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Oxford study finds transgender surgery increases depression, suicide ideation rates

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

This study, along with scores of others conducted in recent years, explodes the media-enforced narrative that so-called ‘gender transition’ procedures are beneficial for the gender-confused.

A study published in the Oxford Journal of Sexual Medicine found that undergoing so-called “sex change” surgery, far from reducing depression rates among the gender dysphoric, substantially increased rates not only of depression, but of anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders. 

Males who underwent transgender surgery had a depression rate of 25.4 percent, compared to 11.5 percent in those who did not have surgery. Likewise, females who underwent surgery had a depression rate of 22.9 percent, compared to 14.6 percent in those who did not. 

The study notes that males undergoing “feminizing” surgeries demonstrated a particularly high risk for depression and substance use disorders. 

“From 107,583 patients, matched cohorts demonstrated that those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery,” the researchers found.  

Rather than concluding that so-called “gender affirming” surgery is a dangerous, unnecessary practice that should be discontinued because it puts patients’ lives at risk, the researchers instead suggest that that their findings show a need for “gender-sensitive mental health support following gender-affirming surgery to address post-surgical psychological risks.” 

Exploding the myth  

This study, along with scores of others conducted in recent years, explodes the media-enforced narrative that so-called “gender transition” procedures are beneficial or even “necessary” for the happiness and well-being of the gender-confused.  

significant body of evidence now shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures. 

Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” procedures fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.  

Last year, a massive, peer-reviewed study provided unequivocal evidence that those who undergo so-called “gender reassignment” surgery put themselves at a vastly increased risk of suicide – an astounding 12 times that of the general population.  

The giant study, “involving 56 United States healthcare organizations and over 90 million patients,” analyzed data collected over a 20-year period, from February 2003 to February 2023, examining “suicide attempts, death, self-harm, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within five years of the index event.”   

The researchers compared the experiences of persons aged 18-60 who visited hospital emergency rooms and who had previously undergone “transition” surgery with those who visited emergency rooms without having undergone transgender surgery: A stunning 3.47 percent of those who had surgically “transitioned” were treated for suicide attempts, versus 0.29 percent for non-“transitioned” patients.    

The authors of the study, like those of the one just published in the Oxford Journal of Sexual Medicine, sidestepped the obvious conclusion that attempts to surgically “transition” the gender-confused are both dangerous and futile.   

Instead they concluded: “Gender-affirming [sic] surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks, underlining the necessity for comprehensive post-procedure psychiatric support.” 

In 2016, The New Atlantis, A Journal of Technology and Society, produced a landmark report offering a summary and an up-to-date explanation of research on “sexual orientation and gender identity” from the biological, psychological, and social sciences, covering nearly 200 peer-reviewed studies.  

“The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence,” according to experts Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D, scholar-in-residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University, and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  

According to their report, the vast body of scientific evidence tells a different story from the one most have been told through mainstream media. “Sexual identity” or “sexual orientation” are so commonly used that they go unquestioned and are perceived to have been derived from biological or medical science, but they are not. These terms are merely expressions of desire, behavior, and identity, all of which are fluid and may change over time. Additionally, “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender” are not scientific terms. People who suffer from homosexual inclinations and/or gender confusion are not separate species of human beings. 

The only thing that science actually tells us is that we are born either male or female. 

One young man, Yarden Silveira, was so distraught after “sex change” surgery that he committed suicide in 2021.    

Before taking his own life, Yarden wrote 

I wish I never listened to the medical and psychiatric community when they told me it was possible to change my sex. What a lie. Very dangerous and unethical. Sex reassignment [sic] surgery is a hit and miss type of surgery, but they don’t tell you that. They never do. And maybe if I didn’t have autism, maybe if my brain wasn’t so defective, I would have caught on before it was too late…   

This is what I get for messing with nature… I just wanted friendship and love. I wanted life to be easier. I wanted to be a woman since I was 15. I wish I had the knowledge that I have today. I was a confused kid with no identity. I wish I could have done everything different, but it’s too late now. I’m royally screwed…  

The Transgender Ideology and its lies, along with the pro-gay media, medical and psychiatric community, have killed me. The feminization of America will continue to produce outcomes like mine. It wasn’t my fault for failing. Everyone failed me, my death shouldn’t surprise anyone.  

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Health

RFK Jr’s argument for studying efficacy of various vaccines

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From HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy’s Facebook Page

To elevate America’s health, restore public trust, and reclaim our reputation for integrity and gold-standard science, President Donald J. Trump’s HHS will challenge even the most sacred public health dogmas through open debate and disciplined scientific scrutiny.

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Addictions

The War on Commonsense Nicotine Regulation

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From the Brownstone Institute

Roger Bate  Roger Bate 

Cigarettes kill nearly half a million Americans each year. Everyone knows it, including the Food and Drug Administration. Yet while the most lethal nicotine product remains on sale in every gas station, the FDA continues to block or delay far safer alternatives.

Nicotine pouches—small, smokeless packets tucked under the lip—deliver nicotine without burning tobacco. They eliminate the tar, carbon monoxide, and carcinogens that make cigarettes so deadly. The logic of harm reduction couldn’t be clearer: if smokers can get nicotine without smoke, millions of lives could be saved.

Sweden has already proven the point. Through widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches, the country has cut daily smoking to about 5 percent, the lowest rate in Europe. Lung-cancer deaths are less than half the continental average. This “Swedish Experience” shows that when adults are given safer options, they switch voluntarily—no prohibition required.

In the United States, however, the FDA’s tobacco division has turned this logic on its head. Since Congress gave it sweeping authority in 2009, the agency has demanded that every new product undergo a Premarket Tobacco Product Application, or PMTA, proving it is “appropriate for the protection of public health.” That sounds reasonable until you see how the process works.

Manufacturers must spend millions on speculative modeling about how their products might affect every segment of society—smokers, nonsmokers, youth, and future generations—before they can even reach the market. Unsurprisingly, almost all PMTAs have been denied or shelved. Reduced-risk products sit in limbo while Marlboros and Newports remain untouched.

Only this January did the agency relent slightly, authorizing 20 ZYN nicotine-pouch products made by Swedish Match, now owned by Philip Morris. The FDA admitted the obvious: “The data show that these specific products are appropriate for the protection of public health.” The toxic-chemical levels were far lower than in cigarettes, and adult smokers were more likely to switch than teens were to start.

The decision should have been a turning point. Instead, it exposed the double standard. Other pouch makers—especially smaller firms from Sweden and the US, such as NOAT—remain locked out of the legal market even when their products meet the same technical standards.

The FDA’s inaction has created a black market dominated by unregulated imports, many from China. According to my own research, roughly 85 percent of pouches now sold in convenience stores are technically illegal.

The agency claims that this heavy-handed approach protects kids. But youth pouch use in the US remains very low—about 1.5 percent of high-school students according to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey—while nearly 30 million American adults still smoke. Denying safer products to millions of addicted adults because a tiny fraction of teens might experiment is the opposite of public-health logic.

There’s a better path. The FDA should base its decisions on science, not fear. If a product dramatically reduces exposure to harmful chemicals, meets strict packaging and marketing standards, and enforces Tobacco 21 age verification, it should be allowed on the market. Population-level effects can be monitored afterward through real-world data on switching and youth use. That’s how drug and vaccine regulation already works.

Sweden’s evidence shows the results of a pragmatic approach: a near-smoke-free society achieved through consumer choice, not coercion. The FDA’s own approval of ZYN proves that such products can meet its legal standard for protecting public health. The next step is consistency—apply the same rules to everyone.

Combustion, not nicotine, is the killer. Until the FDA acts on that simple truth, it will keep protecting the cigarette industry it was supposed to regulate.

Author

Roger Bate

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).

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