Suicide Facts and Myths

The Tavistock and Portman GIDS clinic states that amongst children referred to the clinic “suicide is extremely rare” (taken from the Tavistock evidence base page here).At a conference in Bristol in October 2017, Dr Polly Carmichael, Director and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Tavistock, stated that the PACE survey is “deeply flawed” and that rates of self-harm, distress and suicidal ideation are similar to CAMHS figures overall. Dr Carmichael’s full talk is available on this page and we summed it up in this thread.Dr Carmichael expressed concerns about the use of suicide statistics in the discourse around gender dysphoric young people which is so negative and suggests a lack of agency and resilience.This is our position. Every suicide is a terrible tragedy and we must be extremely careful in any message we send to young people on this subject. The Samaritans guidance states that we should avoid speculation about any one ‘trigger’ for suicide and that we need to exercise caution in repeating suicide statistics. We would like to see this advice followed more carefully in the case of young people struggling with gender identity issues.

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