“You can choose between a live son or a dead daughter.”
asserted
You → choose → son
Countless parents have heard some variation of these words — from physicians, medical associations, media outlets or online activists.
asserted
parents → hear → physicians
If children believe they’re born in the wrong body and can’t get sex-change treatments, the argument goes, they’re at high risk of committing suicide.
asserted
they → believe → suicide
No claim has swayed more parents to let their kids get puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even surgeries.
uncertain
kids → sway → blockers
The same claim has struck fear into the hearts of lawmakers considering restrictions on such treatments.
uncertain
claim → strike → treatments
But as we show in a new report, the suicide threat isn’t true.
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threat → show → report
Protecting children from transgender treatments does not increase suicide rates — and our data proves it.
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data → protect → it
There’s no question that suicide is higher among children who believe they’re transgender, a heartbreaking reality that demands intervention.
asserted
that → ’ → intervention
Kids who assert they’re “born in the wrong body” typically suffer from serious mental-health issues, including depression and anxiety, that are themselves linked to suicide risk.
asserted
that → assert → risk
The CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 72% of transgender-identified high-school students reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.”
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% → find → sadness
The commonsense explanation is that such challenges preceded and even led to their gender confusion — with the encouragement of authority figures and sympathetic social-media voices exacerbating mental-health dangers.
Yet activists and their allies say the real issue is the failure to medically “affirm” these children’s chosen gender identity.
asserted
issue → precede → identity
That failure, they say, leads to alarming numbers of suicides among trans-identifying teens.
asserted
they → say → teens
To justify this claim, they point to studies purporting to show that sex-change treatments improve mental health, and that restrictions lead to worse mental health outcomes, including suicide.
uncertain
restrictions → justify → suicide
Yet these studies uniformly fall short of scientific standards.
asserted
studies → fall → standards
They generally rely on self-reported mental health surveys — a low reliability method.
asserted
They → rely → surveys
One of the most widely cited, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, doesn’t include an untreated comparison group, making it impossible to discern what caused changes in mental health.
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what → cite → health
Meanwhile, a study published in JAMA Network Open suffers from enormous attrition from the control group, preventing the comparisons required for reliable results.
asserted
study → publish → results
Other subpar studies abound — all of them repeated ad nauseam by the media.
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all → abound → media
We are the first to analyze the real-world effects of state restrictions on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, using CDC data on actual teen suicide rates.
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We → analyze → rates
That research is only possible because, starting in 2022, 23 states — with 47% of the nation’s transgender-identifying youth — restricted all or some trans treatments for patients under age 18.
asserted
states → start → age
These states have in effect provided a natural laboratory, allowing for direct comparison of teen suicide trends with states that haven’t restricted sex-change treatments.
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that → provide → treatments
If the activists are right, suicide rates for children would have increased in states with restrictions.
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rates → increase → restrictions
But we found zero evidence that state policies led to increased suicide rates, period.
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policies → find → rates
To start, we calculated changes in the suicide rates of minors who were and were not covered by state restrictions.
We also examined national trends in teen suicide rates, to gauge a potential increase as more trans-identifying youth became subject to restrictions.
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youth → start → restrictions
At every stage, we controlled for a wide variety of factors, including suicide trends among young adults who are barely old enough to avoid state restrictions.
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who → control → restrictions
This approach separates trends that affect youth suicide rates in general from the specific effects of state restrictions.
asserted
that → separate → restrictions
Our results were the same across the board: No rise in teen suicides when transgender treatments are banned.
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treatments → ban → suicides
Activists and their allies may object that our findings neatly conform to our organization’s goal of ending transgender medicine for minors.
uncertain
findings → object → minors
That’s why our report carefully details our methodology — and even contains the data and code we used in our statistical software.
asserted
we → ’ → software
We made our results, our methods and our data completely public so that others can conduct their own analyses to validate our findings.
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others → make → findings
Transgender activists will continue to use the threat of suicide as a means of bludgeoning society into accepting invasive, irreversible medical interventions for children.
asserted
activists → continue → children
But unless they can produce evidence for a relationship between state restrictions and suicides, their tactics should be called out for what they are: A manipulative bluff.
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they → produce → are
Parents and policymakers, armed only with common sense, can’t be blamed for buckling when confronted with a dishonest nightmare scenario.
asserted
Parents → arm → scenario
Now they have the facts they need to protect children at home, at school and by law.
asserted
they → have → law
If we’re going to lower the suicide rate among deeply confused teens, we should at least begin with intellectual honesty and genuine compassion — not activism masquerading as medical expertise.
asserted
we → go → expertise
The Aporia
