Research highlights the significant impact of anti-trans laws on the mental health of trans teens
September 30, 2024A new study by The Trevor Project reveals that states implementing anti-transgender laws targeting minors experienced up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among trans and gender nonconforming teenagers in the subsequent years.
The peer-reviewed research, published Thursday in the journal Nature Human Behavior, analysed survey data from youth in 19 states, comparing suicide attempt rates before and after such laws were enacted.
In recent years, many states have passed legislation affecting how trans youth participate in activities such as sports, use school bathrooms, and access gender-affirming medical treatments.
These findings have real-world implications for many families.
During a 2023 debate over Kentucky’s anti-trans bill, State Senator Karen Berg addressed the statehouse by saying, “You know my child is dead.” Her trans son had died by suicide two months earlier at age 24. “Your vote yes on this bill means one of two things: either you believe that trans children do not exist, or you believe that trans children do not deserve to exist.”
Despite such arguments, Kentucky’s bill was passed, joining similar laws in at least 26 other states.
Ronita Nath, who leads research at The Trevor Project, explains that prior research already indicated a strong correlation between anti-trans policies and poor mental health outcomes. The Trevor Project provides 24/7 crisis services for LGBTQ+ youth.
Lawmakers and proponents of these laws had questioned the strength of the evidence linking them to adverse mental health effects, Nath says. “We clearly knew we needed to very firmly establish causality, and that’s why we really prioritized this research,” she explains.
To achieve this, according to ‘NPR’, they collected data from trans and nonbinary youth aged 13-24 from across the United States. “We do social media ads,” Nath says. “Once we reach our sample size in California or New York, we shut those ads down and we amplify the ads in these harder-to-reach states, let’s say Wyoming or Idaho.”
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Nath and her team analysed responses from 61,240 young people surveyed between 2018-2022, a period during which 19 states implemented various anti-trans laws. They examined how the rate of suicide attempts in the previous year changed for young people in those states after the laws took effect.
Nath notes, “We found a very sharp and statistically significant rise in suicide attempt rates after enactment of the laws.” An initial increase in suicide attempts was seen soon after a law was enacted, followed by a more dramatic rise two or three years later. Among 13-17-year-olds, two years after passing a law, the likelihood of a past-year suicide attempt was 72% higher than before the law.
She points out that conducting a randomised control trial for this research wouldn’t be feasible since it’s impossible to randomly assign individuals to live in particular states. Instead, they analysed survey data over time in each state, comparing rates before and after the enactment of laws. The analysis process, which took months, controlled for various potential confounding factors to isolate the laws' impact on suicide attempts.
“To see these numbers after everything was taken into account and the model still held — it’s terrifying,” Nath says.
Nath emphasises that this study is the first of its kind. “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 and nonbinary young people in your home state are significantly more likely to attempt to take their own life,” she explains. “This is the reality for these young people, and it's not acceptable.”
Associate Professor Brittany Charlton from Harvard Medical School, who wasn’t involved in the study, finds the research impressive.
“This study is just so important,” Charlton says. “It’s contributing to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates these discriminatory anti-LGBTQ policies have harmful effects on health.” She praises the study for its large sample size and strong research methods.
Nath underscores that increased suicide risk is not an inherent attribute of being transgender or non-binary. “Trans and non-binary young people are not inherently prone to increased suicide risk because of their gender identity,” she states. “They are placed at higher risk because of how they’re mistreated and stigmatized by others, including by implementing discriminatory policies like the ones examined in the study.”
She adds that future research will analyse data from 2023, which saw the largest number of anti-trans state bills passed to date.
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