A sad but sadly unsurprising study is yet more evidence that not only are LGBT+ young people more at risk of depression and suicide than straight kids, but that the risk is even higher for trans youth.
compared to their cisgender LGB+ peers in the Trevor Project survey, young people who identify as trans and non-binary are still more than twice as likely to experience depressive symptoms, seriously consider suicide, and attempt suicide – adjusting for age, family income and ethnicity.
…Trans males are the the highest-at risk group, with 35 per cent having attempted suicide in the past 12 months – but trans females and non-binary youth were also significantly more likely than cisgender LGB+ youth to report seriously considering suicide
One of the key factors in LGBT+ suicides is bullying. A separate study by the Yale School of Public Health found that bullying is much more likely to be a precursor to suicide among LGBT+ youth than among their peers.
Death records from LGBTQ youths were about five times more likely to mention bullying than non-LGBTQ youths’ death records, the study found. Among 10- to 13-year-olds, over two-thirds of LGBTQ youths’ death records mentioned that they had been bullied.
There are lots of these studies, and the anti-trans mob’s reaction is always the same: DARVO. It’s a term used to describe a key tactic of abusers: deny, attack, reverse the victim and offender. So whenever a study shows more avoidable deaths, the response is to say that the figures are false, that trans teens are drama queens and that trans activists use the threat of suicide to silence legitimate criticism.
DARVO is necessary for some because otherwise they’d have to admit that they are abusers. And many anti-trans activists are. They might not be doing the abusing directly (although some do online), but they may contribute to it by the attitudes they express to others or by the causes they crowdfund or support in other ways – such as legal action to make trans kids more vulnerable in schools.
In the US and UK, evangelical-backed individuals and organisations are targeting cash-strapped councils and school districts with legal action to try and force the withdrawal of inclusive anti-bullying materials and policies.
While parents mourn their children, others are trying to rip up what little support currently exists for other vulnerable children like them.
Under the banner of “protect the children”, they want to remove protection for the most vulnerable children of all. They try not to say it, but the meaning is clear: better to have dead kids than trans ones.