Talk:Suicide among LGBT youth

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Missing information

This article lacks a lot of information, making it actually useless.

• no actual numbers are given, only general "4 times more likely to attempt suicide". This makes it impossible to actually compare rates of LGBT youth suicide rates to other groups.
• even this "4 times more likely" is poorly cited (reference 6 is a dead link)

I've seen varying numbers two to three times more likely to attempt suicide. It is also hard to know the exact numbers on actual suicide rates for the LGBTQ+ community because of the lack of reporting on the actual causes. However, we do know that the number are likely higher than their heterosexual peers due to their higher number of risk factors that they are likely to face in their livesSierra.french (talk) 00:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• The only data on the page is about suicide attempts, not actual suicides. This makes it hard to compare to other suicide pages which give mostly suicide rates, not suicide attempt rates.
• These numbers are not really correlated either - in the general population women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide, while males are 4 times more likely to actually commit suicide. So the fact that LGBT youth attempt to commit suicide 4 times more than the general population doesn't tell the reader anything about how likely they are to actually commit suicide
• there should be a breakdown into the different subgroups. for example - as far as I know bisexuals are more likely to commit suicide than gays or lesbians. This is the sort of information one would expect to find on this page, but it isn't here.

I might try to find and add some of the missing info, but I've never actually done a wiki page. 109.186.99.237 (talk) 11:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it just seems like this article is way to small and sloppily done to be its own article. If you are going to have an article on this topic, statistics would be nice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.69.74.139 (talk) 06:08, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

"A U.S. government study, titled Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide, published in 1989, found that LGBT youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people." Subsequent research has called this study into question. See, for example, "Suicide Attempts Among Sexual-Minority Youths: Population and Measurement Issues" by Ritch C. Savin-Williams. 66.75.28.139 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:35, 19 November 2010 (UTC).

C-Class review

• Content: Would be complete for Suicide among LGBT youth in the United States; fails B class for the general title due to culturally specific focus and lack of a history section. Concern about recentism and FUTON bias in source selection. Read the text, and answer the question of "who" for every abstract collective noun. "Some researchers" "some advocates".
• Text: Meets B class, except for "Suicide signs and prevention" which reads as medical instruction and the citation given fails MEDRS
• Frills: Needs an image before A class. Requires citations in a common style which allows other editors to identify the source of the text prior to B class.
• Consider renaming to "Suicide among LGBT youth in the United States." Fifelfoo (talk) 01:39, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The lack of history on this issue is due to its new coverage. These issues were largely ignored until the later decades of the 20th centurySierra.french (talk) 00:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Comparsion bullied and non-bullied - LGBs and straight

Gay-Bullied straights have the same Numbers as LGBs

• Reis und Saewyc: 83,000 youth – Selected Findings Of Eight Population-Based Studies, Safe Schools Coalition of Washington safeschoolscoalition.org, April/Mai 1999
• as table: Pierre Tremblay: The Homosexuality Factor in Adolescent Suicidality: 1995 Seattle Schools' Youth Risk Behavior Survey Results, youth-suicide.com

--Franz (Fg68at) de:Talk 04:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Those are really interesting. I wouldn't use the first one as its too old, especially as there has been so much publicity and anti-bullying campaigning as well as much wider mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ people. The same concern is for the underlying data used in the second synthesis. To make any exceptional claim we should have a quite reputable study that is clear on what they are reporting and use their language as to not change the meaning. Combining studies is usually a tricky business and unless the same study parameters are used, the resulting assumptions and conclusions are unwarranted. Insomesia (talk) 12:54, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible rename

This article appears to be focused on the US, correct? Perhaps the title needs a tweak.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  04:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's needed unless we had several articles differentiating between regions/countries. Insomesia (talk) 12:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

US-centric

This article is very US-centric. I don't propose removing sections, or renaming. The subject matter should be global, and I don't propose it warrants regional fragmentation. However, I do propose that US-centric assumptions in the text are ironed-out in a number of places. For example, referring to 'the President', 'First Lady', and the 'State of Higher Education', all in relation only to the USA, yet without mentioning the USA, as if everything should be assumed to relate to the USA only, unless otherwise specified. This is against policy and unacceptable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amarantus (talk • contribs) 05:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Bullying of and suicide amongst LGBT youth have been huge topics in the US for the past two years. What is called for is adding information from other countries/regions and adjusting the language. Another option is to simply rename the article so it's only about the US, however much of the research is applicable to youth in other countries as well. Insomesia (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree this extremely US-centric. In the UK suicide rates, 16% of gay and bisexual boys have attempted suicide and 57% have thought about taking their own life in the UK. 1 in 5 lesbians have felt suicidal. Its not difficult to find statistics out. It wouldn't be difficult to re-structure the document to make it less US centric, especially as a parent or career from outside the US may need to see that this is not just a US issue sailor iain (talk) 20:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

As an Australian, I am perhaps a bit desensitised to Americocentrism in Wikipedia; the OP has an excellent point, now that I've re-read the text. :D I'm happy to go through the entire article to add the USA-specific adjectives, and I can simultaneously also make note of places in the article where it would be useful to add some comparative/complementary information from a non-USA Government, Law, culture, history, or religious source (and also opportunities for missing USA info!)

I'll copy this article and its talk page to a discussion on my user page and work on the draft there if anyone is interested in popping in to complain about how terrible a person I am. ;)

Charlie Sanders (talk) 06:06, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Unsupported conclusions in Developmental psychology perspectives

The [source for the section] noted that "In the final adjusted model that included the social environment and individual-level risk factors (Table 3), LGB status remained a significant predictor of suicide attempts, but the OR was reduced by 42% for lesbian and gay youth and 57% for bisexual youth." (emphasis mine). and "t is important to note, however, that LGB status remained a significant predictor of suicide attempts even after adjusting for individual-level and social-level risk factors." There is no justification for the wikipedia article's unqualified wording describing this as "The problem of LGBT suicide is thus the result of hostile cultural conditions rather than pathology inherent to LGBT individuals." when the source found that only some of the difference could be accounted for by measured social factors. If a study found that a mechanism could account for some of a problem, it is dishonest to then reword it to make it account for the entire problem. If I find that some car accidents in the US are a result of brake failure, but I don't find that for a significant amount of others, I don't then say anyways, 'the problem of car accidents in America is thus the result of poor brake construction', I would qualify it with "some" or "many".

Also, I find the dichotomy with pathology troubling, because it is comparing them as if they are the only two options, rather than what the author actually suspects, that untested factors may be the culprit. Joggingeverywhere2 (talk) 08:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Unsupported claims in introduction

The first sentence claims, "Researchers have found that suicide among LGBT youth is comparatively higher than among the general population." The citation given is an NPR article about a study published in the journal Pediatrics but neither the article nor [the study] references suicide rates. Further, claims of higher suicide is contradicted in the next paragraph as it states, "The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention notes there are no national data (for the U.S.) regarding suicidal ideation or suicide rates among the LGBT population as a whole or in part, for LGBT youth or LGBT seniors, for example. In part because there is no agreed percentage of the national population that is LGBTQ, or even identifies as LGBTQ, also death certificates do not include sexuality information." Please note that is does not necessarily follow that higher suicide attempts means higher suicide rates. Consider that attempted suicide is 4x more likely among woman, yet suicide rates are 3x more likely among men. 216.121.240.125 (talk) 23:31, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to look for studies regarding suicide rates in America and in other countries but I haven't come across anything in contrast to the multitude of studies and media reports concerning suicide attempts. If anyone is aware of any studies on suicide rates, please post links to them on the talk page. I'm going to remove the lead sentence until sources are found. 216.121.240.125 (talk) 00:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The article still does not provide any citation to support the claim of higher suicide rates. It is sometimes best not to delete contentious statements in the hope that it encourages later readers to add the appropriate citations but since this claim has been orphaned of supporting evidence for so long now I think it is prudent to remove it. Statements regarding suicide attempts should remain as they are well supported. 216.121.240.125 (talk) 07:31, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The way some gay males treat other gay males

Why no mention of the callous way that some gay males treat other gay males? It can't all be homophobia that causes suicide in the lgbtq community.

Teenage Suicide

Parents and teachers need to know what to look for in teens so they will know if a child is thinking about suicide. They need to be able to recognize the symptoms and signs of distress in our children and be able to help them before the children try to commit suicide. The amount of suicide and suicide attempts is rising in the U.S. For children between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. Approximately 4600 lives are lost every year. The top three methods of suicide in our young are firearm(45%), suffocation(40%), and poisoning(8%). The problem is not only the amount of actual suicides, it is the amount of attempted suicides by our youth. It is said that about 157,000 children between the age of 10 and 24 receive medical care for self-inflicted injuries. That is not counting the children who just thought about it, or even made plans to try to commit suicide. It has been reported that children as young as 9 years old have considered or even attempted suicide. We have to do something to help our youth. They are a danger to themselves so it is up to us to try to help them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danacjackson (talk • contribs) 19:38, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I definitely think there needs to be an added focus on educating school staff/faculty on LBGTQ+ related issues and potential risk factors to identify. With these groups better educated on such issues, they can become a means of prevention and create a safe space for youth to speak about such issues.Sierra.french (talk) 00:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Hate Speach - masquerading as 'psychology' & 'Balance'

I've just deleted the paragraph in the section - It gets better - and then created a new article for it see below It has no relation to the above title and consists of the hate speach, I have no problem for it to be put in a seperate article about how LGBT youth don't have higher risks of suicide and then linked at the end. But as such it has no place in this article. The fact that the person is a psychologist matters not. In the past psychologists have pronounced on the psychiatric illness of black people refusing to be slaves, that they suffer from a mental defect that fails to recognise their natural and god ordained position in life - I will accept that this balncing paragraph shuld be retained when the article on racism has a a paragrpah explain the counterview that for example millions of people be they LGBT, socialist, disabled, jewish, gypsies etc etc never died in the death camps before and during the second world war and that the whole story is made up by Israel to promote their right to exist. Oh btw millions of people died in the camps and it wasn't just the jews. origonally the plan was to transport the jews out of germany empire - but no one would take them. Other group wer so nearly as 'lucky' For example the first groups to be sent to the camps in the early thirties were the disabled - who were seen as useless mouths and LGBT people. This is years before the Nazi turned there attention to the Jews, it just shows that the pastor Martin Niemöller either approved of the internment of the disabled and LGBT people or at best never noticed, because the socialists were not the first taken to the camps and killed. For example one of the more famous book burnings was the burning of the hirshfeld libray on sexuality and gender.

I have created a seperate draft article which retains the information Draft:Suicide_is_no_higher_for_LGBT_youth_than_any_other_group but puts it in its correct context where it can be added to and modifiedX-mass (talk) 15:38, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an explanation of why I reverted your edit (while doing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recent_changes_patrol): The paragraph you deleted did not match the edit summary - I assumed it to be a mistake. You (or someone else) using an account has undone my edit. I won't change that, I'll leave it to those who have time to consider the article more properly. Please ensure your edit summaries are precise and accurate though: there is no conceivable way that paragraph was hate speech; you don't even allege it is in your above comment - I don't understand why you wrote that in the edit summary. GoddersUK (talk) 14:43, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit I just moved your text so that it reflects what I was trying to write rather than the comment before mine which had been done by someone else. X-mass (talk) 15:38, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for not editing back my deletion - I have no problem with the text being placed in a sepearte article and linked in - but speaking as someone who first tried to end their lives when they were five and became too depressed to keep trying by the time they were nine after numerous sucide attempts. In my life I have often seen exactly the same sort of hate speach masquerading as balance and psychological thought in relation to all sorts of aspects of LGBT life. I have had people like that psychologist tell me I'm not real, my experiences are lies, all my life. In just the same way that people who have never suffered at another hands claim that such suffering can not therefor exist.X-mass (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply; sorry I failed to read the signature and responded to someone else's post. From my perspective it seems more NPOV to leave the paragraph in the article in some fashion (notability etc. permitting, of course) - Wikipedia isn't about being correct it's about verifiably reporting all the positions and the level of respect with which they are held by secondary sources and all that. (Aside: It also seems to me that while the psychologist in question has very different opinions about the experiences of LGBT youth to the other organisations in the article his views can't really be characterised as "hate" or even "anti" LGBT (his opinion simply seems to be that (?some, ?many) LGBT young people can live normal lives)). Regardless I barged in here from recent changes and I'm not going to pretend I know how best this article should be written, or that I know anything about the psychological treatment of depression and related conditions in LGBT young people. GoddersUK (talk) 16:13, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply - i don't have a problem with them saying what they are saying - they are making a mistake as they seem to think LGBT is about sexuality but are ignoring the T for transgender - which they then directly refer to as a counterexample - because they clearly assume that LGBT is all about sexuality which it isn't. It might help in this context to understand that just like in the 30's where the womens suffrage movement was belitted by the Daily Mail et al as the suffigettes (a joke on cigarettes being for women where tobacco was for men), equaly and inclusive term transgerder is used by the media to only refer to transexual people thus removing it power to challenge the idea that there are two genders only, seemingly created by god and thats the way it has always been. rather than the truth which is the definitions of gender are constantly changing that the concept of man and women is entirey contestable and the idea of sex which is so core to scientific thought that to challenge it is to challenge eveolution as an idea, despite the fact sex is itself a confabulation of multiple diffrent process that seem to be related only because we live in a society where nowing ones sex and gender is considered important

The other key aspect for the change is that this is an article about sucide, having someone say that ones experience is not real or no worse than any other child is exactly the sort of thing to push people who are already sucidal over the edge into making attempt. How do I know? Because I just had to talk someone down off a ledge because of this article and what that paragraph said. The need for 'balance' might seem reasonable but it nearly cost someone life today - which is why I moved it to a diffrent article in another place whee it cannot be accidentally read and acted upon! Sorry , I know you were acting in good faith - i was reacting to having just stopped a sucide attempt caused by that paragraph.

thanks again for replying X-mass (talk) 17:20, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I had a look into the history of this section. It was origonally added as "critical perspectives" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suicide_among_LGBT_youth&oldid=488229097 by a user that seemingly only exists for the insertion of the text, it was subsquently modified and expanded by banned user https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Insomesia and renamed from critical perspectives to its current title X-mass (talk) 01:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

the current section makes sense, as a piece, as i said i submitted the origonal text and placed in a seperate article but the draft articl has been deleted by Cloudz679 on the grounds that "This submission reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. Submissions should summarise information in secondary, reliable sources and not contain opinions or original research. Please write about the topic from a neutral point of view in an encyclopedic manner." Which makes sense given its history. X-mass (talk) 01:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

i suspect that this retitled crtical perspectives piece has acted like a 'rake in the lawn' for quite while. The main text of the first paragraph as i have said now acts as a useful addition and should be retained imoX-mass (talk) 01:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

X-mass and GoddersUK, read the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) policy carefully and thoroughly. As I have stated more than once of that policy, and as has been reiterated by others at that policy's talk page, being neutral on Wikipedia does not mean what being neutral means in common discourse.

X-mass, regarding the content you removed as hate speech, you can argue that it is WP:Undue weight. But criticism of the It Gets Better Project is allowed, and perhaps the content you removed is better suited in the It Gets Better Project article. But as for this? See WP:Content fork and WP:Spinout; we ideally should not be creating articles simply to get rid of content that we don't like. And by "we" in this case, I mean content that you don't like...since I am indifferent on whether or not the content in question should go or stay. I ask: What makes the content you are splitting WP:Notable enough for its own article? How is it better to have that content be its own article, and a WP:Stub that will likely not be expanded much (other than by problematic and/or homophobic editors), instead of be a part of an existing article that it is relevant to? I'm going to go ahead and ping Roscelese, MrX, VQuakr, and EvergreenFir on this matter (in addition to me, they are all editors who edit LGBT topics), and I will go ahead and alert WP:LGBT to the matter. Flyer22 (talk) 02:47, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I alerted WP:LGBT here, and I alerted WP:Death (another WP:WikiProject this talk page is tagged with at its top) here. Flyer22 (talk) 02:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing this content and using it to create a new article would be an example of a WP:POVFORK. I don't see much of an issue with the content that was removed (and I think it should be put back) other than that it might be slightly too large. It's certainly not hate speech, although I can understand why someone with the personal experiences described by X-mass would find the material unpleasant.- MrX 03:52, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Brief responses: It's certainly not hate speech! Don't link to drafts from mainspace, the whole reason they're drafts is that they're not suitable for viewing yet. I do think it's undue weight, as most of the talk on this subject seems to come from one dude, and some of the stuff in that para isn't directly related to suicide either. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC) Edit: Some of the non-suicide stuff (or indeed some of the suicide stuff too) could be included in Homosexuality and psychology, which has a section on potential mental health issues resulting from harassment and so on. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

What Roscelese means by the linking matter is this. At least I think that's the only point. I at first thought that Roscelese meant that linking to the draft on the talk page shouldn't happen. But, yes, you definitely should not link to a draft in the article, even if the draft will soon be an article. Flyer22 (talk) 05:52, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Flyer22: Sorry can you be more clear what I need to learn about NPOV please? Perhaps I was just unclear in my original comment here - I didn't mean that undue weight, how authoritative the source is, how widely accepted the conclusions are etc. should be ignored; indeed I did attempt to express that when I said notability etc. permitting, of course and and the level of respect with which they are held by secondary sources. I only came here because I spotted what looked like an erroneous/accidental deletion by an ip while patrolling recent changes, when it became clear there was discussion about what this section should look like my preference was/is to leave it to the regular editors to make a consensus; I just thought it would be helpful to explain to X-mass why I'd undone the edit in the first place. GoddersUK (talk) 08:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

If you understand the WP:Neutral policy, there is nothing that I need to clarify to you regarding it. On a side note: Regarding this, pings via WP:Echo only work with a new signature. I don't need to be pinged to this talk page, though, since it's on my WP:Watchlist. Flyer22 (talk) 08:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Thanks for the heads up about the pings, too. GoddersUK (talk) 08:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

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Reply to Mari

Hi,

After reading the article, I saw that a few areas of information needed a citation, or has a link that may be broken or nonexistent. Definitely remove those "dead links" and ensure that all of the information within the article can be tied back to a cited source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustAnotherAlly (talk • contribs) 20:35, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

New Paragraph added to intro

Hi everyone! I just added a new paragraph! What are your thoughts?

(Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.149.228 (talk) 09:13, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

That's just evil. Please familiarize yourself with the purpose and policies of Wikipedia. We don't put our own opinions here. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 08:00, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

(Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.150.116 (talk) 09:33, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 09:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Should this article be renamed "Suicide among LGBT people"?

I wonder about the narrow categorisation of the article. Perhaps it should encompass adults as well? Also a lot of the citations in this article are primary source, original studies. It should be cut down significantly to published secondary source reviews. Sxologist (talk) 09:21, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

You're right of course about sticking to reviews, per WP:MEDRS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Hard to say about the title, since the content does seem focused on youth right now, but if there are secondary sources that are about LGBT people in general, then they have to go somewhere, and it may be better to have this article be more broad like that, with youth-related material making up just a portion of the article. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. Given the fact that when you search for "LGBT suicide", or "transgender suicide" in Google, this article comes up.... perhaps a broader article is more useful? Pinging @Flyer22 Frozen: for her thoughts. Sxologist (talk) 21:26, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm watching. I didn't respond because I agree with Crossroads. The article focuses on youth because the sources do. Once trimming primary sources and focusing on non-primary sources happens, a clearer picture about how narrow or wide the scope of the article should be will emerge. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 22:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, no problem – I see what you mean. The problem is a lot of research focuses on adults, e.g. transgender suicide. It would probably be useful to have a section regarding that considering the amount of fake news about the completed suicide rate being 40% (which comes from self report of attempts) when studies which examined completed suicides put it at less than one percent. Would it be best to create a separate article for Suicide among LGBT people, and then if suitable, consider merging this into it? Sxologist (talk) 00:59, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

About sex reassigment (moved from the main)

*This "study" is essentially flawed because it ignores the MOUNTAINS of research that have proven otherwise.*  LINKS - <ref>{{cite web |title=Analysis finds strong consensus on effectiveness of gender transition treatment url=https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/04/analysis-finds-strong-consensus-effectiveness-gender-transition-treatment AND url=https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people *I can provide MANY more links to peer-reviewed research that contradicts the findings of the SINGLE study used to promote this MISGUIDED ideology.  PLEASE correct this entry!

You're still referring to a peer-reviewed study, whose methodology has been approved and verified by other medics. It's also not the only study on the matter, at last at what I've seen after a quick research. Several other of these studies though are behind a paywall and I can not link them in good faith without the ability to verify what they're actually saying. The post-surgery depression is still real and the point of view that you're expressing is already found in different parts of the article. If you want to add links by all mean, do it under appropriate sections and do not vandalize other parts of the entry.

Controversy: Ineffectiveness of sex reassignment surgery

So, there seems to be some controversy with this paragraph and I can understand why. Still, the sources do not seem to be coming from a "conservative think tank", as User:Firefangledfeathers expressed, since the main source link comes from a 2020 paper (https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.1778correction) that the authors made to correct the conclusions of a paper they published in 2019 (in which expressed a positive effect of SRS over subjects). Authors that change their mind over new data can not in good conscience be called biased or conservatives. I'm adding to the second-hand links the primary one to the American Journal of Psychiatry, which published both articles and which is, obviously, peer-reviewed and scientifically valid.

I'd suggest to help by wording the paragraph into something more neutral rather than attempting to erase a documented study that presents doubts on SRS effectiveness. Apologies for the repeated edits but Wikipedia is not visualizing this comment as it should and I'm trying to understand why. Alves Stargazer (talk) 01:21, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

This section is about medical information and purports to inform our readers about the advantages or disadvantages of a surgery on minors. For these purposes WP:MEDRS insists that we use high-quality, reliable, secondary sources published in medical or scientific journals. The AJP correction source is a primary source and by itself doesn't verify key claims in the preceding sentences ("specialists do not consider...", "high suicide rate would..."). Those claims are instead reliant on a non-MEDRS source, one that is open about its political bias. We shouldn't rely on a think tank's analysis of a primary source to make such a bold claim. The 2008 study is similarly primary. You recently added two more AJP sources that both appear to be letters. I do not have access to full-text AJP sources, do you? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

The letters are citations referred to the fact that "many specialist do not consider it a solution", and while not scientific sources they do show there is dissent among doctors working in the field; I have found a different article about suicide rate linked to poor previous mental conditions that seems secondary enough, but also the ARIF study was secondary in nature already, even if I still have to find a direct link to their paper. This said, however, I need to point out that most of this Wikipedia page feels written from not-neutral people and corroborated by not-neutral sources: i.e., paragraph "Family Acceptance" links a research founded by a pro-trans progressive association, "Impact of same sex marriage" has no source at all, "Developmental psychology perspectives" looks mostly original research and mentions the Diathesis–stress model without offering any research that connects LGBTs to it; and the lower part of the Wiki entry reads basically as propaganda. I understand that you dislike the paragraph but it really looks to me like the only thing giving a shred of neutrality to the page at the moment, so I'd rather attempt to make it work. Alves Stargazer (talk) 13:09, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Could you provide a quote from each letter that verifies the preceding content? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes but it may take a while. Perhaps other wikipedians can get there first. I've noticed anyway that several of these doctors have joined an association called SEGM that was founded in 2020, I'll see if they reported some of their findings there in the next days (https://segm.org/); I've skimmed through the pages a bit to verify whether it was another conservative think tank but seems pretty legit. To be fair, anyway, the fact that such an organization exists should be enough to back the idea that there is dissent within the medical community. Alves Stargazer (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Add-on: I have the ARIF report but Wikipedia forbids me to link it, probably because it's a .docx. Any idea on how to bypass this thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alves Stargazer (talk • contribs) 02:24, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I am fairly sure there's no way to link it. We generally AGF about less-accessible sources. It would helpful if you could add a quote, here or in the article, that shares the study's findings on the effects of SRS on trans youth suicide. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

The report isn't focused on suicide though and addresses mental health and quality of life in general, but since suicide desire is still included within mental health conditions it seems still relevant to me. I quoted an additional line that felt the most relevant, anyway.Alves Stargazer (talk) 20:20, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Alves Stargazer: I continue to have concerns about this section. In it's current form, the clear messages to readers are that SRS is not a good treatment for gender dysphoria and that SRS could be causing more LGBT youth suicide than it prevents. If I had no knowledge at all about this topic area, I would still want to know that the sources backing up those two major medical messages are WP:MEDRS compliant. You seem to have more access to the current sources than I do, but from what I can see, the sources are not "reliable, third-party published secondary sources, [that] must accurately reflect current knowledge." Since I have some familiarity with the topic area, I find the claims about SRS to be exceptional, as SRS is a frequently used treatment for gender dysphoria. If there are not high-quality MEDRS sources making that exceptional claim, we should not make it or imply it in this article.

Those are the problems as I see them, and here are my proposed paths to a solution:

• You could show me I am wrong, and that the current sources are MEDRS.
• We can leave the section mostly as-is and add a More medical citations needed tag (I did this, and you removed it) and work to find those better sources
• We could remove the section entirely until we can find relevant MEDRS.
• We could find ourselves at a standstill and seek outside input.

Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The point is... this is really outside my field of expertise. I'm neither endocrinologist nor authority on the matter, and this specific argument is a political minefield that I'd rather not touch at all. That said, suicide is serious as hell, the numbers are high even post-transition and the sheer fact that several unrelated researchers claim that SRS are ineffective for bettering the mental health of LGBTQ youth feels to me important enough to be at the very least included in this article, especially since some of these sources criticize the methods of the core studies that sustain SRS as a valuable therapy. The reasons I removed the "lacks MEDRS" tag is partly because said sources are secondary, but also because the rest of the article didn't really offer many MEDRS-compliant sources and mostly cited primary studies or even anecdotal evidence, occasionally founded by non-neutral parties. Since this doesn't look as a "medical" article but a journalistic one, I'm looking at the SRS bit only as a note to show that there is a controversy about its effectiveness; as it is, it's not meant to persuade the academia that the SRS is ineffective but only to tell the readers that there are discordant opinions over it within the scientific community. Now, if you want to place the MEDRS tag again I won't remove it, I honestly thought there were enough sources for a non-medical page but if you feel otherwise it's okay; still, this kind of argument (and requests for sources) might be probably better suited on the SRS wiki page. Alves Stargazer (talk) 16:52, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

It might be worth noticing that "ineffective" does not mean "harmful". An ineffective medical procedure would simply not affect the suicide number. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.37.156.224 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The Van Mol and Malone sources are Letters to the editor. Normally, we would not use such sources at all. I think the best path forward is probably to remove everything related to Bränström and Pachankis's paper from the entire article. @Firefangledfeathers, does that sound like a functional path forward to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The sources in this article are out of date. Many of them are from 2011 or earlier, and some of them are from the 1990s and even from the 1980s. I suspect that the general themes are still accurate, but the individual statistics are probably wrong.

Also, this isn't an encyclopedia article. It's a paper for a university class. Encyclopedia articles don't say "Prof. I.M. Portant of Big University's LGBTQ Reputable Research Program found in a nationwide methodologically sound research survey that students in schools with a GSA were significantly less likely to miss school than students in schools with no such clubs." Encyclopedia articles get straight to the point: "Students in schools with a GSA have lower rates of absenteeism." Copyediting for concision and to remove redundancy and puffery would make this article more readable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: the removal you mention above looks like a reasonable first step. I agree there are more expansive problems with the article. Firefangledfeathers 22:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I didn't go through that section yesterday. Basically none of it is WP:MEDRS, and some of it wasn't even relevant to suicide in youth (e.g., the study with an average age of 35). In the end, I removed the entire section.

I'd be happy to see a decent section on the subject of whether medical (including surgical) treatment of youth has any effect on suicide. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)