Scenes like Monday’s angry, tear-filled protest at the Iowa State Capitol over a bill that would remove gender identity from the Civil Rights Act are hard on the LGBTQ+ community, to say the least. In particular, they are hard on youth — many of whom are hearing even the supportive adults in their lives talk about a dire, hopeless future that has no place for them if legislation like this passes. With that in mind, from author Lisa Selin Davis:
Here are some things you can say to kids who have been worked into a frenzy due to the current political climate:
You can handle this.
This moment in history, and in your life, is an opportunity to practice navigating adversity and finding peace in times of upheaval and uncertainty. Work on being comfortable being uncomfortable.
Just because people disagree with you doesn’t mean they hate you. Some people out there may disapprove of transgender identities, or medical transition, but it doesn’t mean they want to harm you or wish you ill. Many, in fact, may be praying for you. Try to extend them some grace and summon curiosity about why they see this issue so differently from the way you do.
You don’t need other people’s approval to feel safe.
You can’t control other people’s actions, thoughts, or behaviors. What you can work on controlling is how you react to them. They may think trans people don’t exist, but you’re here, walking this earth, living your life. The best rebuke to those who don’t understand or disagree is to succeed, to have a happy and fulfilling existence. Don’t focus on feeling safe. Focus on feeling fortified.
You may not be able to get what you want—for a while, or maybe ever. You might have your sights set on medical interventions, or even social transition, but nobody knows how all these conflicting executive orders and state laws are going to shake out. This is a challenge, to be sure.
But it’s a great opportunity to interrogate your expectations and hopes: what do you want from transition? What’s missing from your life now? What else can you do to feed your soul and strengthen yourself during this topsy-turvy time? How can you live in the current moment, and not in the future?
Here’s what not to say: ANYTHING ABOUT SUICIDE
Do not tell them that their lives are at risk. Do not tell them that they’re vulnerable to suicide. Don’t tell them that they have higher suicide risk than non-trans people. (It’s not true [see editor’s note at bottom of article]. They may be at higher risk of suicidality than non-mentally ill people.)
Follow the guidelines for how to discuss, and report about, suicide. These include:
Causes: Avoid reporting that a suicide death was caused by a single event, such as a job loss or divorce, since research shows no one takes their life for a single reason, but rather a combination of factors. Reporting a “cause” leaves the public with an overly simplistic and misleading understanding of suicide, and promotes the myth that suicide is the direct result of circumstances and is not preventable.
Magnitude: Research shows suicide is a complex health issue. Therefore, especially when the individual has been open about experiencing a mental health condition, it is helpful to frame the death in terms of a tragic health outcome. Do not refer to suicide as an “epidemic,” or “skyrocketing” as this has shown to cause contagion. When referencing suicide as a “leading cause of death,” include the most recent rates to ground people in facts.
Has the media been following these guidelines? Let’s check in.
• NPR: “Ultimately, the provider fears that if policy inhibits mental health care, suicide rates among transgender patients could rise.”….. “Research shows young people who identify as transgender and nonbinary are at higher risk for negative mental health outcomes, including suicide.”
• USAToday: “State laws targeting transgender people made trans and nonbinary people aged 13 to 24 more likely to attempt suicide in the past year, according to a recent survey conducted by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization.”
• NBC: “A recent peer reviewed study showed suicides attempts by transgender and gender non-conforming teenagers rose by 7-72% in states without care.”
• Vox, “Gender-affirming care has been shown to reduce the risk of suicide, and advocates are worried about what will happen if more kids around the country lose access to the care they need.”
Please stop telling vulnerable children that their lives are at risk, that they are weak and hated. Please. Stop.
Editor’s Note: This column is part of MainStream’s broader effort to take a deeper look at the experiences and needs of challenged identities than you’ll find in most LGBTQ+ affirming, intersectional publications.
The risk of self-harm and thoughts of self-harm are an urgent mental health concern for not only transgender people, but also LGBTQ+ people in general, teen girls, and People of Color (Pew) — all of whom think about suicide far more often than the general population. That’s called suicidal ideation. Middle-aged men are most at risk for completed suicides, accounting for 40 percent of them — twice their percentage of the general population. In today’s political and activist environment, we are mostly hearing only about the suicide risk faced by transgender youth, for whom gender-affirming care is often proclaimed to be “life-affirming” and “life-saving.” As part of the activism, we’re often seeing the topic of suicide mentioned in casual, cavalier and simplistic ways (i.e., protest signs, Facebook posts, legislative testimony, fundraising pitches) that attempt to portray a direct connection between being LGBTQ+ and thinking about, or completing, self-harm.
The topic is far more nuanced and complex, asserts Davis in this column and others. This is illuminated in the recent Supreme Court hearing of Tennessee’s ban on youth gender transition care, in an exchange between Chase Strangio of the ACLU and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The conversation focused on distinctions between “suicidality” (thinking about suicide) and completed suicides, and hints at a growing body of research questioning whether gender transition care relieves either suicidal ideation or death by suicide. Davis, the author of this column, touched on this in the February 2024 edition of Broadview, writing about a new paper from Finland that showed the heightened risk of self-harm among transgender youth disappeared when their overall mental health challenges were taken into account. “Kids with mental health issues are at risk for suicidal ideation—whether or not they have gender issues, too,” Davis wrote. She also mentioned “diagnostic overshadowing,” the risk that other mental health needs of youth who identify as transgender may be overlooked or receive less focus because of the over-arching focus on gender dysphoria.
Overall, Davis writes, “the transition-or-death binary lives on, scaring parents into doing things that go against their own instincts, convincing kids that there’s a single pathway leading out of distress.” Her writing mission: to explore “gender culture wars, and the history, science, psychology and politics of gender nonconformity—misunderstood by the Right and Left. Where do our ideas of normal for boys and girls come from? Speaking the unspeakable. Pro-complexity.”
Thank you for taking a moment to challenge your assumptions about this urgent and all-important, “relevant to all” topic of reducing self-harm and improving mental health, especially among challenged identities including the LGBTQ+; people who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color; women; substance users; the disabled; and people of alternative faiths. With questions and comments, including letters to the editor, email reachus@main-stream.org.
Cover photo by Matt Hrkac and portrays a Transgender Day of Visibility celebration in Melbourne in 2023.
