat, fire, evict, reject, isolate, demonize, and humiliate a class people on a daily basis? What happens when all of this is done by people in the name of God? Would you expect a group of people experiencing this to thrive?
Or would you expect 40% of them to try to find escape in oblivion?
Leelah was right.
If we want to end the scourge of suicide, it’s time we stop trying to fix transgender people.
It’s time to fix society.
Hmmm, it sounds so easy doesn’t it? All people really need to do is to accept transgenders. It would be awesome if life worked out all so easy and things wouldn’t be so complicated! Gee why haven’t i already thought of that? It’s because i already have and i came to the conclusion that life is a bunch of HORSESHIT!! Life isn’t full of rainbows and unicorns it’s filled with misery and despair. …well, not really. Life is a game. As much as i hate to admit it, it’s like playing poker. Your dealt with whatever hand that is given and often times the one shuffling the cards are your parents. Not that i hate my parents, i actually love them because they helped made me who i am and i am grateful for that. But as always, people do not always automatically give out respect and sometimes are downright evil.
Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
Really, this one made me lol. I really am not sure where to begin with that other than the fact that this isn’t about reducing or eliminating rape, or the fact that maybe if women had chastity belts they couldn’t be raped lol. But i think those belts could be uncomfortable, but anyway the logic is that we shouldn’t try to find another solution instead of using transitioning. The excuse is that transitioning is the only answer and the AAP is 100% behind it. And that’s pretty much what this is an excuse to transition and to be transgender. Oh and these activists is so against religion and God that they actually defy them both. I remember one person i knew used transitioning as an excuse to move away from God and religion because they are ‘archaic’, ‘barbaric’, and ‘inhumane’. But no, it’s not everyone, and the same for sex offenders..
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/07/convicted-sex-offender-leads-transgender-rights-effort-north-carolina/
ttp://www.fpiw.org/blog/2016/02/25/convicted-sex-offender-seeks-access-to-womens-locker-rooms-through-bathroom-law/
Oh god, the horror. That’s the one thing this article didn’t really touch base on that yes, some transgender activists are sex offenders. There’s a pretty nice list, including this..
This argument for this sex offender video is that “these people are not trans” or “there’s sex offenders in like any group”. And how many sex offenders dress up as the opposite sex so they can sexually offend someone? Oh wait, just watch the video and you’ll pretty much find out. Transgender activists attempt to deflect the blame on them which ok, i’ll bite.. not exactly to blame on the transgender community because after all if they didn’t endorse it, these people must not represent the transgender community. But here’s the difference. How can you even tell if a person is truly transgender versus some sex offender that is using gender identity as a predatory basis? You can’t. Might as well forget it because you could be harassing a transgender. And we’re back to this again that somehow society is at fault for discriminating against transgenders because sex offenders have been using gender identity for their own selfish needs.
If transitioning in general was banned, it would also prevent sex offenders or at least catch them in the act, or before it ever happens. Bottom line is, there is something wrong with being transgender and the transgender activism is completely oblivious to this..
Hello! Hello! Anybody home? Think Mcfly, think!
Yeah this amusing quote from Back to The Future is pretty much the best way to describe the mindset and logic of transgenders and basically the excessive violence should really help one to make a proper and ethical decision about whether transitioning works and why people describe transgenders as being mentally ill. It’s all really a formation of how people are coming to this conclusion. The absurdity that society can change overnight and not a more realistic viewpoint that, well just Google racism and homophobia and how it’s still prevalent in this culture. We haven’t overcome that and instead of relying on transitioning and hormone treatments, somewhere out there is a more logical choice. Whether that choice is diagnosing gender dysphoria as psychosis or depression (maybe both!) or maybe officially put ‘mental disorder’ back into play. Whatever the case is all i can think of when some transgender activist, supporter, advocator or whatever tries to convince others that transgenders need acceptance and the bigotry needs to stop and do research before you go all ranting and raving on how mentally ill transgenders are is.. “Hello! Hello! Anyone home? Think Mcfly, think!” Because obviously people are not thinking and instead continuing to come up with excuse after excuse until you are tired of hearing how mentally unstable these people really are.
And no, i’m not trying to be mean here but there is a problem with the way things are being handled in this manner. It isn’t logical or clear headed thinking, this subject makes it sound like it really is an agenda, perhaps it is or the fact that the transgender activism is so bullheaded that they can’t really see what’s right in front of them. Whatever the case is and maybe the AAP is greedy, but this really won’t end well if this continues on without any acknowledgement that a group of people cannot change society.
Also i’m going to link the original Alcorn story… with the entire suicide note.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/31/us/ohio-transgender-teen-suicide/
When Josh Alcorn voiced a desire to live as a girl, the Ohio teenager’s parents said they wouldn’t stand for that.
“We don’t support that, religiously,” Alcorn’s mother told CNN on Wednesday, her voice breaking. “But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy.”
“Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in … because I’m transgender,” the note said. “I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally ‘boyish’ things to try to fit in.”
“After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids,” the note says. “Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.”
“My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.”
At 16, she wrote that she realized her “parents would never come around” and that she would have to wait until she was 18 to start any kind of medical treatment to transition to being a female.
That, she said, “absolutely broke my heart. … I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life.”
Carla Alcorn recalled her teen asking for transition surgery.
She told her child no, she said, because “we didn’t have the money for anything like that.”
In her suicide note, Leelah said she cried herself to sleep that night.
Leelah told her friends she was transgender.
“The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. … Fix society. Please.”
The problem with “Leelah” or “Josh” is like any other case, you find information about what you have and obviously this increases the gender dysphoria. And this is the only case of a ‘transgender’ before their ‘transition’ period or even during that has committed suicide. And it’s typical for the transgender activism to lash out in religion for the fact that because Josh’s parents were Christians and they were not going to indulge in this fantasy. Transgenders though are just that, unhappy and depressed unless people are indulging them.
And just from reading the suicidal note it’s also a wonder if this was just a ploy or a gimmick for things to come.
“The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. … Fix society. Please.”
Y’know this just sounds all very familiar, even the “fix society” part in where i actually place it (that i mentioned earlier). This is probably said article. But what’s even more familiar is how the transgender activists are trying to get schools to teach ‘gender’ and ‘human rights’. Well that’s funny because that’s the two main problems right now. Bathroom, locker room rights and schools attempting to teach about transgenders. Oh that’s not enough, kids as early as 2 are being identified as transgender.
Well again this really sounds like an agenda. Bottom line is the article i was talking about and that i just looked up this other article with the quoted suicide letter it’s all coming together now. Either because another untimely transgender death or this was really an agenda waiting to spill right open. However, fixing society is nearly impossible. You can try but it’s not going to work very well, again just look how racism and homosexuality rights is going. But well, this insane methodology continues trying to push forward.
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Transphobia, suicide rates and still preaching ‘stop hating and start accepting transgenders’
March 22, 2016 by TheHumanExtinction
I’m linking this article i read and there’s just such a lack of logic here, read it..
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/03/transphobia-and-suicide-rates
are you done yet? Ok, well i have read an article similar to this and it’s really strange how some points are exactly the same as the one i read sometime in the past 6 months or so.
But here’s my problem and i’m going to quote certain things about this article starting with this one..
Those who want to drive transgender people into the closet, legislate against us, and stigmatize us, talk about all the time in order further marginalize us. It is literally a matter of life and death.
It is suicide.
To start off with humans have always been pretty great innovators and often times uses words to describe or label something. Gender; man, woman – Sex; male, female. And instinctively, since it seems logical our ancestors have always linked male with man and female as woman. Basically gender identity. It was also so we could tell one another apart since the dawn of time clothing has been a normal way of living because naturally humans are shameful of their bodies, or maybe shy and would prefer to wear clothes from peeping toms.
Now enter Transgenders. It’s seems that they are incapable of understanding this simple, basic logic and reasoning based on my first paragraph, sex and gender and the reason we identify the way we humans do. Now i’m not completely disregarding that a minority of individuals are claiming they have gender dysphoria and whatever science they might have to back up their claims like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the transgender activism generally uses the AAP as a hard scientific approach to the reason transgenders exist and that people really should listen to them. But the problem with the AAP is, well…
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study.
Transgender people in states without LGBT legal protections are at higher risk of suicide.
Internalized transphobia is when a transgender individual applies negative messages about transgender people in general to themselves. It’s not hard to find such messages in our culture, especially since a multi-million dollar smear campaign in Houston successfully convinced an uninformed populace that transgender people should be treated like rapists and pedophiles. When transgender people start applying such messages to themselves, the suicide attempt rate skyrockets.
Well, it seems like there are plenty of issues, i didn’t quote them all but the main factors, and there’s 6 reasons transgenders attempt suicide or at risk for attacks/homicide. Well one would think that maybe it’s not really wise to allow transitioning. The AAP should be aware of this and come up with a better solution, i mean after all they are supposed to be a reputable organization. But that’s what is wrong here. The AAP can list scientific reasons, even if it sounds absurd which in fact i don’t even trust the information they are giving let alone understand why the AAP is really not doing anything about this like working on something better for instance.. but well i wonder if it has to do with greed. It’s really a factor in all this. As i was saying the logical course of action is to understand transitioning is a dangerous course of action and there just has to be a better solution, however…
Notice a pattern here? None of these risks for suicide are about being transgender. They’re about what is being done to transgender people. And therein lies the rub.
Wait what!? So the risks for suicide has nothing to do with being transgender? That makes no sense!! Just a minute…
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study.
Hmm, so maybe they are right all along? Well yes and no. Surely there’s less risk of suicide if transgenders was more widely accepted but this doesn’t change the reality of the situation at hand.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being transgender .
There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the way we as a culture treat transgender people.
ººº
This doesn’t change the fact that people who push for discrimination against transgender misuse studies, and use “experts” who are proponents of reparative therapy for all LGBT people, and haven’t seen a transgender patient in 35 years. Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
Their pray-away-the-trans “solutions” to bringing down the suicide rate in the transgender community are almost a guarantee of more suicides. Studies show religious counseling increases the suicide rate in LGB people. Reparative therapy has never been demonstrated to be successful on transgender people, isn’t approved by any psychological organization, has no guidelines on how to conduct it, and no standard metrics of success.
In other words, any attempt to suggest that the solution to the problem of suicide in the transgender community is to stop being transgender is nothing more than chaff. These individuals are more interested in enforcing their brand of Biblical morality on society than the actual well-being of transgender people.
They’re hoping that no one will read this article. They’re hoping that no one will think the problem through. What happens when you rape, beat, fire, evict, reject, isolate, demonize, and humiliate a class people on a daily basis? What happens when all of this is done by people in the name of God? Would you expect a group of people experiencing this to thrive?
Or would you expect 40% of them to try to find escape in oblivion?
Leelah was right.
If we want to end the scourge of suicide, it’s time we stop trying to fix transgender people.
It’s time to fix society.
Hmmm, it sounds so easy doesn’t it? All people really need to do is to accept transgenders. It would be awesome if life worked out all so easy and things wouldn’t be so complicated! Gee why haven’t i already thought of that? It’s because i already have and i came to the conclusion that life is a bunch of HORSESHIT!! Life isn’t full of rainbows and unicorns it’s filled with misery and despair. …well, not really. Life is a game. As much as i hate to admit it, it’s like playing poker. Your dealt with whatever hand that is given and often times the one shuffling the cards are your parents. Not that i hate my parents, i actually love them because they helped made me who i am and i am grateful for that. But as always, people do not always automatically give out respect and sometimes are downright evil.
Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
Really, this one made me lol. I really am not sure where to begin with that other than the fact that this isn’t about reducing or eliminating rape, or the fact that maybe if women had chastity belts they couldn’t be raped lol. But i think those belts could be uncomfortable, but anyway the logic is that we shouldn’t try to find another solution instead of using transitioning. The excuse is that transitioning is the only answer and the AAP is 100% behind it. And that’s pretty much what this is an excuse to transition and to be transgender. Oh and these activists is so against religion and God that they actually defy them both. I remember one person i knew used transitioning as an excuse to move away from God and religion because they are ‘archaic’, ‘barbaric’, and ‘inhumane’. But no, it’s not everyone, and the same for sex offenders..
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/07/convicted-sex-offender-leads-transgender-rights-effort-north-carolina/
ttp://www.fpiw.org/blog/2016/02/25/convicted-sex-offender-seeks-access-to-womens-locker-rooms-through-bathroom-law/
Oh god, the horror. That’s the one thing this article didn’t really touch base on that yes, some transgender activists are sex offenders. There’s a pretty nice list, including this..
This argument for this sex offender video is that “these people are not trans” or “there’s sex offenders in like any group”. And how many sex offenders dress up as the opposite sex so they can sexually offend someone? Oh wait, just watch the video and you’ll pretty much find out. Transgender activists attempt to deflect the blame on them which ok, i’ll bite.. not exactly to blame on the transgender community because after all if they didn’t endorse it, these people must not represent the transgender community. But here’s the difference. How can you even tell if a person is truly transgender versus some sex offender that is using gender identity as a predatory basis? You can’t. Might as well forget it because you could be harassing a transgender. And we’re back to this again that somehow society is at fault for discriminating against transgenders because sex offenders have been using gender identity for their own selfish needs.
If transitioning in general was banned, it would also prevent sex offenders or at least catch them in the act, or before it ever happens. Bottom line is, there is something wrong with being transgender and the transgender activism is completely oblivious to this..
Hello! Hello! Anybody home? Think Mcfly, think!
Yeah this amusing quote from Back to The Future is pretty much the best way to describe the mindset and logic of transgenders and basically the excessive violence should really help one to make a proper and ethical decision about whether transitioning works and why people describe transgenders as being mentally ill. It’s all really a formation of how people are coming to this conclusion. The absurdity that society can change overnight and not a more realistic viewpoint that, well just Google racism and homophobia and how it’s still prevalent in this culture. We haven’t overcome that and instead of relying on transitioning and hormone treatments, somewhere out there is a more logical choice. Whether that choice is diagnosing gender dysphoria as psychosis or depression (maybe both!) or maybe officially put ‘mental disorder’ back into play. Whatever the case is all i can think of when some transgender activist, supporter, advocator or whatever tries to convince others that transgenders need acceptance and the bigotry needs to stop and do research before you go all ranting and raving on how mentally ill transgenders are is.. “Hello! Hello! Anyone home? Think Mcfly, think!” Because obviously people are not thinking and instead continuing to come up with excuse after excuse until you are tired of hearing how mentally unstable these people really are.
And no, i’m not trying to be mean here but there is a problem with the way things are being handled in this manner. It isn’t logical or clear headed thinking.
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Johns Hopkins Professor Endangers the Lives of Transgender Youth
Posted on March 20, 2016 by
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KATARINAGONDOVA VIA GETTY IMAGES
Once again, Paul McHugh has used the ever more tarnished name of Johns Hopkins to distort science and spread transphobic misinformation. This time, it comes via a position statement from the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) a tiny offshoot of a real professional organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics. The ACP is a group of less than 200 ultra-conservative, mostly Catholic, people (most of whom aren’t even pediatricians) who oppose letting gay people be parents, the HPV vaccine, marriage equality, birth control and medical care for transgender people. They are in favor of reparative therapy and abstinence-only education, though.
The ACP is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with organizations such as the Klan and Aryan Brotherhood.
This would be nothing but an ineffectual fringe organization, if not for McHugh and the fact that the administration at John’s Hopkins refuses to disavow him and his positions, despite his legal troubles and close association with numerous hate groups. This position statement is already making the rounds with SPLC designated hate groups, and on widely read right wing news sites accusing parents who affirm their children’s identity of “child abuse.”
I’m also already hearing from parents of transgender children that relatives and people hostile to them in the community are using this position statement to threaten to report them to child protective services and take their children away.
What makes this worse is that every single talking point in this position statement is a distortion or outright falsehood. Here’s the truth about transgender youth, refuting the ACP’s position statement point by point.
1. Sex, and chromosomes, are different than gender and gender identity
The ACP tries to dance right past it, but chromosomes do not equal sex, and sex doesn’t equal gender. They acknowledge intersex individuals exist, but not what that means. People can have a 46-XY karyotype, and appear and identify as female. They can even have children.
2. Gender identity has biological origins
There are over 150 studies, papers, dissertations and other peer reviewed sources that have found biological origins of gender identity, and gendered behavior, in humans and animals. Most of them found that endocrine disruptions during pregnancy affected both. This concept isn’t new: studies from 1973 onward found that pre-natal exogenous estrogen exposure changes in gendered behavior. We also have known for a decade that the male children of women who tookdiethylstilbestrol (DES) during pregnancy were much more likely to develop gender dysphoria as adults. A recent meta-study by Boston University found, “current data suggests a biological origin of gender identity.”
Gender is not a purely social construct or based on upbringing. David Reimer lost his penis in a circumcision accident as an infant, and was raised as a girl. Despite growing up with every social and outward biological factor telling him he was female, Reimer never identified as such, and began living as a male as a teen. Dr. McHugh would know this: this experiment was conducted by Dr. John Money, his predecessor at Johns Hopkins.
Given all this, one can only conclude that Dr. McHugh has deliberately misrepresented the evidence at hand to attack a vulnerable population.
3. Transgender children are not by definition mentally ill
The APA does not consider transgender people to be disordered by definition, and clearly states that in and of itself, being transgender is not an illness. In fact, theAPA says the exact opposite: “gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition.” Dr. McHugh deliberately misrepresents the position of the American Psychiatric Association by asserting that since gender dysphoria is in the DSM, all transgender people are by definition disordered.
Dr. McHugh is a psychiatrist, and such an egregious misrepresentation of his professional organizations’ position could not simply be a mistake.
4. Puberty blocking drugs are not new or experimental
The drug used to suppress puberty in transgender children is Luprorelin. It was approved by the FDA in 1985 (a year after ibuprofen became over the counter), and has been approved by the FDA for cisgender children with precocious puberty since 1989. The effects of Lupron are fully reversible, and recent studies oftransgender youth receiving Luprorelin have had excellent medical and mental health results.
Lupron has been used on cisgender children for 27 years. The only thing new about it is using it on transgender children for the same biological purpose (delaying puberty). Characterizing Lupron as experimental, irreversible and highly dangerous plays upon the fears of readers and misrepresents the actual data in order to degrade the standard of care for transgender youth.
5. Desistance rates are nowhere near 98%
It is difficult to discern where such an inflated figure came from, because even the most ardent supporters of the desistance narrative used “approximately 80%” as their figure. In reality, this 80% figure is almost certainly highly inflated, since thestudy it was based on did not actually differentiate between children with consistent, persistent and insistent gender dysphoria, kids who socially transitioned, and kids who just acted more masculine or feminine than their birth sex and culture allowed for. The study could not locate 45.3 percent of the children for follow up, and made the assumption that all of them were desisters. Finally, it used the older DSM-IVTR clinical definitions of Gender Identity Disorder.
As a result, the desistance figure is meaningless, since both the numerator and denominator are unknown. You have no idea how many of the kids ended up transitioning (numerator), no idea how many of them were actually gender dysphoric to begin with (denominator), and no idea how many would count as dysphoric under the old DSM but not the new one (both numerator and denominator). Further research has shown, however, that children who meet the current clinical guidelines for gender dysphoria are as consistent in their gender identity as the general population.
Dr. McHugh has deliberately cherry picked a number from a methodologically flawed study to advocate for parents reject the identities of their children. We know for a fact that children whose families reject their identities are at far greater suicide risk, and McHugh’s actions increase that further.
6. Hormone replacement therapy under a doctor’s supervision is very safe
A recent study of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) using the largest longitudinal sample ever found none of these risks listed by McHugh, when administered with a modern conjugation of estrogen under a doctor’s supervision. Principal Investigator Henk Asscheman, MD, stated,
Our results are very reassuring. There are mostly minor side effects and no new [adverse events] observed in this large population… The take-home message is that when using the guidelines from the Endocrine Society, you are not going to see a lot of comorbidities with cross-sex hormone treatment.
McHugh lists a parade of horrible, life threatening side effects of hormones. However, he neglects to mention these were mostly effects of taking an older conjugation of estrogen that hasn’t been used in nearly 15 years, and patients in previous studies were also more likely to have correlated health risks such as smoking. McHugh omitted this key fact.
7. Transgender suicide risk is directly related to stigma and isolation
The overwhelming majority of studies show that discrimination, rejection, and isolation are the cause of high suicide rates in the transgender community. However, McHugh again misuses a 2011 study by Dr. Celia Dhejne to claim the opposite.
Dr. Celia Dhejne has already denounced McHugh’s repeated misuse of her 2011 study as “unethical.” Yet he does it again claiming that transgender people commit suicide at staggering rates even if they live in tolerant societies. This to imply that transgender people are intrinsically mentally ill unless they somehow are “cured” of the delusion, and that they will still commit suicide even if the stigma of being transgender is lifted.
The problem is, Dhejne’s study says the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Dr. McHugh claims. It states that differences in mortality between the general population and transgender people, “did not reach statistical significance for the period 1989-2003.” In other words, there was no statistical difference in the suicide rate for transgender people who transitioned after 1989 and the general population.
Put another way, as Swedish society became more tolerant, the difference in suicide rates dropped to non-detectable levels. The data says exactly the opposite of what Dr. McHugh implies, and makes it clear in plain text when Dhejne postulates, “[this] might also be explained by improved health care for transsexual persons during 1990s, along with altered societal attitudes towards persons with different gender expressions.”
Again, McHugh has deliberately and unethically misinterpreted data in order to push religion over good medicine, psychiatry, and social policy at the expense of a vulnerable population on behalf of a hate group.
8. Accepting your child’s identity is the healthiest thing you can do for them
The most recent study available showed that transgender youth in supportive homes with access to medical care were not the delusional, suicidal wretches that McHugh implies, but instead had psychological functioning not significantly different from the general population. Another showed that having a family which accepts a child’s gender identity reduces the suicide attempt rate by 82%.
Negative outcomes for transgender youth are strongly linked with rejection of their gender identity. One recent study found that children whose parents reject their identities are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide. Over and over again, familial rejection has been linked to suicidal thoughts and behavior.
Instead of following evidence based medicine, McHugh distorts the facts to arrive at a religious based conclusion that parents should reject their child’s identity and refuse them affirming mental and medical health care. Every bit of modern evidence we have suggests what he is proposing is dramatically increases the risk of suicide and other psychological comorbidities.
Conclusion
Dr. McHugh’s most recent public offering is a disgrace to John’s Hopkins name, which he uses so liberally. His position statement is based on distortions, omissions, half-truths, outdated research, and motivated entirely by religious based bias against a group of people already heavily stigmatized by society. The fact that every last one of his points can be disproven by anyone with access to Google discredits the academic standards of the institution.
Somewhere out there, a parent will follow his advice. Or a court, or child protective services. We already know it happens when they do. We know the results from anecdotes and years of research, and it looks like Leelah Alcorn.
This isn’t just about academic freedom. It’s about the reputation of the institution. It’s about the moral obligation to do no harm.
And if all of those things are meaningless to Johns Hopkins administration, it’s also about liability. Someday, someone who followed McHugh’s advice, with your implied blessing, is going to show up on your doorstep with a lawyer and a dead child.
Your continued silence will not save you from what comes next.
It only damns you further.
Related ArticlesA Come-to-Jesus Talk on Transgender Youth
A Come to Jesus Talk on Transgender Youth
The Truth About Transgender Suicide
Conservatives and the Transgender Time Warp
Not One More
Originally published at
Tags: ACP, ACPed, American College of Pediatricians, JHU, Johns Hopkins University, Paul McHugh
The Scary Science at Johns Hopkins University
Posted on December 15, 2015 by
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Doctors at the esteemed institution are perpetuating dangerous myths about transgender people — and the university is not doing enough to stop them.
The name Johns Hopkins University connotes an institute of higher learning in medicine to most people. For those paying attention, it represents one of the most unapologetically transphobic institutions in America. JHU professors have headlined conferences on reparative therapy, cozied up with many Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate groups, and taken money from the government to argue in court that transgender people don’t need medical care.
Administration has allowed staff members at JHU to ignore standards of care, reject evidence based medicine, and skip over guidelines of their professional organizations as long as the transgender community is at the receiving end of such malpractice.
Just prior to an October gathering of the World Congress of Families (which is an SPLC-certified hate group), a radio station in Utah held a pre-conference event called STAND4TRUTH 2015, sponsored by the Family Research Council (another hate group), American Family Association (another hate group), and MassResistance (yet another hate group). Their speakers included some of the most radical anti-LGBT leaders from these groups such as Peter Sprigg, Peter LaBarbera, Michael Brown, Dave Welch, Matt Staver, and Brian Camenker.
And then there was Dr. Paul McHugh of JHU, prominently displaying his JHU credentials in support of reparative therapy and anti-LGBT animus.
When I contacted JHU regarding Dr. McHugh’s participation in this conference, the university informed me he had “declined the invitation” and that “Johns Hopkins Medicine lives by its mission and its vision and embraces diversity and inclusion.”
However, when I spoke with the STAND4TRUTH 2015 organizers, they informed me that McHugh was in town for the event but missed his panel because he set his alarm to the wrong time. They also claimed he came to the conference after his panel. STAND4TRUTH organizers deny that McHugh declined their invitation. Wherever the actual truth lies, however, the conference’s brochure suggests he had said yes at some point.
Dr. McHugh has a lot in common with these right-wing, religiously -motivated hate groups. He is a self-described orthodox Catholic whose radical views are well documented. In his role as part of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ review board, he pushed the idea that the Catholic sex-abuse scandal was not about pedophilia but about “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.” He filed an amicus brief arguing in favor of Proposition 8 on the basis that homosexuality is a “choice.” Additionally, McHugh was in favor of forcing a pregnant 10-year-old girl to carry to term even though she had been raped by an adult relative.
His words and actions toward the transgender community are the most radical and egregious, however. He has compared medical care for transgender people to “the practice of frontal lobotomy.” McHugh’s disdain for his own patients is evident, calling them “caricatures of women” and pushing the demeaning narrative that all transgender women are either self-hating gay men or perverted heterosexuals. Worse, the damage McHugh has done to transgender health care is incalculable. McHugh shut down one of the few gender clinics in the U.S. in 1979, and his lobbying in 1981 was instrumental in getting a national coverage decision forbidding the government from covering gender-affirming care. It wasn’t reversed until 2014. As a result of his outspoken desire to see transgender people shoved back into the closet, Dr. McHugh has become the go-to “expert” for right-wing organizations.
While Johns Hopkins claims “respect for patients’ backgrounds and beliefs” is vital in itsDiversity and Inclusion Mission Statement, the actions of staff members and administration should make it clear that these are just words where transgender patients are concerned. When other JHU staff members have made controversial and public anti-LGB statements, the organization has been quick to put space between themselves and the positions of their staff. Dr. Ben Carson (also of JHU, also of bizarre and offensive beliefs about lesbians and gays) went a step too far by comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality and the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Johns Hopkins University publicly distanced itself from him as a result.
“Controversial social issues are debated in the media on a regular basis, and yet it is rare that leaders of an academic medical center will join that type of public debate,” said Dr. Paul Rothman, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, in a statement in April. “However, we recognize that tension now exists in our community because hurtful, offensive language was used by our colleague, Dr. Ben Carson, when conveying a personal opinion. Dr. Carson’s comments are inconsistent with the culture of our institution.”
Rothman’s statement highlighted JHU’s nondiscrimination policy as being inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity, noting that Carson’s statements mean “the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect.”
And then there’s McHugh, who has also very publicly gone against the World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards of Care for transgender people and the positions of his own professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association, in his 2014 Wall Street Journal article. McHugh suggests in the article that he speaks for Johns Hopkins when he states, “And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs. … It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one.”
This biased and dangerous misrepresentation of evidence on transgender people was called out by prominent members of the American Psychiatric Association in a rebuttal letter to theJournal, as was his flagrant misuse of a 2011 study on outcomes for post-operative transgender people by Dr. Celia Dhejne. His deliberate misinterpretation of the 2011 study led Dr. Dhejne to publicly denounce McHugh’s actions as “unethical.”
McHugh has a history of engaging in behavior that endangers people he disagrees with for religious reasons. Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison issued a cease and desist legal orderin 2007 against McHugh for appearing in an inflammatory video that railed against Dr. George Tiller and which was arranged by anti-abortion activists. It ended up on Bill O’Reilly’s show, and right-wing outrage spread in response to the Fox News segment. Then Dr. Tiller wasassassinated in 2009.
If it were just McHugh, though, it wouldn’t be a pattern. However, other members of JHU’s staff have become the “go-to” people whenever a defendant needs to justify denying transgender people health care. JHU’s Dr. Cynthia Osborne has been a witness in at least three cases in which transgender people were seeking health care. She says prisoners should never receive gender-confirmation surgery. As a result of her testimony, all three inmates lost their cases, andtwo of them resorted to self-castration out of desperation.
The university’s Dr. Chester Schmidt has also been a star for defendants who wish to ignore standards of care. Schmidt testified that he has never recommended transgender surgery out of the 300 transgender patients he’s had. During his testimony, Schmidt stated (against WPATH standards of care) that the correct course of treatment for gender dysphoria is, in his opinion, “psychotherapy and medication.” Schmidt has availed himself of right-wing news outlets to make a case that transgender people should not be given affirming care.
For both Osborne and Schmidt, their positions at Johns Hopkins lent credence to their opinions in court, despite violating both the WPATH Standards of Care and the positions of their own professional organizations. A First Circuit Court of Appeals decision cites their positions at JHU as authoritative in their decision against providing health care to transgender inmates. Schmidt was also brought in by government as a defense witness in an employment discrimination case, where he testified that transgender people should not be legally protected under Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, since he viewed being transgender as a matter of sexual deviance rather than one of gender.
Anti-transgender bias at JHU has a long and sordid history. The study McHugh ran in the late 1970s was deeply flawed and biased, having been designed to get a particular answer. As a result, the psychiatric community no longer considers this study persuasive or credible. Fellow psychiatry staff member Dr. Thomas Wise has also espoused similarly outdated, offensive views on transgender people, including a belief that transgender people need reparative therapy, and not affirming medical care. In 1979, Dr. Wise wrote:
“The genesis of this perversion appears to be identification with a phallic maternal figure. … Identification of important losses in this patient’s recent life allowed proper diagnosis and appropriate ongoing therapy to prevent the patient from irreversible surgery for a condition that was a symptom not an ingrained belief of gender dysphoria.”
McHugh, Schmidt, and Wise have made it clear that their opinions on medical care for transgender people have not wavered in the last 35 years, despite the rest of the medical and psychiatric community moving on.
These biases and adherence to discredited hypotheses has had a direct effect on the quality of patient care. Transgender patients have described humiliating, abusive, and demeaningtreatment by JHU staff for years. Jennifer McCandless, a transgender woman, described to me in an email how she was treated by Dr. Schmidt and JHU staff:
“I was sent to JHU by a sympathetic doctor who just didn’t know what dosages of hormones to give me. JHU charged me $900 out of pocket for the appointment. During intake, they asked lots of sexually leading questions on their background questionnaire. They kept trying to want to find some kind of underwear fetish in my past. Chester Schmidt came in and chewed me out for being nothing more than a closet transvestite, then ranted about how my therapist must have filled my mind with these crazy ideas. I was grilled for an hour. I was constantly challenged about my identity by a bunch of white-coat underlings … just grueling. Schmidt also called my therapist and chewed her out; she said he (Schmidt) was really arrogant and obnoxious during the call.”
She never went back, and sought medical and therapeutic help elsewhere.
Some might note that the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently published a study supporting insurance coverage of transgender specific health care. However, this study is10 years behind the research done by advocacy organizations, and half a decade behind the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. This is the public health policy equivalent of the physics department confirming Newtonian theory. The School of Public Health doesn’t treat transgender patients either. In the end, this study does not change the equation at all, since mainstream medicine already agrees with it, and JHU’s staff is still actively and deliberately doing more harm than good to the transgender community.
The abysmal treatment of transgender people and failure to follow evidence-based medicine have been noticed by younger staff members at JHU. They are also upset at how McHugh, Wise, and other members of the psychiatric staff are protected by the administration. One younger doctor at JHU spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. He stated flatly that the institutions mistreatment of transgender people directly affected his decision to leave.
A number of disturbing facts emerge from all of this. Staff members at JHU appear free to participate in hate groups, ignore standards of care, disregard the positions of their professional organizations, deliberately misuse and misrepresent research, advocate for and practice medicine that isn’t evidence-based, and let their biases affect the quality of care that patients receive.
This raises the question, Is the staff always allowed to do this, or only where transgender people are concerned? If the former, it speaks very poorly of the organization as a whole. If the latter, it means the organization is actively supporting discrimination against, and mistreatment of, a community that is already extremely vulnerable.
Either way, there is a lot of explaining to do.
Related ArticlesJohns Hopkins Professor Endangers the Lives of Transgender Youth
The Trans Movement Needs a New, Science Based Strategy
Fighting Back Against Anti-Transgender Talking Points
Lies, Damn Lies, and Lies About Transgender People
The Truth About Transgender Suicide
Originally published at http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/12/15/scary-science-johns-hopkins-university
Tags: autogynephilia, Chester Schmidt, Cynthia Osborne, Family Research Council, FRC, JHU, Johns Hopkins University, Paul McHugh
For this year’s transgender awareness week I wanted to write about something that the transgender community and its allies are often afraid to discuss. Those who want to drive transgender people into the closet, legislate against us, and stigmatize us, talk about all the time in order further marginalize us. It is literally a matter of life and death.
It is suicide.
People know that transgender people are at a higher risk of suicide, but why this risk is higher is often not understood by the public, or misused by people who wish us further harm. The statistic that 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide is used all the time to justify all sorts of things that have absolutely zero basis in science.
Why transgender people are at risk is something that has actually been studied in great detail by psychologists and sociologists. They have found many of the same factors increase risk across multiple peer reviewed studies.
Rejection by friends and family increases suicide risk
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study. Another study showed that transgender youth whose parents reject their gender identity are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than transgender youth who are supported by their parents.
Discrimination increases suicide risk
Transgender people in states without LGBT legal protections are at higher risk of suicide. Other studies have found that transgender people who have been discriminated against are at a higher risk of suicide. What makes this worse is that discrimination against transgender people in health care, employment, accommodations, and housing is very common. Even in places with legal protections for transgender people, like Washington D.C., cultural bias and discrimination remains.
Physical abuse increases suicide risk
Transgender people who have been physically or sexually abused because they are transgender are at a higher risk of suicide. As the number of abusive incidents increases, the more likely the person is to have attempted suicide. The amount of abuse is also associated with the number of time suicide has been attempted. Again, studies on how often transgender people are assaulted show shockingly high levels of violence.
Being seen as transgender or gender non-conforming increases suicide risk
People who are seen as transgender or gender non-conforming are more likely to have attempted suicide. Also, people who have had access to surgery which allows them to “pass,” such as facial feminization surgery, report qualities of life not significantly different from the general population. This is perhaps the most damning study, since it strongly suggests that when transgender people are treated the same as cisgender (non-transgender) people, the risk of suicide becomes no different than for anyone else.
Internalized transphobia increases suicide risk
Internalized transphobia is when a transgender individual applies negative messages about transgender people in general to themselves. It’s not hard to find such messages in our culture, especially since a multi-million dollar smear campaign in Houston successfully convinced an uninformed populace that transgender people should be treated like rapists and pedophiles. When transgender people start applying such messages to themselves, the suicide attempt rate skyrockets.
Intersecting minority identities increases suicide risk
Multiple studies have found that transgender people of color are at higher risk of suicide than white transgender people. This is a result of the combined effects of racial and gender identity discrimination.
Notice a pattern here? None of these risks for suicide are about being transgender. They’re about what is being done to transgender people. And therein lies the rub.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being transgender .
There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the way we as a culture treat transgender people.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has addressed the issue of suicide in LGBT populations, and reached the same conclusions on the actual causes of suicide in the transgender community:
This doesn’t change the fact that people who push for discrimination against transgender misuse studies, and use “experts” who are proponents of reparative therapy for all LGBT people, and haven’t seen a transgender patient in 35 years. Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
In other words, any attempt to suggest that the solution to the problem of suicide in the transgender community is to stop being transgender is nothing more than chaff. These individuals are more interested in enforcing their brand of Biblical morality on society than the actual well-being of transgender people.
They’re hoping that no one will read this article. They’re hoping that no one will think the problem through. What happens when you rape, beat, fire, evict, reject, isolate, demonize, and humiliate a class people on a daily basis? What happens when all of this is done by people in the name of God? Would you expect a group of people experiencing this to thrive?
Or would you expect 40% of them to try to find escape in oblivion?
Leelah was right.
If we want to end the scourge of suicide, it’s time we stop trying to fix transgender people.
It’s time to fix society.
(H/t to Sebastian Barr for his excellent literature review and blog.)
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The Truth About Transgender Suicide
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For this year’s transgender awareness week I wanted to write about something that the transgender community and its allies are often afraid to discuss. Those who want to drive transgender people into the closet, legislate against us, and stigmatize us, talk about all the time in order further marginalize us. It is literally a matter of life and death.
It is suicide.
People know that transgender people are at a higher risk of suicide, but why this risk is higher is often not understood by the public, or misused by people who wish us further harm. The statistic that 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide is used all the time to justify all sorts of things that have absolutely zero basis in science.
Why transgender people are at risk is something that has actually been studied in great detail by psychologists and sociologists. They have found many of the same factors increase risk across multiple peer reviewed studies.
Rejection by friends and family increases suicide risk
Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study. Another study showed that transgender youth whose parents reject their gender identity are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than transgender youth who are supported by their parents.
Discrimination increases suicide risk
Transgender people in states without LGBT legal protections are at higher risk of suicide. Other studies have found that transgender people who have been discriminated against are at a higher risk of suicide. What makes this worse is that discrimination against transgender people in health care, employment, accommodations, and housing is very common. Even in places with legal protections for transgender people, like Washington D.C., cultural bias and discrimination remains.
Physical abuse increases suicide risk
Transgender people who have been physically or sexually abused because they are transgender are at a higher risk of suicide. As the number of abusive incidents increases, the more likely the person is to have attempted suicide. The amount of abuse is also associated with the number of time suicide has been attempted. Again, studies on how often transgender people are assaulted show shockingly high levels of violence.
Being seen as transgender or gender non-conforming increases suicide risk
People who are seen as transgender or gender non-conforming are more likely to have attempted suicide. Also, people who have had access to surgery which allows them to “pass,” such as facial feminization surgery, report qualities of life not significantly different from the general population. This is perhaps the most damning study, since it strongly suggests that when transgender people are treated the same as cisgender (non-transgender) people, the risk of suicide becomes no different than for anyone else.
Internalized transphobia increases suicide risk
Internalized transphobia is when a transgender individual applies negative messages about transgender people in general to themselves. It’s not hard to find such messages in our culture, especially since a multi-million dollar smear campaign in Houston successfully convinced an uninformed populace that transgender people should be treated like rapists and pedophiles. When transgender people start applying such messages to themselves, the suicide attempt rate skyrockets.
Intersecting minority identities increases suicide risk
Multiple studies have found that transgender people of color are at higher risk of suicide than white transgender people. This is a result of the combined effects of racial and gender identity discrimination.
Notice a pattern here? None of these risks for suicide are about being transgender. They’re about what is being done to transgender people. And therein lies the rub.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being transgender .
There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the way we as a culture treat transgender people.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has addressed the issue of suicide in LGBT populations, and reached the same conclusions on the actual causes of suicide in the transgender community:
“Suicidal behaviors in LGBT populations appear to be related to “minority stress”, which stems from the cultural and social prejudice attached to minority sexual orientation and gender identity. This stress includes individual experiences of prejudice or discrimination, such as family rejection, harassment, bullying, violence, and victimization. Increasingly recognized as an aspect of minority stress is “institutional discrimination” resulting from laws and public policies that create inequities or omit LGBT people from benefits and protections afforded others. Individual and institutional discrimination have been found to be associated with social isolation, low self-esteem, negative sexual/gender identity, and depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders.These negative outcomes, rather than minority sexual orientation or gender identity per se, appear to be the key risk factors for LGBT suicidal ideation and behavior.”
This doesn’t change the fact that people who push for discrimination against transgender misuse studies, and use “experts“ who are proponents of reparative therapy for all LGBT people, and haven’t seen a transgender patient in 35 years. Their so-called logic is that if people weren’t transgender and didn’t transition, they wouldn’t commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.
Their pray-away-the-trans “solutions” to bringing down the suicide rate in the transgender community are almost a guarantee of more suicides. Studies show religious counseling increases the suicide rate in LGB people. Reparative therapy has never been demonstrated to be successful on transgender people, isn’t approved by any psychological organization, has no guidelines on how to conduct it, and no standard metrics of success.
In other words, any attempt to suggest that the solution to the problem of suicide in the transgender community is to stop being transgender is nothing more than chaff. These individuals are more interested in enforcing their brand of Biblical morality on society than the actual well-being of transgender people.
They’re hoping that no one will read this article. They’re hoping that no one will think the problem through. What happens when you rape, beat, fire, evict, reject, isolate, demonize, and humiliate a class people on a daily basis? What happens when all of this is done by people in the name of God? Would you expect a group of people experiencing this to thrive?
Or would you expect 40% of them to try to find escape in oblivion?
Leelah was right.
If we want to end the scourge of suicide, it’s time we stop trying to fix transgender people.
It’s time to fix society.
(H/t to Sebastian Barr for his excellent literature review and blog.)
Related ArticlesA Come-to-Jesus Talk on Transgender Youth
Loving a Transgender Person IS a Revolutionary Act
Suicide Prevention Training
A Come to Jesus Talk on Transgender Youth
It’s Time to Ban ‘Reparative Therapy’
Originally published at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/the-truth-about-transgend_b_8564834.html
Tags: Depression, Myhbusting, Suicide