If the idea is that people with gender dysphoria are really “females trapped in a male body”, and that is what is causing their suicide rates to be higher than normal, and SRS fixes gender dysphoria, then wouldn’t you expect a post-op transsexual to resemble women who were born women in their suicide rates?
Using your analogy, it would be like saying “people with cancer who get chemotherapy die at the same rates as people with cancer who don’t get chemotherapy”. That’s not much of an endorsement of chemotherapy.
Certainly, if cancer patients who get chemotherapy die at the same rate as cancer patients who don’t get chemotherapy, then chemotherapy clearly isn’t doing anything. But if cancer patients who get chemotherapy die at a reduced rate than non-chemo cancer patients, but at a higher rate than people who don’t get cancer at all, then chemotherapy is indeed effective - it’s just not as good at not getting cancer at all.
So, too, with SRS: trans women who get SRS may still have a higher suicide rate than cisgendered women, but if they have a lower suicide rate than transwomen who don’t get SRS, the process is still effective. It’s just not 100% effective.
I think that what LHoD is saying is that if you want to compare the effectiveness of SRS for preventing suicide, depression, et al., you need to compare TG persons who undergo the surgery with TG persons who do not undergo the surgery. Not compare against the general population of non-TG persons.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
If the idea is that people with gender dysphoria are really “females trapped in a male body”, and that is what is causing their suicide rates to be higher than normal, and SRS fixes gender dysphoria, then wouldn’t you expect a post-op transsexual to resemble women who were born women in their suicide rates?
[/QUOTE]
The argument is not necessarily that SRS “fixes” things, it’s that it results in a net improvement in quality of life over that of the baseline condition of living with gender dysphoria. There are several other factors influencing dissatisfaction with life after SRS, including but not limited to:
Not having had the “female experience” of growing up within a community of females, not having done primarily female activities and such, not having a period, etc. Some TG/TS persons have told me they even feel like they’ve missed out on being discriminated against due to their gender - such as being passed over for promotion, or having been told “girls can’t do math!”, etc.
SRS typically has little to no impact on the level of acceptance (or lack thereof) from friends and family, co-workers, etc. In some cases it can make matters worse, as before family and peers can convince themselves that one’s whole TG experience is just a “phase” they’ll “snap out of.”
Even a completely successful SRS doesn’t end some of the trials and irritations of real life, because our legal and social structure is not set up in the United States to fully support TS persons. An example is when one lives in a State where they are not allowed to change their birth gender on their driver’s license - on TS woman told me of her first speeding ticket after SRS, and how what should have been a simple 5-minute annoyance turned into a 3-hour ordeal with chuckling, smirking officers making cracks about her genitalia (“did they give it to you in a jar after they cut it off? HA HA HA HA!” and asking her to present the top-20 reasons why she wasn’t a “fugitive from justice” just using a “disguise” to hide from the law.
So far the only study I’ve found is one that confirms that transsexuals have a higher suicide rate than cis gendered folks.
In near despair, I turned to Wikipedia. It has an article including the claim that srs reduces the suicide rate. But the cites are websites that no longer exist.
I’m gonna take a short break (all this searching on transsexual suicide is depressing) and then try a different search engine and new terms.
I noticed a lot of mentions that the subject was not well studied when I was searching, as well. Thus the non-scholarly report to which I linked was the best I could do.
It’s quite possible that the folks who opt for SRS tend to be folks who are finding their lives so intolerable that major surgery sounds like the only option for them; they may be folks already suffering from severe depression and suicidal tendencies, whereas the folks who don’t opt for SRS may be experiencing milder symptoms of GID.
It reminds me of disingenuous claims about how pregnant women who opt for home-birth with a midwife have lower complication rates than those who give birth in a hospital. Well, duh: most women who go into labor with complications go to the hospital, where at least they have some chance of survival. Midwife birth is great for women whose pregnancies present only mild complications, but to conclude that it’s safer across the board than hospital deliveries is a misuse of the stats.
Thanks. I am having trouble tracking down the actual studies cited, which are "Outcome of sex reassignment surgery.” Acta Psychiat. Scandinavia. 70:289-294. 1984, and Kuiper, M and Cohen-Kettenis, P. “Sex reassignment surgery: A study of 141 Dutch transsexuals.” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 17(5):439-457. 1988.
[QUOTE=Some Study]
The
suicide rate in post-operative transsexuals at II centers has been reported as
2.1 %of those who received this procedure, based on follow-up durations of 0. 3
to 19 years (40). Suicide attempts may be more frequent in gender dysphoric
patients who are refused SRS than in those who receive it. In Lundstrom’s study
of 30 transsexuals not accepted for SRS, one committed suicide and 59% of th e
remainder attempted it at least once (46).
[/QUOTE]
TOTALLY ASIDE FROM THE DISCUSSION:
Note that this thread (or some parts thereof) is the “launch” for Cecil’s current column (17-Aug-2012): Are transsexuals mentally ill? - The Straight Dope … based on Post #173. Congrats, Martin Hyde, on having made it to one Cecil’s immortal works!