(Trigger warning: discussion of trans youth suicide.)
For anyone making statements on Health Minister Tim Nicholls’s new directive, it might be worthwhile making reference to research on adverse mental-health effects of anti-trans legislation. Keep in mind these are in addition to the adverse effects of denying treatment to trans young people. This is collateral damage that will occur to even those young people ostensibly unaffected by the ban.
Exhibit A: State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA
Lee, W.Y., Hobbs, J.N., Hobaica, S. et al. State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA. Nat Hum Behav 8, 2096–2106 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01979-5 (Paywalled)
“(Ronita) Nath and her colleagues used a sample of 61,240 young people surveyed from 2018-2022, a period during which 19 states passed a variety of anti-trans laws. They looked to see how the rate of attempted suicides in the previous year changed for residents of those states after the laws were passed.
“’We found a very sharp and statistically significant rise in suicide attempt rates after enactment of the laws,’ she says. A small rise was seen in a state soon after laws were enacted, followed by a sharper rise two or three years later. Among 13-17 year olds, two years after a law took effect, the likelihood of a past-year suicide attempt was 72% higher than it was before passage.
“‘These findings demonstrate that — regardless of a person’s political beliefs — if you live in a state that has passed an anti-transgender law, transgender, nonbinary young people in your home state are significantly more likely to attempt to take their own life,’ she says.”
Exhibit B: Have You Heard the News? The Effects of Exposure to News About Recent Transgender Legislation on Transgender Youth and Young Adults
Dhanani, L.Y., Totton, R.R. Have You Heard the News? The Effects of Exposure to News About Recent Transgender Legislation on Transgender Youth and Young Adults. Sex Res Soc Policy 20, 1345–1359 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-023-00810-6
This study, a survey of 113 trans people conducted in 2021, found that news consumption was associated with increased rumination and physical health symptoms and that perceived support for the legislation was associated with greater rumination, depressive symptoms, physical health symptoms, and fear of disclosing one’s identity.
- 31% of participants felt anxious, depressed, and stressed after seeing news coverage of anti-trans legislation. One participant wrote, “I just hate seeing how much people hate me for existing.”
- 22% said they had experienced more discrimination and harassment by family members, strangers, or both. One participant wrote, “People feel more comfortable being disrespectful towards me.”
- 15% hesitated to seek medical treatment of any kind, not just gender-affirming care, for fear of discrimination by healthcare practitioners. This finding suggests the legislation could worsen existing health inequities.
- 5% avoided other people or concealed their identity. One particpant wrote, “I hide underneath hoodies so people are less likely to know I am trans.”
Exhibit C: The Trevor Project: Issues Impacting LGBTQ Youth
(Poll of 716 LGBTQ Youth, 2022)
- 86% of transgender and nonbinary youth said recent debates around anti-trans bills had negatively impacted their mental health.
- As a result of anti-trans policies and debates in the previous year, 45% of trans youth experienced cyberbullying.
- Nearly 1 in 3 trans youth reported not feeling safe to go to the doctor or hospital when they were sick or injured.
Graphic is from the Trevor Project 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2024
Exhibit D: The impacts of anti-transgender laws and policies: Evidence from empirical research
TREND STUDIES OF HARASSMENT AND VIOLENCE
A study of tweets before and after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law saw a 400 percent increase in anti-LGBTQ+ slurs following passage of the law, jumping from an average of 1,307 a day to 6,607 a day. Analysis of data from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Survey demonstrated an association between increases in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes and violence and increases in anti-LGBTQ+ policy. For example, after remaining relatively constant from 2011-2017, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in Texas increased beginning in 2017 when the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills spiked. Similar trends were found in New Hampshire and Indiana.
An analysis of campus hate crimes conducted by the Washington Post found a dramatic increase in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes at K-12 schools and universities that corresponded with an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation over the same time period. Specifically, according to FBI Hate Crime Statistics data, educational institutions were averaging 108 anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes per year from 2015-2019, but from 2021-2022, this average more than doubled to 232 per year. Even more telling, though increases in hate crimes were found across the country, the increases were greater in states that had passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws, with anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes on campus quadrupling in states that passed anti-LGBTQ+ education-related legislation.
Some new analyses have examined a link between the murder of transgender people and anti-transgender legislation: Two correlational studies found that as the legislation increased, so did these homicides, and the increase in murders against transgender people from 2015 to 2022 outpaced the increase in general homicide during the same time period.
The trend data, along with direct reports from those directly impacted, indicates an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ violence due to the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and the surrounding discussions. One large-scale, national study found, not surprisingly, that people living in states with anti-transgender policies have more negative attitudes towards transgender people, even when accounting for gender and race. Regardless of whether attitudes lead to anti-transgender policies, policies lead to negative attitudes, and/or another factor accounts for them both, it is clear that anti-transgender policies and related rhetoric threaten the safety of LGBTQ+ residents and their allies.
https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/08/Impact-AntiTrans-Law-Research-Brief-FINAL.pdf
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