Social Major study finds Gender Affirming Care has no significant effect on suicide rate

[Bob Gray]

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,…

nypost.com

All-cause and suicide mortalities among adolescents and young adults who contacted specialised gender identity services in Finland in 1996–2019: a register study | BMJ Mental Health

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.

 

[lifelessheap]

Surgery doesn't help mental health.

 

[jefferz]

Findings Of the 55 deaths in the study population, 20 (36%) were suicides.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Findings Of the 55 deaths in the study population, 20 (36%) were suicides.

That seems like a lot.

 

[HeLLMuTT]

Findings Of the 55 deaths in the study population, 20 (36%) were suicides.

I saw that, that's frighteningly high.

When you compare that to the rate in the US for example which is 14.04 out of 100,000 people. That's. 0.01404%

 

[Bob Gray]

Findings Of the 55 deaths in the study population, 20 (36%) were suicides.

They address that. Suicides are higher, but they're due to a number of psychiatric issues, not gender related issues alone. It's why they're arguing that comprehensive care is a better method than focusing one one aspect that isn't shown to be an indicator in and of itself.

 

[Bob Gray]

I saw that, that's frighteningly high.

When you compare that to the rate in the US for example which is 14.04 out of 100,000 people. That's. 0.01404%

But I think that's for general pop, right? This is s a study of a selected group of people, a large number of whom have psychiatric issues.

Suicide has been going up at a noticeable rate over the last few years, though.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

That seems like a lot.

Probably not that high considering you're not going to get many people in this demographic dying of old age as you would in the general population.

 

[terrapin]

this is NOT new information. it is well known among all the people who are intellectually curious and honest. we are mutilating a whole generation of kids chemically and surgically and supporting mental illness.

 

[DragRacer]

You mean telling a mentally ill person that they’re not crazy, it’s just that they’re born in the wrong body, doesn’t really help them?!?

 

[Fox by the Sea]

It's an obvious conclusion. But this won't deter either the mutilation cult, nor the pharma complex, which makes a lot of money from the tranny plague - probably hundreds of thousands of dollars from each of these poor shmucks they convince to mutilate themselves, during a lifetime of pills, counseling, etc. it's big business.

I'm not even going to go into the "gender affirming" notion, which is absolute evil. You don't "affirm" mental illness.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Probably not that high considering you're not going to get many people in this demographic dying of old age as you would in the general population.

A third of deaths in any group being by suicide is high.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

I saw that, that's frighteningly high.

When you compare that to the rate in the US for example which is 14.04 out of 100,000 people. That's. 0.01404%

Yeah well over 200x the average is high no matter how you slice it.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

A third of deaths in any group being by suicide is high.

It is but it's obviously going to be higher than in the general population with or without surgery when you're dealing with people with serious identity issues so it being three times as high as the regular rate is probably what you'd expect.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

It is but it's obviously going to be higher than in the general population with or without surgery when you're dealing with people with serious identity issues so it being three times as high as the regular rate is probably what you'd expect.

It's over 200 times the regular rate.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Yeah well over 200x the average is high no matter how you slice it.

Using the regular rate makes no sense. If you cut it down to the age bracket of 18-40 then that's a better comparison and the suicide rate there from what I can find seems to be around 11%

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

I sense @kflo coming into this thread really soon for the next 150 pages.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

I sense @kflo coming into this thread really soon for the next 150 pages.

hard job, arguing for the mutilation of kids in both the tranny threads and the Palestine one.

 

[Happiness]

Can't find any peer reviews for this and I cant access the data, even through academic sites without researchers request.

This doesn't fit with the meta-data for previous studies, so I don't know what to even make of this.

Have to wait and see. There's oddly little information on this study outside a couple of right wing magazines and the paper itself. Oh, and some religous magazines.

Unfortunately the only full copy of the paper I can find is in Finnish, which is the worlds most impenetrable language. (Finnish really is, props to the Finns for such a beautiful sounding and complex language).

It's also oddly short as a clinical paper. It's only a couple of pages long at most.

All very strange, have to wait and see.

 

[Happiness]

I'm curious why the right antitrans crowd would give a research paper that agrees with them weight, but all the ones that don't agree with them get accused of being liberal university bs (universities are not actually that liberal btw).