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Youth Suicide Higher in States Where Transgender Drugs Are Easily Accessible to Children

By Politics

A casual internet search of suicide and trans drugs will easily yield results from left-leaning media outlets that suggest gender therapy drugs help to prevent suicide amongst transgender youths, and in some cases, lowers the risk of suicide in youths who are already confused about their gender. The research conducted by the Heritage Foundation, however, points to the contrary.

The study, written by Dr. Jay Greene, comes in response to an increasing number of lawmakers attempting to make puberty blockers for minors without parental consent more easily accessible nationwide.

“The claim that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones prevent suicides is being used by the Biden administration and state policymakers to ease access to those drugs. It turns out that the science behind this claim is extremely weak and when the evidence is examined properly, it shows that making cross-sex treatments more widely available increases youth suicide rates rather than reducing them.”

Removing legal barriers and age restrictions in order to make it easier for minors to undergo gender reassignment without parental consent does not in any way reduce suicide rates—in fact, it can actually lead to higher rates of suicide among young people in states that have adopted these dubious practices. States across the country should be passing parental bills of rights that affirm the fact that parents have primary responsibility for their children’s education and health, and that schools should be receiving permission from parents of minors before administering any kind of health services in regard to gender re-assignment, including suggesting that a child might be transgender in the first place.  
 
It is generally believed that gender confusion will usually sort itself out without any intervention from counseling or drug therapy. 
 
The  Biden Administration believes that the danger of adolescents committing suicide if they do not receive these medical interventions is thought to be so urgent that they issued a statement “confirming the positive impact of gender-affirming care on youth mental health,” while referencing “the evidence behind the positive effects of gender-affirming care.”
 
Prior to 2007, oral therapies were virtually non-existent in the United States, and extremely rare before 2010. Cross-sex hormones were available as a medical intervention for adolescents before 2010, but their use was extremely limited. After 2010, however, the use of both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for adolescents who were suddenly identifying as transgender increased exponentially and by 2015, was being widely used. 
 
 
 

As the popularity of puberty-blocking hormone treatments for minors started to expand in 2010 and onward, so did the youth suicide rates in the states that had loopholes that allowed minors to access trans-gender medical treatments without consent from their parents.

“By 2020, there are about 3.5 more suicides per 100,000 people ages 12 to 23 in states with easier access than in states without an access provision,” according to Dr. Greene.  

Many states across the country have been taking very different approaches as to how they treat gender dysphoria youths in recent months. A new law out of California, AB-1184,  “prevents insurance companies from notifying parents if children on their policies receive ‘sensitive services,’ which were defined to include gender-affirming care,” while in Texas, the states Attorney General declares sex-change operations and puberty blockers for minors to be “child abuse.

 

 

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