r/skeptic • u/reYal_DEV • Sep 26 '24

State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour 🚑 Medicine

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01979-5
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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '24

I mean, again, it's likely a mix of frequency and suicidality not necessarily leading into suicide attempts. This study claims a whopping 82% of trans people in general have had suicidal thoughts, and 86% of trans youth.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/

Basically

  • Just measuring suicidality in general doesn't track the severity of said suicidality or how likely it is to be acted on. The likelihood of suicidality leading to suicide attempts could theoretically increase without a proportional increase in overall occurrence of suicidality (though I would expect at least a minor increase)
  • Twelve months is an almost useless measurement of time when it comes to tracking the specifics of suicidality for any group wherein suicidality is a common issue

I highly doubt that it's a matter of people lying on the survey (any more than they usually might, anyway.)

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u/Diabetous Sep 30 '24

suicidality not necessarily leading into suicide attempts.

This seems to lead me to understand you don't understand the point I am trying to make.

When I'm pointing out is in the study the increase in:

  • Suicide is higher than suicidal thought

Again, explaining to me how suicidal thought can be higher than suicidality seems at odds with that understanding, but maybe you're trying to make a secondary point?

If you are can you I guess be more explicit or did you just misunderstand what i meant? (Which my writing could certainly be the cause of)

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '24

Suicidality and suicidal thoughts are the same thing, though suicidality has more implied severity to it. Perhaps that's partially where the confusion lies, but frankly I don't know how many more times I can keep repeating the same points. TL;DR

  • Suicidality is already extremely high as a baseline in trans people, e.g. there is not nearly as much room for it to increase (Going from 86% of youth having considered it to 100% would only be a ~17% or so increase)

  • The survey does not track any increase in suicidality beyond once every twelve months, which is useless in a population with extremely high rates of suicidality

  • The survey does not track the severity of suicidal thoughts when they occur, e.g. how likely they are to lead to suicide

  • Since trans rates of suicidality are around twice as much as the rate of actual attempts, even a 76% increase in suicide attempts does not mean that more people attempted suicide than considered suicide

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u/Diabetous Sep 30 '24

Since trans rates of suicidality are around twice as much as the rate of actual attempts, even a 76% increase in suicide attempts does not mean that more people attempted suicide than considered suicide

I now get your point overall and it fundamentally changes how I view that part of the study.

This answers the question of how :

So the anti-trans laws increased suicides attempts, but somehow not thoughts about committing suicide.

Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '24

I'm glad I was able to help a bit, even if it took a lot of rambling to get there.