Why are transgender people more likely to commit suicide?

[TaraJo]

Our recent fragility may be the start of racial dysphoria (assuming that it doesn't already exist...).  The wait could get real short real quick.  

If we took the complaints of the complex to be genuine (not necessarily true, but genuinely felt, at least) then they fear that they are being compelled to race shame, and that their children will be indoctrinated to race shame.  A person sympathetic to these narratives will immediately see a valid comparison between race and gender with regards to dysphoria.  

Leaning in, we can say, yes, if society is denying you pride and compelling you to shame it would be in the process of manufacturing race dysphoria... and that would be bad.  If we must compare, it only reaffirms the statements that it might be invoked as a screen against.

I dunno.  I think the dysphoria transgender people feel goes deeper than the dysphoria racial minorities feel from racism.  Admittedly, this is coming from a white person, but I am a white transgender person and a lot of that privilege, a lot of that social acceptability I once had from being (as far as anyone could tell) a regular old straight, white, cis male, I had to throw that away to feel comfortable in my body.  I had to trade social acceptability for personal comfort.  It doesn't feel like that's something that would really happen under the scenario you described.

[The Grand Nudger]

I suspect your disagreement is with a point of fact, but not the fact of their perception.

You say that you don't feel like it's something that would happen, they are literally telling us that they feel as though it already is happening, or has happened. I think that we could both fairly criticize the notion as a point of fact, but we either believe that they feel what they say they feel or we don't. Is it possible to feel like you are the wrong race, and for this to express itself as dysphoria? I'd say yes. People have been writing about it for as long as we've been compelling them to it, or as long as they've been arriving at it wholly by themselves.

[John 6IX Breezy]

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I split Dysphoria from Trans because they are not inherently the same .

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Your last sentence has the issue of automatically conflating Trans with dysphoria these are distinct and would not explain trans who commit suicide without dysphoria

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This is my understanding of the words Gender Dysphoria and Transgender:

In the transition from DSM-IV to DSM-5 there was a shift of focus from the issue of identity to the issue of distress that affects transgenders. However, shifting the focus towards distress does not eliminate the issue of identity; it still accompanies the diagnosis. To put it another way, the word Gender Dysphoria is a compound noun. "Gender" is not functioning as an adjective to specify the type of dysphoria a person has. Individuals have "Gender Dysphoria" not "Dysphoria about their gender." 

Gender Dysphoria is the emotional or cognitive discontent with one's assigned gender; this means that in a non-clinical sense, the word Gender Dysphoria is synonymous with Transgender; it is the thing that transgenders have or makes them transgender. You can see this in the diagnostic criteria. They are composed of things that most transgenders relate with, such as the incongruence between your gender identity and your assigned sex, a desire to be treated as the opposite gender, or a conviction that you have the feelings and reactions of the opposite gender.

However, being clinically diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria makes the term take on more nuance. For example, you have to account for how strongly and for how long individuals have these feelings for.

Edit: I removed my analogy of feeling depressed and being diagnosed with depression.

[The Architect Of Fate]

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I split Dysphoria from Trans because they are not inherently the same .

---

Your last sentence has the issue of automatically conflating Trans with dysphoria these are distinct and would not explain trans who commit suicide without dysphoria

---

This is my understanding of the words Gender Dysphoria and Transgender:

In the transition from DSM-IV to DSM-5 there was a shift of focus from the issue of identity to the issue of distress that affects transgenders. However, shifting the focus towards distress does not eliminate the issue of identity; it still accompanies the diagnosis. To put it another way, the word Gender Dysphoria is a compound noun. "Gender" is not functioning as an adjective to specify the type of dysphoria a person has. Individuals have "Gender Dysphoria" not "Dysphoria about their gender." 

Gender Dysphoria is the emotional or cognitive discontent with one's assigned gender; this means that in a non-clinical sense, the word Gender Dysphoria is synonymous with Transgender; it is the thing that transgenders have or makes them transgender. You can see this in the diagnostic criteria. They are composed of things that most transgenders relate with, such as the incongruence between your gender identity and your assigned sex, a desire to be treated as the opposite gender, or a conviction that you have the feelings and reactions of the opposite gender.

However, being clinically diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria makes the term take on more nuance. For example, you have to account for how strongly and for how long individuals have these feelings for.

Edit: I removed my analogy of feeling depressed and being diagnosed with depression.

Wrong on all counts . If there is no distress there is no dysphoria

[John 6IX Breezy]

Distress is something clinical psychologists look for in every diagnosis, perhaps with the exception of manic episodes. If there is no personal distress they look for some interruption of work or social life. Secondly, distress does not require you to be psychologically crippled. How much subjective distress is needed for a diagnosis could be as minimal as the feeling of incongruence itself.

Where I think you are incorrect is in treating Gender Dysphoria as synonymous with distress.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Accept that it is and not having it means trans people are not necessarily Dysphoric and your attempts at minimization changes nothing . 

Trans People are not by necessity Dysphoric so something else is the cause (discrimination)

That's the long and short of it

[John 6IX Breezy]

The diagnostic criteria does not include dysphoria. This is what I meant when I said that the word "gender" in Gender Dysphoria is not an adjective modifying the type of "dysphoria" a person has.

"Gender Dysphoria" is a compound noun; it is the name of the diagnostic label. You shouldn't be losing diagnostic information by changing the name of the condition from "Gender Dysphoria" to "XYZ Disorder" yet that's what would happen given your comments. So no, to talk about dysphoria as a clinical criteria is incorrect; distress is the appropriate word.

Trans people don't get "dysphoria" they get Gender Dysphoria or "XYZD" given my illustration.

[TaraJo]

Accept that it is and not having it means trans people are not necessarily Dysphoric and your attempts at minimization changes nothing . 

Trans People are not by necessity Dysphoric so something else is the cause (discrimination)

That's the long and short of it

This is something that's actually debated quite a bit within the trans community.  

Some people identify as transgender and aren't dysphoric.  Others are dysphoric and identify as trans.

Personally, I had some dysphoria but I never recognized it as dysphoria until I actually started transitioning.  Frame of reference will do that for you.  I suspect a lot of trans people fall into that category.

Are there trans people who just plain ol' don't have dysphoria?  I suppose, but I'm forced to question why they would transition in the first place.  If transitioning put you through some of the pain and suffering I went through, why would someone choose to do that unless they felt like there was no other way?  At very least I'm going to say that there are very real and very important differences between dysphoric and non-dysphoric trans people.

[Jehanne]

I have known a few trans people - a couple quite well. To the best of my knowledge - all had tried to commit suicide at least once. (Only one succeeded).

While that isn't indicative of the whole of the population - it has always made me wonder.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/p...er-adults/

According to UCLA - trans folk are 18 times more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year compared to the general population.

Is a trans person more likely to commit suicide, or is a suicidal person more likely to change gender?

I wonder as one person I know tried committing suicide before transition.....

I am a transgender female.  Growing up in a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian Church, I was taught that LGBTQ people, while they may not be able to control their feelings and emotions, were able to choose their actions; as such, behaviors such as homosexual sex was a choice.  However, the One and Triune God, being immutable and perfect, had no choice but to punish such individuals in Eternal Hell for having chose to violate His natural and divine Law.

As a young child right up until the present, I wore women's skirts & dresses.  In my evangelical Church, I was told that God may punish me in Eternity for my "unnatural" behavior.  Around age 13 through the end of high school, I began having night terrors where I would wake-up (sometimes multiple times) running around my home screaming that was in Hell.  Please let me assure everyone on the board that such behavior on my part was no choice.  Eventually, my night terrors began to transition, over the next decade or so, into nightmares.

In short, I think that some transgender individuals commit suicide because they are made to feel as if they are unnatural, unwanted, etc.  Yesterday, I was walking around Iowa City, IA, the most liberal city in the State of Iowa.  I was wearing jeans, and it was hot; I rolled-up the sides of my tee-shirt, my long hair draping across my shoulders down to my mid-back.  Several individuals yelled at me from their cars, while a few others gawked at me, most of the thousands of other individuals ignoring me entirely.  A few passersby went out of their way to say a polite "Hello" to me, as I walked on the south side of Iowa City waiting for my wife and children to come.

I was amused by all the unsolicited attention, both favorable and otherwise, but, it was hot, and just as I like to wear a full skirt on occasion (where I am almost always completely ignored), so, too, I felt much more comfortable rolling-up my sleeves, and I like the feminine sensation of my long hair against my body.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Are there trans people who just plain ol' don't have dysphoria?  I suppose, but I'm forced to question why they would transition in the first place.  If transitioning put you through some of the pain and suffering I went through, why would someone choose to do that unless they felt like there was no other way?  At very least I'm going to say that there are very real and very important differences between dysphoric and non-dysphoric trans people.

Do you know if there are people in the community who identify as transgender, not because they feel any mismatch with their sex or want to transition, but simply because they don't or wish not to identify with any gender? It would make sense if the difference between trans people with and without Gender Dysphoria revolves around choice. Transgenders who don't have a choice in the matter have GD; and individuals that identify as transgender but don't feel any mismatch don't have GD.