Suicide

Transgenders are attempting suicide at an alarming rate--reported to be over 40%, according to Clara Moskowitz, senior writer for LiveScience  in her article posted November 19, 2010:

A staggering 41 percent of transgender people in the United States have attempted to commit suicide, according to a new survey.

“I knew that the magnitude would be high, but I did not think the suicide attempt numbers would be that high," said clinical psychologist Gail Knudson, a professor in the department of sexual medicine at the University of British Columbia and medical director of the Transgender Health Program at Vancouver Coastal Health.

That 41 percent suicide rate among transgender people is more than 25 times the rate of the general population, which is 1.6 percent. And among trans people ages 18-44, the suicide attempt rate was 45 percent.

These statistics are just some of the sobering findings from a survey of more than 7,000 transgender people conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, released in October 2010.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/culture/transgender-mental-health-suicide--101119.html  

Mike Penner Death

There is trouble in transgender land.

Mike Penner, November 28, 2009, dead of suicide. A 25-year career employee and staff sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, Mike was a high profile transgender who looked to be progressing very well through the transition from male to female, even writing under the byline Christine Daniels. But it looks as though he did not get the help he needed and sadly, he ended his gender change struggle by committing suicide.

Standards of Care -- Aren't they the answer?

I started to look into the rate of suicide and was shocked to discover it was so high.

If the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care (now called WPATH) are the definitive guide to the treatment of transgenders and the helping therapists are highly qualified professionals, why, then, is the rate of suicide so darn high? Why do so many good people take their life? Something must be deadly wrong.