The transgender lobby was able to gain power and influence by employing the old-fashioned left-wing call to arms, "Protect the Children"!
The movement to allow the medical community to dispense powerful drugs to children that pause the process of achieving puberty, or to legalize other treatments for gender dysphoria, is all based on the notion that without these drugs or treatments, the child will have an elevated risk of suicide.
The evidence does not show that social transition, puberty blockers, or hormone treatments reduce suicide risk in young people with gender-related distress. A study of data from NHS England’s Gender Identity Development Service found that dying by suicide was rare. Over ten years, there were four suicides among the 15,000 young people in its patient group: 0.03%. Two of those patients were on the waiting list, and two were being treated. This rate was similar to that of young people referred to child and adolescent mental-health services.
But the myth persists and is now being used to get Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) to remove the ban on puberty blockers, along with the claim that suicides among transgender teens have "spiked" in the aftermath of the ban on gender affirming care. The Good Law Project (GLP) claims "suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years."
The GLP used a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for data from the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database (NCMD). "The NCMD revealed that 46 trans children died by suicide from 2019-2025: 5 in 2019-20; 4 in 2020-21; 22 in 2021-22; and 10 in 2022-23," reports the GLP.
Professor Louis Appleby, the government’s suicide prevention adviser, was commissioned to examine the issue of transgender teen suicides. He identified six cases in which gender dysphoria was considered a contributing factor and sharply criticized the GLP for playing politics with teen suicides.
UnHerd's Josephine Bartosch explains why the figures in the NCMD study are misleading and how the GLP is deliberately misusing the data.
NCMD itself confirmed in an FOI response that “trans” was used as an umbrella term covering transgender, non-binary, gender-questioning, gender-transitioning or gender-dysphoric children, a broad and heterogeneous grouping rather than a single clinical category. It is also well established that young people presenting with gender-related distress often have many comorbid mental health conditions, including autism and eating disorders.
The FOI data released to the GLP in fact confirmed Appleby’s findings: six children who died by suicide who specifically had gender dysphoria recorded as a contributing factor. Six is still six too many, but it does not follow that puberty blockers would have prevented these deaths or that there has been a surge in numbers. Ultimately, the absence of evidence for a policy-driven suicide spike should be a source of relief. As Appleby wrote in 2024: “Suicide should not be a slogan or a means to winning an argument. To the families of 200 teenagers a year in England, it is devastating and all too real.”
Yes, it's despicable for anyone to advance a cause or fundraise while standing on the dead bodies of children who were in such mental anguish and distress that they felt the only way to alleviate their pain was to end their lives. Even more tragic is the growing body of evidence that "gender affirming care" has only a marginal effect on gender dysphoric children.
A new retrospective follow-up study from Hong Kong, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry earlier this month, addresses those problems. The authors argue that much of the earlier literature leans too heavily on group averages and does not adequately account for basic determinants of mental health, such as social support and coping style. Instead of treating those variables as background, the Hong Kong researchers measured them directly and included them in the same longitudinal models as treatment status. Their aim was to see whether hormone use or surgery still predicted changes in depression and anxiety once support and coping strategies were considered.
The study followed adults seen at Hong Kong’s public Gender Identity Clinic. The proctors assembled the original 394-participant cohort in 2019 and 2020 and collected follow-up data between October 2023 and June 2024. After accounting for deaths, loss to follow-up, and participants who discontinued hormones, the final sample included 178 people.
Of that sample, nearly half were “female-to-male,” nearly half “male-to-female,” and a small fraction identified as “non-binary.” The median age was 36, and most were not in a romantic relationship. Over a quarter had psychiatric comorbidities, one in four were taking psychotropic medication, and more than one in three were in active care with a psychologist.
There is a growing body of evidence, not conclusive but suggestive, that gender affirming care does as much harm as it does good. It's hard to separate the facts from the propaganda, but if I were a doctor, I would err on the side of caution. "Do No Harm" is always a good prescription for doctors to dispense.
Exclusively for our VIPs: The Canadian School Shooting Is Not About Transgenderism. The Issue Is Mental Health.
The new year promises to be one of the most pivotal in recent history. Midterm elections will determine if we continue to move forward or slide back into lawfare, impeachments, and the toleration of fraud.
PJ Media will give you all the information you need to understand the decisions that will be made this year. Insightful commentary and straight-on, no-BS news reporting have been our hallmarks since 2005.
Get 60% off your new VIP membership by using the code FIGHT. You won't regret it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member