Gender-Affirming Therapy and Youth Suicide: How Strong is the Evidence?

The push for gender-affirming therapy for young people is driven by the empirical claim that if this type of healthcare is not made widely and readily available, kids who are questioning their identity are in danger of committing suicide. This emotional extortion has caused adults to see this care as the only solution to help these children. What does the data really tell us?

In this episode, Naomi and Ian are joined by Jay Greene, a Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Jay explains that previous studies making this claim fail to capture a representative sample of young people with gender dysphoria. In his new paper, Jay finds a 14 percent increase in annual suicide rates in states where minors are able to access gender-affirming care compared to states that prevent minors from undergoing this care without parental consent. Jay also suggests that the effort by guidance counselors, teachers, and school administrators to automatically affirm a child’s gender identity undermines parents and fails to address any underlying mental health conditions that would help everyone work together to determine what is in the best interest of each child.

Resources:

• Puberty Blockers, Cross-Sex Hormones, and Youth Suicide | Jay Greene | Heritage Foundation

• When the State Comes for Your Kids | Abigail Shrier | City Journal

Show Notes:

• 2:28 | Claims regarding gender-affirming therapy

• 6:37 | Problems with prior studies on gender-affirming drugs

• 8:28 | Relation to severe mental health issues

• 14:30 | Background of Dr. Greene’s study

• 16:55 | Discussing Dr. Greene’s study and his findings

• 20:40 | Comparing suicide rates across generations

• 24:10 | Title IX and new Biden Regulations