ozymandias271:

earnest-peer:

neoliberalism-nightly:

boozer-pitt:

profitmaximiser:

spiritvs-evropa:

This guy was the Psychiatrist in Chief for 26 years at Johns Hopkins Hospital, so he might just know what he’s talking about - you can’t just dismiss him as a “transphobe”

“When “the tumult and shouting dies,” it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over thirty years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers.”

Yeah this is why I’m skeptical of the argument that “we need to give gender reassignment surgery to children so they don’t kill themselves.” It seems highly plausible that people who are seriously mentally ill may also be suicidal for reasons to do with their mental health and not any social stigma.

For each exposed person (N = 324), we randomly selected 10 unexposed controls. A person was defined as unexposed if there were no discrepancies in sex designation across the Censuses, Medical Birth, and Total Population registers and no gender identity disorder diagnosis according to the Hospital Discharge Register.

Presumably the comparison of interest is between transsexuals who get surgery and transsexuals who don’t, not between transsexuals who get surgery and gen pop.

Ya I don’t get that part either. It’s pretty clear that trans people who got the surgery is still going to be at higher risk than the general population who don’t have gender dysphoria.

And the paper states it relieve the gender dysphoria, so I don’t see how it is ineffective as a treatment itself, maybe cost-effectiveness is another thing.

Paging @ozymandias271 because I think they said something about this study before, and anyway, that’s sort of their field of expertise. IIRC, the comparison boozer-pitt wanted shows a threefold decrease of suicide rate after transition… or something.

Trans people are a notably suicidal population pre-transition (41% of American trans people have attempted), which makes me question the relevance of the Swedish study. I would expect that depressed people on Prozac are more likely to commit suicide than the general population, but that doesn’t mean that Prozac doesn’t work.

To make it clear: comparing the Swedish study to the Williams study, transition reduces the hazard ratio from 9 (assuming I understand correctly how to calculate hazard ratios) to 5, making it one of the most effective treatments for suicidality ever invented. Now, there’s a bunch of reasons why this is an apple-to-oranges comparison, but I hope it gives you a sense.

I am not aware of any specific studies about the effect of transition on suicidality. The current evidence on transition as a treatment is low-quality but generally suggests it improves psychological functioning. 

Also since when are psychiatrists not transphobes?

Evidence suggests proper treatment (the kind we’ve been demanding, not the kind we’ve been reluctantly given; in both meanings of the word) basically cures the symptoms. This dutch study is small but the findings are relatively remarkable and match the stuff we’ve been screaming from the rooftops for like forever:

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In recent years, puberty suppression by means of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs has become accepted in clinical management of adolescents who have gender dysphoria (GD). The current study is the first longer-term longitudinal evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach.

METHODS: A total of 55 young transgender adults (22 transwomen and 33 transmen) who had received puberty suppression during adolescence were assessed 3 times: before the start of puberty suppression (mean age, 13.6 years), when cross-sex hormones were introduced (mean age, 16.7 years), and at least 1 year after gender reassignment surgery (mean age, 20.7 years). Psychological functioning (GD, body image, global functioning, depression, anxiety, emotional and behavioral problems) and objective (social and educational/professional functioning) and subjective (quality of life, satisfaction with life and happiness) well-being were investigated.

RESULTS: After gender reassignment, in young adulthood, the GD was alleviated and psychological functioning had steadily improved. Well-being was similar to or better than same-age young adults from the general population. Improvements in psychological functioning were positively correlated with postsurgical subjective well-being.

CONCLUSIONS: A clinical protocol of a multidisciplinary team with mental health professionals, physicians, and surgeons, including puberty suppression, followed by cross-sex hormones and gender reassignment surgery, provides gender dysphoric youth who seek gender reassignment from early puberty on, the opportunity to develop into well-functioning young adults.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/09/02/peds.2013-2958.abstract