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by harvey9 1223 days ago
Here's a paper which suggests that the medical part might not be solved

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

"Conclusions

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

3 comments

That paper doesn't state what you think it does.

If you read the Discussion, you'd see that this study actually contrasts other similar studies, which saw no such outcome. It even explicitly states that the overall mortality rate was only significantly increased for the group operated before 1989, and mentions that

> However, the latter might also be explained by improved health care for transsexual persons during 1990s, along with altered societal attitudes towards persons with different gender expressions.

This study is often used in an attempt to discredit transgender healthcare. In fact, it is used so often that there is even an interview[0] with the author about its misrepresentation. The interview links half a dozen other studies done since then which confirm that transgender healthcare does indeed work, and is in fact quite effective.

[0]: https://www.transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transit...

No. Here's a paper which is frequently misquoted by people failing to read its open-access text in its entirety, and relying on third-parties often creative interpretations of it. It has been discussed by its author - Cecilia Dhejne - multiple times over the last decade, notably during her Reddit AMA https://thewinnower.com/papers/7252-science-ama-series-i-m-c...

> Thank you for your question and I am happy I was invited to AMA.

> I am aware of some of the misinterpretation of the study in Plos One. Some are as you say difficult to keep track since they are not published in scientific journals. I am grateful to friends all over the world who notify me of publications outside the scientific world. I do answer some of them but I can’t answer all.

> I have no good recommendation what to do. I have said many times that the study is not design to evaluate the outcome of medical transition. It DOES NOT say that medical transition causes people to commit suicide. However it does say that people who have transition are more vulnerable and that we need to improve care. I am happy about that it has also been seen that way and in those cases help to secure more resources to transgender health care.

> On a personal level I can get both angry and sad of the misinterpretations and also sometimes astonished that some researcher don’t seem to understand some basics about research methology.

How do those rates compare to people who were not allowed the reassignment?

"Trans people have a higher rate of suicide than the general populace even after reassignment" isn't disproving either the 'innate' or the 'societally-driven' risk model here.