Misgendering, deadnaming, and broadly “it’s just bullying get over it” type speech leads to suicides particularly by younger people.
How do you reconcile this assertion with the fact that bullying was inarguably more widespread before 2008 than it has been since then, and yet:
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that rates of preteen suicide (ages 8-12) have been increasing by approximately 8% annually since 2008.
Also, trans men are generally much more likely to convincingly 'pass' than trans women (and trans people who 'pass' are bullied less, by simple virtue of the fact that fewer people are able to even identify them as trans), and yet:
Female preteens had a disproportionate increase in suicide rate compared to male preteens.
Something isn't adding up here, no?
Unfortunately I can't find it again, because it was such an interesting and surprising bit of data, but I read a study some years ago that split trans people up into three categories, and compared the rate of suicide among them:
- in the closet
- out, and reported being supported overall by their community/peers after coming out
- out, and reported being unsupported overall by their community/peers after coming out
If you had to guess which of the three categories had the lowest suicide rate, I bet it'd be #2, right? So did I, but actually, the group with the least suicidality was #1! The implication that never coming out at all makes a trans person less likely to take their life than coming out to people who accept and support them was stunning, but there it was, in black and white. So what does that mean, exactly?
I don't know, but this is definitely a more complex issue than it appears on the surface, to most people.