Hey everyone!
Today we’re talking about a pretty heavy topic that has to do with suicide in the trans community.
I’m just warning you now, there will be a lot of discussion of transphobia and suicide
in this video, so if you don’t want to hear about these things right now, feel free to click away.
You’re under no obligation to watch this video, I totally understand if you don’t
want to or can’t right now.
So, here’s the problem.
Trans people have a vastly higher attempted suicide rate than the general public.
Today I want to examine why that is and what we can do to bring that rate down.
In the process, I also want to dispel some highly publicized myths about the trans suicide rate.
To do this, I’ll be citing a lot of scientific studies, and you’ll be able to find all
of them linked down below if you’d like to go have a look at them yourself.
Because as much as transphobes like to pretend that they care about science, all of the scientific
research out there backs up what I’m about to tell you.
Alright, so the general population in the US has a lifetime attempted suicide rate of about 4.6%.
It’s important to note that this is a lifetime rate, so you may see smaller numbers quoted
when people talk about suicide within the last year or something similar.
Also, it’s the rate of all attempted suicides, not just the rate of people who died by suicide.
And, this number is from a study published in 1999, so it may have changed in the last
20 years, but probably not by very much.
On the other side of things, multiple studies have found that the lifetime attempted suicide
rate for trans people is around 40%. Four. Zero. Percent.
Just think about that statistic for a minute.
Four out of every ten trans people will attempt suicide in their lifetime.
Four out of ten. That’s devastating.
We only have data on attempted suicides for trans people because when trans people die
by suicide, they’re often misgendered even in death.
So it’s hard to get an accurate statistic for that, which is why we’re looking at
the rate of attempted suicides.
All the prevailing research has found two major reasons why the trans attempted suicide rate is so high.
The first is that trans people face high levels of discrimination, harassment, bullying, and
abuse, and they’re often not even supported by their family or friends.
A review in the Journal of European Psychiatry found that risk factors for a high rate of
attempted suicide among trans people included: “lack of family and social supports, gender-based
discrimination, [and] transgender-based abuse”.
The National Transgender Discrimination Survey (or NTDS) found that “experiences of harassment,
discrimination, violence and rejection may interact to produce a marked vulnerability
to suicidal behavior in transgender and gender non-conforming individuals”.
And the US Transgender Survey (or USTS) found that the main risk factors included: “family
support, experiences of anti-transgender discrimination and violence,
and access to health care, employment, and housing”.
On top of all of that, multiple studies have confirmed that when trans people are supported
by their family and friends, their attempted suicide rate goes down, and when they’re
not supported by their family and friends, their attempted suicide rate goes up.
The NTDS found that the trans attempted suicide rate jumps up to 57% when their family members
choose not to talk to them or spend time with them.
It rises to 60% for trans people who had a doctor refuse to treat them.
It’s at a staggering 63-78% for people who suffered physical or sexual violence at school.
And it’s around 69% for those who are homeless.
The USTS found that for trans people who were rejected by their families, the attempted
suicide rate was around 49%, but for those who were accepted by their families, it went down to 33%.
They also found that trans people who were kicked out of their homes and became homeless
had an attempted suicide rate of 66%, while trans people who were allowed to stay in their
homes had a rate of 39%.
So it’s clear that one of the major reasons that trans people attempt suicide at such
a high rate is simply because society does not accept them.
It’s due to external factors, not internal ones.
That means it’s a fault with society and the way we educate the public about trans
people, not a fault with the trans people themselves.
The second reason that the trans attempted suicide rate is so high is because trans people
often have high levels of body dysphoria and cannot access the necessary medical care to
alleviate that dysphoria.
This part requires a bit of an explanation for those who are not familiar with the language
surrounding trans identities and gender dysphoria.
Basically, being trans is not a mental illness.
Every trans-advocacy group and prominent medical organization agrees on this, but if you want
to learn more, you can watch my video I did on the topic last year that will be linked in a card up here.
Lots of trans people have a mental health condition -- not an illness -- called Gender Dysphoria.
This used to be called Gender Identity Disorder until the DSM-5 came out in 2013 and the American
Psychiatric Association changed it to Gender Dysphoria, making a point to note that it
is *not* a disorder.
Not all trans people have Gender Dysphoria, but many do, and they experience it to varying
levels of intensity and in different ways.
Gender Dysphoria is essentially the distress that comes from feeling like your gender does
not align with the one you were assigned at birth.
It can broadly be split into two categories: body dysphoria and social dysphoria.
Body dysphoria is the distress that comes from someone feeling that their body doesn’t
comfortably align with their gender.
Social dysphoria is the distress that comes from someone feeling that others aren’t
perceiving them as their correct gender.
Lots of the stuff we just went over in the last section has to do with social dysphoria.
When trans people aren’t accepted by their family or friends, it’s hurtful not only
because they’re being rejected by their loved ones, but often also because it hurts
the trans person to know that they’re not being perceived as the gender they really are.
Some aspects of social dysphoria can often be relieved by having supportive, loving people
in your life, as evidenced by the statistics we just went over -- but body dysphoria isn’t
as simple to relieve.
The surgeries that many trans people require to feel happy and comfortable in their bodies
are often completely inaccessible to most people because of their cost, availability,
and all the bureaucratic hoops you usually have to jump through to qualify even if it
is technically an option.
Trans people also often take hormones as a part of hormone replacement therapy, or HRT,
and while that is usually cheaper and more accessible than surgery, it’s still not readily available.
There are so many barriers to necessary medical care for trans people, and that undoubtedly
contributes to the high attempted suicide rate.
We know this because when trans people are actually able to access medical transition
services, they become significantly happier and less depressed.
A 2010 review published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology looked at 28 studies
and found that after genital reconstruction surgery, or GRS, “80% of individuals … reported
significant improvement in gender dysphoria, 78% reported significant improvement in psychological
symptoms, 80% reported significant improvement in quality of life, and 72% reported significant
improvement in sexual function.”
They concluded by saying that GRS and HRT for trans people “improves [their] gender
dysphoria, psychological functioning, sexual function, overall quality of life.”
A 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that trans women who’ve undergone
GRS “function well on a physical, emotional, psychological and social level” and that
“Compared with reference populations, [trans women who’ve had GRS]
scored good on a physical and mental level”.
2015 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior followed up with trans women who had had transitioned
and legally changed their name 10-24 years prior.
They found that the trans women reported “high degrees of well-being and a good social integration”
and that “their overall evaluation of the treatment process for [GRS] and its effectiveness
in reducing gender dysphoria was positive”.
They also found that the women “showed significantly fewer psychological problems and interpersonal
difficulties as well as a strongly increased life satisfaction at follow-up”.
So what this all goes to show is that medical transition-related care is effective at alleviating
body dysphoria, which in turn likely means that the rate of attempted suicide for trans
women who have been able to access transition-related care is lower than that for trans women who
can’t access transition-related care.
Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any good studies comparing these two groups, but
since body dysphoria is often cited as a risk factor for a higher attempted suicide rate,
and transition-related care alleviates that dysphoria, it follows that trans women who
can access transition-related care would have a lower attempted suicide rate than those who can not.
So, what’s the solution?
How do we lower the attempted suicide rate for trans people?
Well, it’s important to note that there’s not just one reason that trans people have
a higher attempted suicide rate than the general population, there are several.
That means that while individual solutions can lower it, it would require a multi-tiered
solution to bring it down to the level we see in the general population.
We need to address both societal stigma against trans people, and the lack of access to transition-related care.
This is really the only way forward.
We need to educate the general public more about trans people and emphasize that folks
should have compassion for trans people.
It’s wrong that trans people are harassed, abused, and discriminated against just because they are trans.
And every single one of us should be working to make the world a more welcoming and inclusive
place for trans people.
That would certainly help bring the attempted suicide rate down.
We also need to advocate for transition-related care to be free, and we need to remove many
of the bureaucratic barriers that are in place that keep some trans people away from medically transitioning.
These surgeries are necessary and vital for many trans people, and they’re proven to be effective.
Yes, they can be expensive, but that’s what health care is supposed to do for people:
provide necessary care even if it’s expensive.
And we know this is possible.
Starbucks has recently announced that they’ll be covering all transition-related surgeries
for their trans employees, and hopefully other companies or healthcare industries as a whole
will head in that direction as well.
And to be clear, this means companies should be covering any surgery that could alleviate
dysphoria, not just GRS.
For trans women, that can be things like Facial Feminization Surgery, and for trans men, that
can be things like a mastectomy.
So yeah, that’s how we lower the trans attempted suicide rate: we address its causes by educating
people and imploring them to be more compassionate towards trans people, and by making transition-related
care totally accessible.
That would solve the two big issues and result in a more inclusive and loving society where
far fewer trans people die from suicide.
The only alternative to this that I’ve seen promoted by transphobes across the internet
is conversion therapy: a practice that has been widely condemned and is akin to torture or child abuse.
There are unfortunately many people who would put trans people in conversion therapy, but
that only results in more dead trans people.
A few years ago, a 17-year-old trans girl, Leelah Alcorn, committed suicide after her
parents forced her into conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy has been proven time and time again to be ineffective, and only results
in trans people hating themselves more.
Countless major organizations have spoken out against it, and it’s simply not a viable
solution for helping trans people.
In fact, it actively harms trans people.
There are even transphobes who won’t bother with conversion therapy and instead claim
that trans people are just inherently suicidal, but that’s nonsense.
There are scientifically proven ways of reducing the trans attempted suicide rate.
Transphobes want to argue that we are inherently broken and that there is no saving us, but
there is evidence that we can make things better and save lives.
Also in discussions around this topic, you might see transphobes bring up a 2011 study
from Sweden that found that some trans women who had GRS actually had a higher rate of suicide afterwards.
But the study’s author has repeatedly debunked this claim and given a bunch of reasons why
that’s a misinterpretation of her study.
Her main point is that the study only looked at medical transition and didn’t look at
the effects of anti-trans hate and discrimination against these people.
Because while medical transition can alleviate body dysphoria, it cannot prevent other people
from abusing you or harassing you.
That’s why solutions to this problem need to address educating the public and ending
discrimination against trans people.
So, at the end of the day, if you genuinely want to lower the attempted suicide rate for
trans people, you need to do two things: Fight for improved societal acceptance of trans
people, and fight for accessible transition-related care.
Forcing trans people into the closet doesn’t work.
Forcing trans people into conversion therapy doesn’t work.
Denying trans people necessary medical care doesn’t work.
All of the science says that the solution is more societal acceptance and more accessible medical care.
If you care about trans people, this is how we move forward.
Anyways, that’s all I had for you today.
It took me a lot of time to research, script, film, edit, and upload this video that I put
on YouTube for free -- so if you’d like to help compensate me for my work and support
the continued production of videos like these, I could really use your support over on Patreon.
This is totally optional, but it would mean the world to me.
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Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time!