Well, it’s possible to be wrong about your own feelings. The question that matters is “later, after transitioning, would I feel better or worse than I do now”, which isn’t necessarily infallibly correlated to your current feelings.
The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9)
EDIT: This study doesn’t really answer the relevant question. See this comment by hyporational.
The controls in that study were general population, not transgenders who haven’t been reassigned, so it doesn’t answer the question whether transgenders would be happier after reassignment surgery. Trangenders have high psychiatric comorbidity and suicide rates in general, the question is can they be diminished.
Thanks. Going just by that article, it looks like later studies show more promising results. This could be because psychiatrists have become better at recognizing individuals who benefit from surgery, but that’s just speculation on my part. I bet surgical techniques have improved too.
I got this from this blog post by Eric Raymond who got it from this article which sites, but doesn’t link to, statistics that suicide rates among those who have reassignment surgery are the same as among those who are denied it.
Well, it’s possible to be wrong about your own feelings. The question that matters is “later, after transitioning, would I feel better or worse than I do now”, which isn’t necessarily infallibly correlated to your current feelings.
Judging by pre and post-transition suicide rates, the answer in most cases appears to be “No”.
Source?
Perhaps he is referring to this:
EDIT: This study doesn’t really answer the relevant question. See this comment by hyporational.
The controls in that study were general population, not transgenders who haven’t been reassigned, so it doesn’t answer the question whether transgenders would be happier after reassignment surgery. Trangenders have high psychiatric comorbidity and suicide rates in general, the question is can they be diminished.
Also, reassignment surgery isn’t the same thing as socially and culturally transitioning.
Good point.
Not suicide rates, but Wikipedia has some information along similar lines here.
Thanks. Going just by that article, it looks like later studies show more promising results. This could be because psychiatrists have become better at recognizing individuals who benefit from surgery, but that’s just speculation on my part. I bet surgical techniques have improved too.
I got this from this blog post by Eric Raymond who got it from this article which sites, but doesn’t link to, statistics that suicide rates among those who have reassignment surgery are the same as among those who are denied it.