Parents of “trans” kids. Part 11. Suicide & Self-Harm

This is part 11 of a series on parents who believe their child is ”transgender”. It was funded by, amongst others, Oxford University and is hosted on healthtalk.org. Mermaids lobby group were involved. You can access this on healthtalk’s website, here, 👇

Suicide and Self-Harm

You can read the rest of the series on this page:

Parents of ”trans kids”: Series 2

This post focuses on parents talking about their strategies to deal with their children exhibiting suicidal ideation. For any parents who are dealing with this, for their own child, it is a terrifying prospect. To set your mind at rest please read my piece on suicide statistics in this demographic. They are no more likely to attempt suicide than any other group suffering from mental health issues.

Suicide in the Trans Community

Support forums for children/teenagers identifying as “transgender” encourage the threat of suicide to blackmail parents into medical “affirmation”. Most of the data out there is based on self-reported ”attempts”. There is a problem with suicide in those who have undergone medical ”transition” and I will cover that research shortly.

First up the author’s quote Stonewall. This is never a good sign.

I think we would have noticed if 84% of trans-identified people made serious attempts to end their own lives, however, this research is punctuated with accounts from parents who feel the medical treatment, accessed by their children, was life-saving /suicide averting.

This is what Stonewall say about suicide on their website today: They claim a 27% figure for attempted suicide and 89% have thought about it. 👇

Here is Michael Biggs on the issue of suicide. I will cover his paper on here because he is an excellent source:

Here Biggs quotes Norman Spack. He runs a clinic in Boston for children who are proclaimed as ”transgender”

I wonder if the only way you can justify these dractic measures is by inflating the risk of inaction? Here is Ross warning parents that self-harm can escalate.

No wonder these parents are terrified to practice ”watch and wait”.

Below Ali shares that her daughter was already under the care of CAMHS for mental health issues. They felt under pressure to “sort” things our in a twelve week programme, at this stage her son had not declared a “transgender” identity.

Next Ali talks about figuring out that ”gender identity” may be one of the issue and how hard it was to access support.

Ali felt the support from school was counterproductive. She referred her son to mental health services but he attempted suicide during the Christmas period.

Finally her son explains that the issue is his gender identity. Ali realises that what they need is a referral to GIDs. At this point she claims that mental health services cut them adrift.

One of the other parents does not think all her daughter’s issues should be assumed to relate to the ”trans” identity. Ross points out that, for his daughter, bullying at school and a bad relationship with her mother impacted his daughter. Bullying figures in the background of a lot of these kids. Some of this is homophobic bullying, known to generate issues with “gender identity” confusion. Research here:

Peer bullying

I can identify with the fear of suicide for our children. What does not help is the endless propaganda and inflated risk peddled about our kids. Sadly Ross is not reassuring these parents. He is amplifying their fear.

I do this full-time and am unwaged. You can support my work here: