After a journalist brought to light its shocking conclusions, which undercut one of the main arguments of the transgender community, a 2021 study has been back in the headlines.
The study was conducted in California by the American Urological Association and found that transgender men (technically known as vaginoplasty) are more likely to take their own lives after the surgery.
Benjamin Ryan, a health and science journalist who has worked for several liberal media outlets including The Washington Post and The New York Times, summarized the results.
He explained:
The study found that transgender women in California who had vaginoplasty surgery experienced a higher rate of attempted suicide than those before surgery. Investigators studied data from 868 vaginoplasty patients and 357 phalloplasty patients in California between 2012-2018. The average data collection period was 2 years before and after the surgery.
During the study period, 22% of vaginoplasty patients and 21% of phalloplasty patients had at least one ER visit or hospital stay for a psychiatric evaluation. This was true whether the psychiatric encounter occurred before or after the surgery. After surgery, 34% in the vaginoplasty and 27% in the phalloplasty groups had a prior psychiatric encounter.
After vaginoplasty surgery, suicide attempts were twice as common, with 3.3% compared to 1.5% before. The suicide rate for phalloplasty was the same as that of the general public, but the rate for vaginoplasty was twice as high.
The study’s authors echoed Ryan’s statement, writing in their conclusion that, although the rates of psychiatric events were high before and after surgery, the suicide risk is higher post-op.
Although suicide attempts were more frequent in vaginoplasty than in phalloplasty, both groups had similar rates of psychiatric visits. The rate of suicides in the phalloplasty patients is similar to that of the general public, but the rate for the vaginoplasty patients is over twice as high.
Patients who have a history of feminizing or prior psychiatric transitions are at a higher risk. They should receive appropriate counseling.
These findings contradict one of the main premises of the transgender community: that those suffering from gender dysphoria will be more likely to self-harm or commit suicide if denied the chance to embrace their alleged identity. Instead, they must undergo hormone therapy and painful surgeries that fail to produce the desired results.
Study finds that the attempted-suicide rate among transgender women who received a vaginoplasty in California was twice as high during the period after the surgery compared with the period before the surgery.
The investigaotrs analyzed data on all 868 people who received a… pic.twitter.com/RO6zKC7Xt3
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) March 11, 2024
These findings are coming at a time when the debate about transgenderism, and society’s willingness and ability to support transgender surgeries, continues to divide politicians, doctors, and the nation as an entire. A study by Pew Research in 2022 found that 1,6% of U.S. adult adults identify as being transgender, or nonbinary. This is a dramatic increase since the turn of the century when this issue was considered a medical rarity.
