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Hey, content warning: this video is going to deal with suicide. If that’s too much for you, I recommend you give it a skip, or you can skip to the timestamp on the screen at which point I will be talking about something more enjoyable. So, in the past month I’ve heard from many of you who have asked if I could make a video about a recent study in Nature concerning trans care. And I read the study, and it is interesting, but I went back and forth over whether it was worth making a video about. Obviously, you’re watching this, so you know that I eventually decided to go for it. First I’ll talk about the study, and then I’d like to talk a little bit about what made me waffle on discussing it.
It’s called State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA, and it was published last month in Nature. As with every video I produce, links to everything I discuss can be found in the transcript, available for free on Skepchick.org and at patreon.com/rebecca, linked directly in the YouTube description box.
Unfortunately, that paper is not available to the average person without institutional access. Fortunately, it is based on data collected by the Trevor Project, who has provided the results of those surveys from 2022, 2021 and 2020 on their website.
If you’re not aware, the Trevor Project was formed in 1998 because some filmmakers made a short dramedy called Trevor, about a thirteen year old boy who is rejected by his peers after coming out as gay, and so he then attempts suicide. The filmmakers wanted to end the movie with a shout out to a resource to help young people facing the same problem as Trevor, but there wasn’t any. So, they made their own by creating a 24-hour LGBTQ suicide prevention helpline called the Trevor Lifeline, and over the next few decades they grew into a huge organization that is now employing trained researchers. They’ve been putting out reports on their findings for the past few years, and several of those have been published in peer-reviewed journals like this latest one.
In line with the Trevor Project’s entire mission statement, this study is about trans youth and suicide. Across their annual surveys, Trevor Project polled more than 35,000 transgender and nonbinary youth between the ages of 13 and 24, asking them questions about whether they had attempted suicide in the past year and whether they had considered suicide in the past year, and if so how seriously they had considered it. They then compared the responses between states that had introduced anti-trans laws that targeted kids, like restricting their medical care or banning them from playing sports, with states that didn’t have those laws. They found that in the first year after a state introduced anti-trans laws, the number of teens between 13 and 17 attempting suicide jumped significantly compared to other states. In the second year after the introduction of the law, the number of suicide attempts significantly increased for all respondents up to the age of 24. The increase was anywhere from 7 to 72% depending on the time period and age of participants.
That would be damning enough, but the researchers took things a step further by demonstrating not just a correlation between anti-trans laws and suicidality, but direct causality. Often causality can be demonstrated in studies by doing things like randomized controlled trials, but you can’t just randomly assign trans and nonbinary kids to live in various states. So in this case, the researchers controlled for aspects like suicide rates in the year prior to the introduction of these laws, federal policies, and each state’s suicide preventions efforts. The results were so clear that one co-author told NBC News, “State-level anti-transgender laws caused — so, not associated with, not linked to — we can say very confidently, they caused up to a 72% increase in number of past-year suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary young people,” as well as a 49% increase in the percent of trans and nonbinary young people who made at least one attempt in the past year.”
Despite that confidence, there were some limitations: they were comparing surveys between individuals instead of following subjects over those years and seeing how they themselves change. They also didn’t consider the different effects different laws might have–for instance, it’s possible that fully banning puberty blockers may have more negative effects than setting up roadblocks to accessing them, or preventing kids from using their correct gender’s bathroom.
But as more and more states consider more and more of these anti-trans laws, it is important to know the inevitable damage they’re doing, just as it’s important to know that enacting anti-abortion measures leads to more women, fetuses, and babies dying.
So why did I hesitate to make this video? Well, for the same reason I hesitate whenever I make a video about the inevitable damage of abortion restrictions: because the people who want these laws do not see this result as a negative. When it comes to lawmakers enacting legislation on abortion, their goal isn’t to “save babies.” It’s to control and punish women, and get a bunch of money from the Christian fundamentalist lobby while they’re at it.
When it comes to preventing trans and nonbinary kids from accessing gender affirming care, the goal isn’t to “protect kids.” It’s to control and punish kids who challenge heteronormativity. Imagine a transphobe has a little 3-year old boy who asks for a Barbie for Christmas. The transphobe spanks him and says she’s going to get him a toy gun and if she ever catches her son playing with dolls in the future he’ll get another spanking. A child psychologist tells her “hey, that’s going to fuck up your son’s mental health now and in the future.” The transphobe will reply, “GOOD. Because I’d rather have a fucked up son who conforms than a well-adjusted kid who makes the neighbors look at me funny and wonder what’s wrong with my family. We want to be NORMAL, not HAPPY.”
There’s so much psychological research out there showing how humans strive to conform that we’d be here all month if I were to cite it all, but the classic experiment is the Asch paradigm: in the 1950s, Solomon Ashe at Swarthmore conducted a series of experiments in which he used peer pressure to get people to answer obvious questions wrong just so they’d fit in. Decades of research have built upon that, showing that people will choose to fit in even if it means giving up on rewards, like saying they prefer a song they don’t like and therefore not getting a free album with the song they DO like. We are social animals and that shows in the way our brains are wired.
If pressed on the issue, I’m sure no parent would say they would rather their nonconforming child be dead, but I am sure that they will lie to themselves that the child will be happier once they realize the benefits of fitting in.
With that in mind, I’m making this video in the hope of at least reaching the family, friends, teachers, and carers of nonconforming kids: by rejecting them, or punishing them to try to get them to fit in, you are not helping them. You are INCREASING the chances that they will kill themselves.
And with THAT in mind, I will end on a positive note. Here are some findings from the 2024 Trevor Project survey:
LGBTQ youth who felt high social support from their family reported attempting suicide at less than half the rate of those who felt low or moderate social support.
LGBTQ+ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than half the rate of those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.
LGBTQ+ young people who had access to LGBTQ+-affirming spaces, and transgender and nonbinary youth who had access to gender-affirming spaces, reported lower rates of attempting suicide compared to those who did not.
Transgender and nonbinary young people who had access to gender-affirming clothing, gender-neutral bathrooms at school, and had their pronouns respected by the people they live with had lower rates of attempting suicide compared to those who did not.
Most LGBTQ+ young people who attend school (78%) reported having at least one adult at school who is supportive and affirming of their LGBTQ+ identity.
Finally, for allies who want to help, here are ten ways LGBTQ+ young people said would make them feel more accepted:
Trusting that I know who I am
88%
Standing up for me
81%
Not supporting politicians that advocate for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation
77%
Looking up things about LGBTQ+ identities on their own to better understand
62%
Respecting my pronouns
59%
Showing support for how I express my gender
57%
Asking questions about LGBTQ+ identities to better understand
56%
Accepting my partner(s)
55%
Showing support on social media
44%
Having or displaying pride flags
43%
And of course, don’t just “not support” anti-trans politicians but please “Vote out the bigots who are enacting these deadly anti-trans laws.” To all my trans, nonbinary, and otherwise nonconforming friends, I love you and hope you keep being yourselves.
