Hi Sharon & Everybody,
I just stumbled upon an article and felt it might be really relevant to you
in trying to estimate suicide rates among transsexuals. Post-ops seem
relatively easy, to me, to get accurate information because they could be
known as transsexuals. But pre-op estimates seem really difficult because
there may be systematic differences between pre-op transsexuals who are
seeking transition currently and those trying to conceal their
transsexuality from anybody else (so they might be more likely to consider
suicide an option since SRS is not considered an option). Maybe this
article can help you estimate a rate (at least for primary MtF ts attracted
to males) by starting with the rate for homosexual males and extrapolating
using the authors' gender-nonconfomrity measure? But I haven't read the
article so I don't know if this is possible and there could be other
complications.
CITATION: G Remafedi, JA Farrow and RW Deisher. (1991). Risk factors for
attempted suicide in gay and bisexual youth. Pediatrics 87: 869-875
ABSTRACT: Studies of human sexuality have noted high rates of suicidality
among homosexual youth, but the problem has not been systematically
examined. This work was undertaken to identify risk factors for suicide
attempts among bisexual and homosexual male youth. Subjects were 137 gay
and bisexual males, 14 through 21 years of age, from the upper Midwest and
Pacific Northwest. Forty-one subjects (41/137) reported a suicide attempt;
and almost half of them described multiple attempts. Twenty- one percent of
all attempts resulted in medical or psychiatric admissions. Compared with
non-attempters, attempters had more feminine gender roles and adopted a
bisexual or homosexual identity at younger ages. Attempters were more
likely than peers to report sexual abuse, drug abuse, and arrests for
misconduct. The findings parallel previous studies' results and also
introduce novel suicide risk factors related to gender nonconformity and
sexual milestones.
Best of luck with your research!
Katie
[log in to unmask]
http://www.genderweb.org/~katherine/
-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Kimble <[log in to unmask]>
To: Stephen Whittle <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 25 January 2000 22:03
Subject: Suicide rates - help!
>Working with a TS on another list, we are just beginning to do some
research
>on suicide amongst TS's - both pre and post-op, but also including
>pre-diagnosis. Do you have any figures for that sort of information, or
>could you point me in the direction of getting them? And, do you have any
>contacts within the Samaritans, who could let me have comparable figures
for
>the general population of the UK? Please?
>
>~~Sharon~~
--
@}->-`-,.-*~'`^`'~*-.,_,.-*~'`^`'~*-.,_,.-*~'`^`'~*-.,_,.-*~'`^`'~*-. ,-<-{@
what we call human nature in actuality is human habit ~ jewel kilcher
katherine heather ... ~ http://www.genderweb.org/~katherine/
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