We were told this multiple times by therapists and at least one school counselor. “Your child might commit suicide or run away and become homeless”. Our son occasionally brings it up with a sort of taunting attitude. I hope the Times prints your letter. I have written several times asking that they do a piece on parents that includes those of us who disagree with the ideology as well as desistors and detransitioners….crickets.
I truly hope they run this. It’s beyond unethical what is printed about this issue over and over again. What ever happened to campaigns like “it gets better”? Why this insistence that these kids will harm themselves, when everyone knows that insisting on it makes it more likely. Some days it feels like a dark conspiracy to get more kids into this precarious situation in order to raise money off their demise. It’s so so so sick.
It’s also time to do a deep dive into how gender nonconforming children have historically survived puberty, without medical or surgical intervention, or without affirmation, for all of human history.
this is such a glaringly obvious fault in the trans mythology.
when in the entire history of humanity have we seen massive suicides by children whose "innate opposite sex identities" are rejected? Never that's when.
Friggin idiocy of trans ideology ... and people believe this tripe.
If this is a true medical diagnosis, requiring medical and surgical intervention, in order to prevent death (only by suicide), surely it would be seen all over the world, throughout all of human history.
It should be regarded as abusive and unprofessional for medical practioners to use the potential for suicide in this scaremongering way and there should be strong medical guidelines that say so.
The suicide issue is a perfect self-perpetuating storm I don't know how we're going to get out of. It's the ultimate shield and defense against any concerns about dangerous side effects and harms from the treatments and weak evidence. People are - understandably - too afraid to take the risk. Them Then the constant claims end up creating the suicidal ideation that is needed to prop up the claims that keep people afraid, allow for the harms to continue, and shield people from any guilt or doubts about their decisions or role in this. I really don't know how we're going to break this cycle.
The NYT has degenerated from a trusted, even-keeled, 'untouchable' news publication to a bastion of propaganda, bona fide misinformation and destructive ideology disseminator.
I had not read Williams' NYT editorial, but I just went over it, and this jumped out:
<<She’s angry, scared and hurt that the American system of democracy that we so put on a pedestal didn’t work to protect her.>>
HB 1 was enacted by a democratically elected legislature and signed by a democratically elected governor. A majority of the federal judges--at all levels--who heard the case agreed to let the law stand. Judging from the polls, if a national referendum on the topic were held, HB 1 would be a favorite to win it. So it seems to me democracy worked fine here...it just didn't work in Williams' favor.
Hey Lisa, I don’t know if you remember this, but in the early 2000s I remember going to some LGB health thing and they were telling us to tell parents of teens to ACCEPT them to prevent suicide. Like don’t kick them out of the house for being gay. “Do you want a gay son, or a dead son?” Indeed I had a lot of friends & acquaintances from the gay 90s and 2000s who did die by suicide. Disproportional ex-Mormons. 😢 it actually kind of sucked to be gay back then. I think this whole gestalt is still in the cultural milieu of the LGBTQ+etc community today… although the world has changed in much of the country shockingly quickly.
right but no one in that generation was saying, and your gay son needs his testicles removed and penis inverted into a permanent wound (what a horribly misogynistic view of the yoni!!!).
there's a long long distance between "don't kick out your gay son" and "sign here to consent to permanent infertility, anorgasmia, castration, and permanent prescriptions for cross sex hormones.
It's emotional blackmail designed to coerce the public into accepting "trans" as real when we all know it's a figment of their imagination and it's destroying far more people than it " helps ". Thanks ,Lisa.
“there is no good evidence that suicidal thoughts and attempts among LBGT youth stem from stigma and discrimination”
This is disingenuous.
You’re either suggesting that uniquely lgbt yourh are uniquely unaffected by the poorer mental health outcomes of stigma and discrimination, or that poor mental health is an intrinsic part of being lgbt.
Both possibilities are unlikely. It is highly likely that lgbt youths poorer mental health is related to them being treated far worse by society, given that this is the situation for them.
I don't believe it's disingenuous. I believe Ms. Selin Davis misspoke, or neglected to disambiguate a common misstatement: "LGBT" does not describe a logical grouping of people, despite decades of forced teaming. In the language used by many analyses, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths are "sexual minorities." They are non-heterosexual, and their sexual attraction is not the same as that of the majority population, thus minority. "Trans kids" are, by that qualification, not distinguished from the majority population by their sexual attraction. They are distinguished by their transgender ideation. It is incoherent to group them in with LGB youth as "sexual minorities."
(Let us set aside for the moment the fact that most youths suffering from transgender ideation are also lesbian, gay, or bisexual - this is frequently one of the realities they are trying to escape with their transgender ideation).
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth might show a higher rate of suicide because of their sexual minority status. "Trans kids" could show a higher rate of suicide because of their sexual minority status, but only if they're doing it because they're really lesbian, gay, or bisexual. "Transgender" is not a sexual minority; although its more fanciful adherents make sex claims, it's about gender, which is a social construct, unlike sex.
Studies that fail to recognize these facts, like the one linked above, make a mish-mosh of the data. Look at this nonsense in their Terms and Definitions:
"After 1973, the American Psychological Association no longer considered LGBT orientation as a mental disorder and has since worked intensively to eradicate the stigma historically associated with homosexual orientation."
Again we see the forced teaming. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual are (homo)sexual orientations. It's true that, after 1973, the APA has worked to eradicate the stigma historically associated with homosexual orientation. But transgender is not itself a sexual orientation, and (apart from the fact that most youth with transgender ideation also have homosexual orientations) nothing else in this paragraph relates to it. It's a lazy confusion that muddles the analysis.
As distinct from youths who belong to sexual minorities (i.e. LGB), transgender-identifying youths have additional complications that characterize worse mental health and might contribute to a higher suicide rate, if such exists.
For one, many transgender-identifying youths, unlike youths who openly identify as LGB, remain in denial about their sexual orientations. A young homosexual man who identifies as transgender, and attempts to pass as a young heterosexual woman, may be in denial about his actual sexual orientation. Being in denial about your sexual orientation could be a great cause of stress.
Second, having suffered medicalization (castration, mastectomy, etc.) may lead to regret, which may increase the likelihood of suicide. Indeed, some studies have shown a higher rate of suicide among "transitioned" transgender-identifying people than among people with transgender ideation who have not transitioned.
Third, transgender ideation is a delusion. It is not possible to change sex; nobody in the history of humanity has ever done it. This means that, in distinction to LGB youth, youth with transgender ideation are, as a group, suffering from a greater degree of mental disorder - even without accounting for the additional mental disorders (anxiety, depression, anorexia, etc.) that frequently accompany transgender ideation in youth.
Trying to force these distinct groups together in analysis does not clarify the degree of the problem, it muddles it. The study linked above states this in the conclusion:
"Our systematic review and meta-analysis found that adolescents with nonheterosexual orientation had a significantly higher risk of life-threatening behavior compared with their heterosexual peers."
But if the writers are unable to comprehend that transgender identification is not a "nonheterosexual orientation," and thus this sentence says nothing about "trans youths," who they purport to consider, then their analysis is so sloppy as to be useless. Suicide among transgender identifying youth may be higher than that of their peers, it may be higher after medicalization than before, or it even may be the same once confounding factors (e.g. co-morbidities) are removed, but we cannot possibly know unless researchers stop using politically motivated language and start differentiating properly.
So i accept all of those papers. However they do not suggest: “there is no good evidence that suicidal thoughts and attempts among LBGT youth stem from stigma and discrimination”
LGBT youth are accepted to be at higher risk.
It is not difficult to find published evidence linking this risk to discrimination and stigma.
The statement suggests that LGBT youth are somehow immune to the negative effects that we know discrimination and stigma have on mental health for everyone else, is just very unlikely.
You don't have to talk to many LGBT people to find out that discrimination and stigma are significant stressors in our lives.
We were told this multiple times by therapists and at least one school counselor. “Your child might commit suicide or run away and become homeless”. Our son occasionally brings it up with a sort of taunting attitude. I hope the Times prints your letter. I have written several times asking that they do a piece on parents that includes those of us who disagree with the ideology as well as desistors and detransitioners….crickets.
I truly hope they run this. It’s beyond unethical what is printed about this issue over and over again. What ever happened to campaigns like “it gets better”? Why this insistence that these kids will harm themselves, when everyone knows that insisting on it makes it more likely. Some days it feels like a dark conspiracy to get more kids into this precarious situation in order to raise money off their demise. It’s so so so sick.
It’s reckless, irresponsible and amoral.
It’s also time to do a deep dive into how gender nonconforming children have historically survived puberty, without medical or surgical intervention, or without affirmation, for all of human history.
this is such a glaringly obvious fault in the trans mythology.
when in the entire history of humanity have we seen massive suicides by children whose "innate opposite sex identities" are rejected? Never that's when.
Friggin idiocy of trans ideology ... and people believe this tripe.
Where was the historical suicide epidemic before the Dutch protocol was invented/imported in the 2010s?
Exactly.
If this is a true medical diagnosis, requiring medical and surgical intervention, in order to prevent death (only by suicide), surely it would be seen all over the world, throughout all of human history.
And of course it wasn’t.
It should be regarded as abusive and unprofessional for medical practioners to use the potential for suicide in this scaremongering way and there should be strong medical guidelines that say so.
The suicide issue is a perfect self-perpetuating storm I don't know how we're going to get out of. It's the ultimate shield and defense against any concerns about dangerous side effects and harms from the treatments and weak evidence. People are - understandably - too afraid to take the risk. Them Then the constant claims end up creating the suicidal ideation that is needed to prop up the claims that keep people afraid, allow for the harms to continue, and shield people from any guilt or doubts about their decisions or role in this. I really don't know how we're going to break this cycle.
All the rules go out the window when it comes to trans. Trans exceptionalism rules instead.
Thank you, Lisa!
We will be celebrating if NYT does publish your letter.
No chance they’ll this, right? I applaud your tenacity.
So has this this letter been published? I don't see it in the Times.
The NYT has degenerated from a trusted, even-keeled, 'untouchable' news publication to a bastion of propaganda, bona fide misinformation and destructive ideology disseminator.
Great letter, thanks for sharing.
I had not read Williams' NYT editorial, but I just went over it, and this jumped out:
<<She’s angry, scared and hurt that the American system of democracy that we so put on a pedestal didn’t work to protect her.>>
HB 1 was enacted by a democratically elected legislature and signed by a democratically elected governor. A majority of the federal judges--at all levels--who heard the case agreed to let the law stand. Judging from the polls, if a national referendum on the topic were held, HB 1 would be a favorite to win it. So it seems to me democracy worked fine here...it just didn't work in Williams' favor.
Rates of suicidality track with populations with similar mental illness morbidity rates (anxiety, depression, bipolar, PD, etc.).
Hey Lisa, I don’t know if you remember this, but in the early 2000s I remember going to some LGB health thing and they were telling us to tell parents of teens to ACCEPT them to prevent suicide. Like don’t kick them out of the house for being gay. “Do you want a gay son, or a dead son?” Indeed I had a lot of friends & acquaintances from the gay 90s and 2000s who did die by suicide. Disproportional ex-Mormons. 😢 it actually kind of sucked to be gay back then. I think this whole gestalt is still in the cultural milieu of the LGBTQ+etc community today… although the world has changed in much of the country shockingly quickly.
right but no one in that generation was saying, and your gay son needs his testicles removed and penis inverted into a permanent wound (what a horribly misogynistic view of the yoni!!!).
there's a long long distance between "don't kick out your gay son" and "sign here to consent to permanent infertility, anorgasmia, castration, and permanent prescriptions for cross sex hormones.
It's emotional blackmail designed to coerce the public into accepting "trans" as real when we all know it's a figment of their imagination and it's destroying far more people than it " helps ". Thanks ,Lisa.
“there is no good evidence that suicidal thoughts and attempts among LBGT youth stem from stigma and discrimination”
This is disingenuous.
You’re either suggesting that uniquely lgbt yourh are uniquely unaffected by the poorer mental health outcomes of stigma and discrimination, or that poor mental health is an intrinsic part of being lgbt.
Both possibilities are unlikely. It is highly likely that lgbt youths poorer mental health is related to them being treated far worse by society, given that this is the situation for them.
I don't believe it's disingenuous. I believe Ms. Selin Davis misspoke, or neglected to disambiguate a common misstatement: "LGBT" does not describe a logical grouping of people, despite decades of forced teaming. In the language used by many analyses, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths are "sexual minorities." They are non-heterosexual, and their sexual attraction is not the same as that of the majority population, thus minority. "Trans kids" are, by that qualification, not distinguished from the majority population by their sexual attraction. They are distinguished by their transgender ideation. It is incoherent to group them in with LGB youth as "sexual minorities."
(Let us set aside for the moment the fact that most youths suffering from transgender ideation are also lesbian, gay, or bisexual - this is frequently one of the realities they are trying to escape with their transgender ideation).
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth might show a higher rate of suicide because of their sexual minority status. "Trans kids" could show a higher rate of suicide because of their sexual minority status, but only if they're doing it because they're really lesbian, gay, or bisexual. "Transgender" is not a sexual minority; although its more fanciful adherents make sex claims, it's about gender, which is a social construct, unlike sex.
Studies that fail to recognize these facts, like the one linked above, make a mish-mosh of the data. Look at this nonsense in their Terms and Definitions:
"After 1973, the American Psychological Association no longer considered LGBT orientation as a mental disorder and has since worked intensively to eradicate the stigma historically associated with homosexual orientation."
Again we see the forced teaming. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual are (homo)sexual orientations. It's true that, after 1973, the APA has worked to eradicate the stigma historically associated with homosexual orientation. But transgender is not itself a sexual orientation, and (apart from the fact that most youth with transgender ideation also have homosexual orientations) nothing else in this paragraph relates to it. It's a lazy confusion that muddles the analysis.
As distinct from youths who belong to sexual minorities (i.e. LGB), transgender-identifying youths have additional complications that characterize worse mental health and might contribute to a higher suicide rate, if such exists.
For one, many transgender-identifying youths, unlike youths who openly identify as LGB, remain in denial about their sexual orientations. A young homosexual man who identifies as transgender, and attempts to pass as a young heterosexual woman, may be in denial about his actual sexual orientation. Being in denial about your sexual orientation could be a great cause of stress.
Second, having suffered medicalization (castration, mastectomy, etc.) may lead to regret, which may increase the likelihood of suicide. Indeed, some studies have shown a higher rate of suicide among "transitioned" transgender-identifying people than among people with transgender ideation who have not transitioned.
Third, transgender ideation is a delusion. It is not possible to change sex; nobody in the history of humanity has ever done it. This means that, in distinction to LGB youth, youth with transgender ideation are, as a group, suffering from a greater degree of mental disorder - even without accounting for the additional mental disorders (anxiety, depression, anorexia, etc.) that frequently accompany transgender ideation in youth.
Trying to force these distinct groups together in analysis does not clarify the degree of the problem, it muddles it. The study linked above states this in the conclusion:
"Our systematic review and meta-analysis found that adolescents with nonheterosexual orientation had a significantly higher risk of life-threatening behavior compared with their heterosexual peers."
But if the writers are unable to comprehend that transgender identification is not a "nonheterosexual orientation," and thus this sentence says nothing about "trans youths," who they purport to consider, then their analysis is so sloppy as to be useless. Suicide among transgender identifying youth may be higher than that of their peers, it may be higher after medicalization than before, or it even may be the same once confounding factors (e.g. co-morbidities) are removed, but we cannot possibly know unless researchers stop using politically motivated language and start differentiating properly.
You may want to review this collection of research articles examining this issue. https://statsforgender.org/category/suicide/
So i accept all of those papers. However they do not suggest: “there is no good evidence that suicidal thoughts and attempts among LBGT youth stem from stigma and discrimination”
LGBT youth are accepted to be at higher risk.
It is not difficult to find published evidence linking this risk to discrimination and stigma.
The statement suggests that LGBT youth are somehow immune to the negative effects that we know discrimination and stigma have on mental health for everyone else, is just very unlikely.
You don't have to talk to many LGBT people to find out that discrimination and stigma are significant stressors in our lives.
Kudos for speaking out.