Study finds that the attempted-suicide rate among transgender women who received a vaginoplasty in California was twice as high during the period after the surgery compared with the period before the surgery.
The investigaotrs analyzed data on all 868 people who received a vaginoplasty and 357 people who received a phalloplasty in California from 2012-2018. There were an average of 2 years of data before and after surgery.
A total of 22% of the vaginoplasty group and 21% of the phalloplasty group had at least one ER or in-patient psych encounter during the study period, whether before or after surgery.
If there was a psych encounter prior to surgery, 34% of the vaginoplasty group and 27% of the phalloplasty group had a psych encounter after surgery.
Among those receiving a vaginoplasty, the rate of suicide attempts was twice as high after the surgery, at 3.3%, compared with before, at 1.5%.
The phalloplasty suicide-attempt rate was similar to the general population, while the vaginoplasty group's rate was more than twice as high as the general population.
"Patients undergoing [gender-affirming surgery] with a history of prior psychiatric emergences or feminizing transition are at higher risk and should be counseled appropriately," the study authors concluded. auajournals.org/doi/10.1097/JU…
The study with the strongest data, from decades of heath information about Swedish people, to pose the question of whether gender-transition treatment or surgeries impact mental health in adults with gender dysphoria found this:
Meanwhile, here is my latest for @NewYorkSun, on how the @WPATH Files could threaten liberal legal groups efforts to undo the bans on pediatric gender-transition treatment:
BREAKING: Children will not be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics in England, the Nation's National Health Service Says
The government said it welcomed the “landmark decision”, adding it would help ensure care is based on evidence and is in the “best interests of the child”. itv.com/news/2024-03-1…
The NHS has said children attending these clinics will be supported by clinical experts in neurodiversity, paediatrics and mental health, “resulting in a holistic approach to care”.
These gender distressed kids will not receive puberty blockers after the research backing such treatment was found wanting and inconclusive. A recent Finnish study found that it was not “life saving” as many claim.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., @WPATH has doubled down on backing puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for gender distressed youth. Courts will likely decide the fate of such a treatment model for adolescent gender distress.
"We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history," argues Andrea Long Chu. However, minors do not have the legal right to consent to gender-transition treatment. Their parents must consent on their behalf.
Andrea Long Chu argues that gender-transition treatment, including hormones and surgery, is not a matter of medicine or psychology, but of personal liberty. She argues a libertarian perspective: of the freedom to do, or have done to, one's body whatever one likes and at any age.
⚧️The WPATH Files⚧️
A damning new report from Environmental Progress, based on leaked internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, asserts:
WPATH is “neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care.”
For the details see the 🧵⬇️
The #WPATHFiles quote WPATH members saying:
⚧️Gender-transition treatment is given to those with at best a limited capacity to consent
⚧️Treatment can have serious side effects
⚧️Minors often don’t understand the long-term risks
⚧️Detransitioning is conceived of as trivial
Largely U.S. based, @WPATH is an “interdisciplinary professional and educational organization” that produces influential guidelines for treating gender dysphoria. It’s not a standard medical society like the AMA. Many members are neither physicians nor mental-health providers.
A new systematic literature review, by Germans, of puberty blockers (PB) and cross-sex hormones (CSH) to treat gender dysphoria (GD) in kids concludes: "Current evidence does not clearly suggest that GD symptoms and mental health significantly improve when PB or CSH are given to minors with GD." econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/10.1024/14…
German researchers concluded the same thing that Finnish researchers concluded last week: that psychotherapy should be the primary intervention for children with gender dysphoria (GD). Their systematic literature review of the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat GD found:
"The currently available studies on PB andCSH in minors with GD show significant conceptual and methodological flaws. The current body of evidence is very limited, based on very few studies with small samples and problematic methodology and quality. Adequate and meaningful long-term studies are equally lacking. Current evidence does not clearly suggest that GD symptoms and mental health significantly improve when PB or CSH are given to minors with GD. Children and adolescents with GD should therefore primarily receive psychotherapeutic interventions that address and reduce their experienced burden. Any decision to use PB and/or CSH should be made on a case-by-case basis after judicious risk benefit evaluation and, if possible, within clinical studies. Beforehand, psychiatric/psychotherapeutic diagnosis and treatment of concomitant mental disorders should be undertaken."
The new systematic lit review by Germans of treating gender dysphoria in kids is in line with those by researchers in England, Finland, Sweden. It backs Finnish researchers' findings that gender-transition treatment is not tied to lower suicide in youths:
No, Youth Gender-Transition Treatment Is Not 'Life Saving', Study Finds
The first ever study to test the widely made claim that youth medical gender-transition treatment prevents suicide deaths found no such evidence, I report for @NYPost. 🧵⬇️ nypost.com/2024/02/24/opi…
The movement backing gender-transition treatment for kids is built on the claim that it's “life saving.” Groups that claim this: @ACLU @GLAAD @HRC @WPATH @AmerAcadPeds @AmerMedicalAssn. But no one's tried to figure out whether this claim is true. Until now
A major new Finnish study found: Cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries for adolescents and young adults had no significant independent link to suicide deaths, nor did gender distress severe enough to send young people to a gender clinic. mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/27/1/e…
The LGBTQ advocacy group @GLAAD marked the anniversary of driving a truck around the @NYTimes building to protest the Times' trans coverage by doing it once more today. GLAAD has inaccurately claimed that the "science is settled" regarding pediatric gender-transition treatment.
@glaad @nytimes Here's the @GLAAD truck in 2023, falsely claiming the "science is settled" regarding pediatric gender-transition treatment. Multiple systematic literature reviews have found this science is wanting, leading multiple European nations to move to sharply restrict such treatment.
The @WHO recently concluded that "on review, the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents," as I reported for @NewYorkSun: nysun.com/article/beleag…