There is no scientific consensus that gender-affirming care fixes the mental problems of transgenders. Psychological problems are complex. You cannot determine the cause of dysphoria accurately all the time. What people think will make them happy, does not make them happy, and what makes them sad isn’t always clear, because the right questions are not asked, or the answers are abstained. It is also clear that this type of dysphoria extends beyond perception of themselves, but what they expect from other people perceiving them. This doesn’t appear much different than a weird or different looking person being ostracized. Teens have suicidal ideation that have nothing to do with gender identity. Yet, how do we treat those versus transgender youths?
Lack of self-affirming care does not do any good in the end, it leads people to take matters into their own hands, often at the risk of their own safety.
The problem isn’t the gender-affirming surgery, it’s whether we provide them with a support system and the ability to be themselves regardless of who that is, even if it doesn’t fit your cookie-cutter mold of who they should be.
Gender is fluid, as are all forms of self-identity. Rather than outright deny access to gender affirming surgery we need to augment it holistically with other forms of care as well.
But this country can’t even get its shit together with basic healthcare or mental wellbeing because “MuH TaXeS” so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.
The title is a bit misleading. This study isn’t evidence that gender affirmative care causes suicide. Trans people have a higher rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts than the general population. Therefore you’d expect that people who seek gender affirmative care would be at a higher risk than the general population
If the study was comparing people who got gender affirmative care vs people who didn’t but were also trans then it would be more illustrative of the effects of gander affirmative care (although I expect the effects would be positive, not negative, as it should lessen never dysphoria in most people seeking it out)
Nothing against the people conducting the study but I don’t think this is saying what this community wants to believe it’s saying
Another article notes “participants were at greater odds of NSSI, contemplating suicide, and attempting suicide before initiating the gender affirmation process compared to after”
The study claims propensity matching was done which would correct for that.
Compared to the tubal ligation/vasectomy controls, the risk was 5.03-fold higher before propensity matching and remained significant at 4.71-fold after matching
Add comment