CV NEWS FEED // A new Finnish study contradicted the central pro-LGBTQ talking point that subjecting children to so-called “gender-affirming care” reduces suicide rates.
“Clinical gender dysphoria does not appear to be predictive of all-cause nor suicide mortality when psychiatric treatment history is accounted for,” the study published on February 17 concluded.
The study compared “[a]ll-cause and suicide mortalities among adolescents and young adults [under the age of 23] who contacted specialised gender identity services in Finland” between the years 1996 and 2019.
Benjamin Ryan wrote in The New York Post Saturday that the movement “backing gender-transition treatment for children is built on the claim that pediatric medical interventions are not only ‘medically necessary’ – but truly ‘life saving.’”
Ryan noted that until very recently “no researchers have ever tried to figure out whether this claim is true.”
“A major new study out of Finland found that providing cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries to adolescents and young adults didn’t appear to have any significant effect on suicide deaths,” he reported.
Also according to Ryan, the study showed that “gender distress severe enough to send young people to a gender clinic wasn’t independently linked to a higher suicide death rate either.”
He indicated that the study’s researchers however did find that a “high number of appointments with mental-health specialists [or] in other words, severe mental health challenges” can be “independently tied to a greater chance of suicide in young adults.”
Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, one of the lead researchers for the study, said that it is “most unethical” for so-called “gender clinics” to bring up the prospect of suicide when talking to parents when they are considering “transgender” procedures.
“It’s not based on facts,” she said, referring to the reportedly common question clinicians ask of parents: “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?”
Again from Ryan:
Dr. Kaltiala’s research findings fly in the face of a vast and powerful coalition of supporters of gender-transition treatment for young people, who all claim it is life saving – including WPATH, major U.S. medical societies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the ACLU, and LGBTQ groups like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign.
As Ryan noted, the doctor “was once herself a supporter of gender-transition treatment for adolescents” and even “launched one of Finland’s first pediatric gender clinics” back in 2011.
Finland is one of several European nations that have taken steps to restrict so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors.
CatholicVote reported last year that, “[s]urprisingly, one of the leading advocates of more restrictions [in the country] has been” Kaltiala. The report noted that “American supporters of ‘gender-affirming care’ have often cited” her former work “as an authority.”
>> 7 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES THAT ARE RESTRICTING SO-CALLED ‘GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE’ FOR MINORS <<
Again from CatholicVote’s March 2023 report:
Kaltiala has pointed out that since the explosion of gender dysphoria cases are occurring primarily in adolescent females, and “there is no scientific knowledge about the constancy of this experience,” their gender self-identification should not be reflected in state documents.
Since her change of heart on the ethics of so-called “pediatric gender clinics,” Kaltiala has been critical of the “transition or suicide” narrative.
In February 2023, almost exactly one year before the results of her study were published, the psychiatrist took the narrative head-on, calling it “purposeful disinformation” and saying that “spreading it is irresponsible.”
Later in 2023, Kaltiala penned an article in The Free Press titled “Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.”
In it, she wrote:
I am also disturbed by how gender clinicians routinely warn American parents that there is an enormously elevated risk of suicide if they stand in the way of their child’s transition. Any young person’s death is a tragedy, but careful research shows that suicide is very rare. It is dishonest and extremely unethical to pressure parents into approving gender medicalization by exaggerating the risk of suicide.
>> DR. PHIL BLASTS SO-CALLED ‘GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE’ FOR MINORS <<
Acclaimed talk show host Phil McGraw (popularly known as Dr. Phil) confronted the leftist narrative that so-called “gender-affirming care” reduces child suicide rates during a recent appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
McGraw stated that a major reason cited by supporters of subjecting minors to “transgender” procedures is that “it stops this drive for suicide – that there’s that suicide epidemic.”
“It doesn’t fix that,” the retired clinical psychologist emphasized. “It doesn’t fix all the comorbid issues that come along with feeling like they’re in the wrong body.”
“But yet they’re pushing this,” McGraw went on.
He said that he will air some already taped shows “that are revealing what the real results of this are.”
“I think that people are going to be shocked that these medical organizations have signed off on this,” he added. “I think they’ve just given in to the pressure.”
