Why are transgender people more likely to commit suicide?

[Silver]

Are you sure you’re not confusing transgender and gender fluid, John?

[John 6IX Breezy]

Are you sure you’re not confusing transgender and gender fluid, John?

Yeah, that's what I want to make sure of. From my understanding transgender specifically refers to individuals that feel an incongruence; but if transgender is an even bigger umbrella term that includes things like gender fluid, then that changes things.

[Jehanne]

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.

It is, I think, a spectrum.  No one should care, especially, if the individual in question does not.  Unless it is causing distress for a particular individual (I, for one, am completely at peace with myself), then, it's not an issue; I think that the DSM-V reflects that.  Gender, unlike biological sex, is not completely binary.

[TaraJo]

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.

That does make a lot of sense.  But there's still a significant difference between dysphoric transgender people and non-dysphoric transgender people.  I think that difference is still important, especially if we're calculating suicide statistics.  If you're dysphoric, you have something internal, something inside you and your mind, that is causing you discomfort.  You can't escape it.  If you're nondysphoric, you don't have that.  I can easily see how the discomfort from dysphoria could cause someone to commit suicide.  Hell, it almost did that to me.

[Shell B]

My guess is that it's damn hard to live in a body that feels foreign in some ways. It costs a lot of money to transition, and it's still not a "perfect" process. Families often disown trans members. It's hard to find a job when you don't necessarily "look" the gender you dress/identify as, etc. It's not an easy life on any level, whether you remain your birth gender or your transition. Given these hardships, I'm not at all surprised there is a high suicide rate among trans people. The better question is how do we fix it.

[no one]

People can start by not being asshats to one another. Accept others for who they are. The way I see it, there are two classifications of humans, cool ones, and cuntmuffins.

[Rev. Rye]

My guess is that it's damn hard to live in a body that feels foreign in some ways. It costs a lot of money to transition, and it's still not a "perfect" process. Families often disown trans members. It's hard to find a job when you don't necessarily "look" the gender you dress/identify as, etc. It's not an easy life on any level, whether you remain your birth gender or your transition. Given these hardships, I'm not at all surprised there is a high suicide rate among trans people. The better question is how do we fix it.

And puberty must be like a really fucked-up case of body horror. Imagine being a girl wanting to improve her bust and instead finding that, a penis is growing, and because puberty works that way for boys, you’re frequently pitching Tents at complete random with an organ you never wanted. Of course, this doesn’t apply if you transition later in life. Am I at least getting this accurate, Tara?

[Jehanne]

My guess is that it's damn hard to live in a body that feels foreign in some ways. It costs a lot of money to transition, and it's still not a "perfect" process. Families often disown trans members. It's hard to find a job when you don't necessarily "look" the gender you dress/identify as, etc. It's not an easy life on any level, whether you remain your birth gender or your transition. Given these hardships, I'm not at all surprised there is a high suicide rate among trans people. The better question is how do we fix it.

I think that most transgender individuals do not undergo sexual reassignment surgery.  I do not feel that my body "is foreign"; I just view myself as being a "woman with a penis" (blush).  Sorry to be explicit, but, I think that's how most of us look at things.

[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

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.

The answer seems sort of simple . Too be who you really are .

[Rev. Rye]

I guess that being Trans must be a bit like being on the autism spectrum, specifically because the spectrum is so broad that it can be kinda hard to get ahold of a single narrative that says: "This is what being trans is like." At least, as long as you really want to figure it out and don't want to latch onto an easy-to-understand narrative to save time and effort, anyway.