Suicide Attempts among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults
Ann P. Haas, Ph.D. and Philip L. Rodgers, Ph.D., Jody L. Herman, Ph.D. 2014
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:D8jk5mT3N60J:http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/AFSP-Williams-Suicide-Report-Final.pdf%2B&hl=en&gbv=1&ct=clnk
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The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents
to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS)[…] is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt, and is also higher than the 10-20 percent
of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.
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it may be tempting to consider suicide attempt data to be the best available proxy measure of suicide death. Data from the U.S. population at large, however, show clear demographic differences between suicide attempters and those who die by suicide.[…] in the absence of supporting data, we should be especially careful not to extrapolate findings about suicide attempts among transgender adults to imply conclusions about completed suicide in this population.
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Remember the ~20% suicide attempt rate of all LGB’s? Well, the rate for those who are also T-ransgender jumps to 40%. Heterosexual transgenders try suicide 35% of the time, while asexual/other try it 46% of the time. (Table 3 page 7)
Those who are actively gender fluid manage to shave off 10% of their attempt rates, clocking in at only 32%; while transgenders that stick to identifying as male or female have their attempts at 42-43% (table 4 page 8)
Across the board, be it counseling/hormone treatment/or any type of surgery to transition from one sex to another, those who actively do not want any of those things done, and never have them done, will have a 10-15% lower chance of suicide attempts than those who “want it someday” or have had those things done. The difference between low 30‘s and high 40‘s. (table 5 page 8)
Likewise, the lesson seems to be never tell anyone about your true nature, or let them catch on. Those who can easily pass as not transgender only try suicide during their lives 36% of the time, where those who think others can tell that they are trans try 41-46%. (table 6 pg9) People who never tell another about being transgender have a rate of 33%, still lower than those who tell family or close friends 41-40%, or worse, everyone 50%. (table 8 pg9) Being “out” in any setting, be it home/school/work/etc puts them in the ~40% range of trying suicide; while staying closeted keeps them in the ~30% range. (table 9 pg9)
If you thought those numbers were bad, having mental health issues on top of transgenderism boosts the chance of a suicide attempt by 15-30% (essentially, from 30-40%->60%+) (table 12 page 10). In addition, various life stressors such as homelessness, workplace harassment, family violence, etc are bad enough for regular transgenders; but mental health issues basically raised their suicide attempts in those instances by 10-15% (table 21 page 13).
If we want to see really high numbers, say above a 70% suicide attempt rate, then sexual harassment is the way to get it. Be it by police (table 19 pg 13), or by sexual assault from elementary through college (table 15 pg 11). Who could have guessed that the transgendered are most vulnerable through sexual violation?
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In regard to timing of suicide attempts and gender transition, some surveys and clinical studies have found that transgender people are at an elevated risk for suicide attempt during gender transition, while rates of suicide attempts decrease after gender transition (Whittle et al., 2007; DeCuypere et al., 2006; Transgender Equality Network Ireland, 2012).
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