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A landmark Finnish study is changing how we approach transgender kids
The movement backing gender-transition treatment for children is built on the claim that pediatric medical interventions are not only “medically necessary” – but truly “life saving.” However,…

So, a staunchly held talking point of the pro-gender affirming care for minors (namely cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries) will no doubt come under fire due to a new study coming out of Finland. The findings of the study seem to align with the counter point that the notion of gender affirming care helping to mitigate suicides has always been more assumption than fact.
On top of that the study indicates that gender distress severe enough to send young people to a gender clinic wasn’t independently linked to a higher suicide death rate either. The study did find there is a slightly higher suicide rate among trans people, but indicates that this is likely due to a higher rate of overall psychiatric problems as opposed to simply gender distress alone.
The study urges that overall comprehensive mental health care, not selecting gender distress alone, is the solution.
A major new study out of Finland found that providing cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries to adolescents and young adults didn’t appear to have any significant effect on suicide deaths.
What’s more, gender distress severe enough to send young people to a gender clinic wasn’t independently linked to a higher suicide death rate either.
What was independently tied to a greater chance of suicide in young adults?
A high number of appointments with mental-health specialists; in other words, severe mental health challenges.
And so, the researchers concluded two things: One, that suicide deaths were higher, but still rare in gender-distressed young people.
And two, that this group’s higher suicide rate was tied to the fact that they had a higher rate of severe psychiatric problems, not to their gender distress.
What these young people need most urgently, the study authors concluded, is comprehensive mental health care – and not necessarily controversial medical interventions.
Dr. Marci Bowers, a gender-affirmation surgeon and president of WPATH, said: “Suicide is and has always been a poor way of measuring the efficacy of gender affirming care. Sometimes this has been put up as a reason to justify gender affirming care, saying that patients have higher levels of suicidal ideation, and all that’s true. But that isn’t then the measure of the effectiveness of gender-affirming care. As far as I’m concerned, that ship is sailed. It is overwhelmingly efficacious.”
Dr. Kaltiala’s research findings fly in the face of a vast and powerful coalition of supporters of gender-transition treatment for young people, who all claim it is life saving – including WPATH, major U.S. medical societies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the ACLU, and LGBTQ groups like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign.
Dr. Kaltiala was once herself a supporter of gender-transition treatment for adolescents.
She launched one of Finland’s first pediatric gender clinics in 2011, but soon started having doubts.
Since then, multiple teams of researchers have systematically reviewed the available studies about gender-transition medicine for kids.
They all found the science subpar and uncertain.
Basically, overall, this seems to put a big hole in the idea that gender affirming care was helping to mitigate suicides. Many people will probably say "No, shit", but this has been one of the biggest arguments for the pro gender affirming care for minors crowd.