Trans youth suicide - the truth we've always known. What it means to me. What I'm doing about it.
- carolinelitman
- 1 hour ago
- 8 min read
Last week Queer AF broke a story that revealed the suicide rate in trans under eighteens is around fourteen times higher than you might expect from census data.
As the parent of Alice a trans woman who died by suicide in 2022 at the age of twenty, this story is of immense importance to me. One thing missing from the story, because it isn't a watertight fact, is that this figure is definitely an underestimate. Why?
Alice died when she was twenty but she took a very serious overdose that could have been fatal when she was only seventeen. If she had died then her death wouldn't have been recorded as a trans death. There would have been a different name on her headstone. How many more deaths are there each year of trans youth who have not come out to their family because of hostility within the family, or externally, from TV, radio, print and social media, because of exclusion and othering at school, in sports and within clubs? I have heard several stories from trans people about their trans friend who died by suicide but who was buried with a different name and in a different gender to the one they knew them to inhabit.
Today the Good Law Project (GLP) has expanded on QueerAF's reporting. You can give both a follow on Bluesky or Instagram and subscribe to free newsletter's to get more detail about both their discoveries. But here's some basics:
Jolyon Maugham, GLP founder, first went onto social media, Twitter/ X, in June 2024 stating that suicide rates had increased in trans youth as a direct result of NHS England stopping gender affirming care for under eighteens. This cessation of care came after the notorious Keira Bell case against the Tavistock. (A case that was later overturned in the high court). That's right, Keira Bell lost, but you'd never think so from the way her story is framed by gender critical journalists.
The UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, took the highly unusual step of responding to these claims by asking Professor Louis Appleby, a known gender critical psychiatrist, to produce a report to examine Jolyon's claims. He turned around this report in under a month. This alone should make people with any curiosity sit up and take notice. The report was clearly cobbled together with one intention, to dismiss the claims as quickly as possible. And that's what it did. You can read the full report here, but the main takeaway was that trans people and their allies were making things up and weren't to be trusted. Lots of commentary ensued that criticised us for daring to speak out about trans suicide at all - first we were lying and second we were risking increasing suicide rates in trans people by drawing attention to our concerns.
*This made me very angry. It harmed my mental health.*
I made it my mission to find out if my child's data had been included in the report, because Alice met all the criteria:
she was the right age, twenty
she'd died in the time frame under investigation
she had been referred to the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock.
If her death wasn't counted the report was a sham. It took months of FOI's and subject access requests to get an answer. *Alice's data wasn't counted.*
*Yet Wes Streeting is still arguing with me about the insignificance of my finding.*
I'm in possession of a letter from Streeting, dated 12th December 2025, that sets out the reasons why Alice's death was not included in Appleby's report and why Appleby's report remains valid.
*Well it doesn't look that valid right now, Wes.*
The Good Law Project have today released evidence from FOI's to the National Child Mortality database that proves a massive spike in trans youth suicide in the period after NHS England stopped gender affirming care for trans youth, from 4 deaths in 2020-2021 to 22 in 2021-2022.
Jolyon didn't make his claims until mid 2024. How can his claims have been responsible for something that happened before he made them? As all trans people and allies have been saying for years, and as multiple studies have repeatedly shown, withdrawal of gender affirming healthcare increases suicide risk, not us asking the government to do something about it.
If we had a decent news media in this country journalists at the BBC and all the daily papers could have broken this story years ago, but we don't and they didn't. The lack of journalistic integrity in mainstream media is instrumental in the harms done to trans people over the last decade and there are no signs of it letting up. I feel so afraid for trans children growing up today, because their parents are being subjected to far more anti-trans indoctrination than I experienced back in 2018, as Alice made her first tentative steps to coming out. And the misinformation hampered my understanding of her then.
Will this story be extensively covered in the mainstream press over the coming days? I doubt it. So, we press on doing what we can to raise awareness, despite the abuse we receive.
*These recent revelations have put fire in my belly. There is something I need to follow up.*
In June 2025, after Jolyon repeated his claims on Bluesky I wrote to Julie Bentley, CEO of the Samaritans to ask for her help.
Dear Julie
As I approach the third anniversary of my trans daughter's death by suicide, I’m moved to write to you after learning of your organisation’s correspondence with Jolyon Maugham from the Good Law Project, attesting to the misuse of your own guidance by gender critical activists, with regard to reporting on trans suicide.
I’ve written a memoir on Alice’s transition and death, Her Name Is Alice, published by Mudlark an imprint of Harper Collins. I’ve also written for the Mirror and Vogue.
*Writing on the circumstances of my child’s death, to raise awareness, is a perfectly legitimate action. *
*The coroner at Alice’s inquest ruled: delays in accessing gender affirming healthcare contributed to a preventable death. *
*Nowhere in the Regulation 28 report does it name ‘trans activism’ as a contributory factor in Alice's death.*
Yet, you will be aware that anti-trans campaigners, including those of gender-critical persuasion in positions of authority in government and health, claim that trans people and their allies - in talking about the suicide risk within their community - are the ones inflicting harm and raising suicide risk within that community. These claims are cruel victim blaming and exacerbate my own struggle to maintain good mental health since Alice died. The powerlessness I feel, in my inability to defend myself, echoes my feelings of powerlessness in my inability to get Alice the help she needed and deserved.
It’s all horribly triggering. Here are some specific examples I have seen:
· Hilary Cass calls trans campaigners ‘shroud wavers’ (The Times 14/12/2024)
· Professor Appleby, author of a DHSC report into suicide at the Tavistock[i] regularly makes general criticisms of campaigners on X[ii] for speaking out on the risk of trans suicide. He engages with those of gender-critical persuasion but not his detractors.
· 12th December 2024 when announcing the permanent puberty blocker ban, Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said “What I would say to my hon. Friend, Members of this House, and campaigners—particularly online actors—is that a number of claims have been made about the data that are not borne out by the facts. In fact, I asked Professor Louis Appleby, the Government’s suicide prevention adviser, to examine the evidence for some of the claims made that there has been a large rise in suicide. His paper, published on 19 July, concluded as follows:
*The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock. The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide. The claims that have been placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence.*
We need to ensure high quality data in which everyone has confidence, as the basis of improved safety”. I would add that it is important that we make sure that these children and young people have access to good-quality mental health support, and I am working with NHS England to make sure that this is the case. This area is one in which all Members should tread carefully when engaging in debate."
Other people who raise suicide awareness aren’t criticised this way. In April 2023 the group ‘Three Dad’s Walking’ met Rishi Sunak asking for suicide prevention to be part of the national curriculum. Sunak said, "To have suffered the tragic losses…you have…but then to channel that into raising awareness…it's inspiring…you deserve enormous praise.” These men got a meeting with a Prime Minister, full of praise, whilst I must endure repeated criticism. It may be indirect but it does land.
A subject access request I made to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has established Alice’s data was NOT sent to the DHSC for Prof. Appleby to use in the aforementioned report. Alice was the right age to be included, and her death occurred in the period under review.
*I’ve informed Streeting that I’ve proof that it is in fact the DHSC report he relies on that is unreliable, and ‘does not meet basic standards for statistical evidence’, but he doesn’t reply to my emails. It doesn’t feel like he is “treading carefully when engaging in debate.”*
(I would add here that Streeting has since replied to me and offered to meet me in March 2026, though whether that meeting will ever materialise given the whole sordid Mandelson/ Labour shit show, remains to be seen).
I also wonder whether I could help you. I have a medical degree and worked as a psychiatrist in the NHS for over a decade until 2005. I am not coming into this from a place of ignorance. I know the impact of lack of care on a person’s mental health both professionally and personally. There’s evidence to support assertions that withdrawal of trans healthcare exacerbates mental health problems in trans people.[iii] This is one example from many available. But our government ignores it all. I am determined to share the real story, one not covered by our trans hostile media.
Finally, I note that your organisation is undertaking efforts to collate suicide data nationally and I’m interested to hear how you might be trying to collate data into trans suicide which is notoriously badly recorded.
Yours sincerely
[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust-independent-report
I received a prompt and helpful reply.
But my mental health was poor last year, I didn't respond. And there was one key reason. The Samaritans offered to facilitate a meeting between me and Professor Appleby. The thought made me feel sick, afraid. A meeting would cause me harm. I ran away from the whole thing. I just couldn't countenance it.
Maybe I should reply now. I'm curious to see if he has the nerve to meet me. I doubt he will because when I emailed him to ask about his report he sent one reply, before ghosting me. Instead I can only assume he forwarded my correspondence to the DHSC because they later sent me an unsolicited email that I found quite distressing. It was not that the content was aggressive or in any way impolite. It was simply the way Appleby had so casually tossed me away. His one and only reply to me, contained meaningless platitudes:
"I am so sorry about Alice, it is profoundly sad. I often hear from parents who have experienced a tragic loss. If at any point you want me to put you in touch with them, let me know - they are very supportive".
But he clearly did not care for my mental heath one jot when he didn't deign to continue correspondence with a grieving mother who was asking difficult questions.
Well, I am never going to stop asking difficult questions. And as my mental health seems to be a little more robust in 2026, watch out for more from me over the coming weeks and months.
My paperback comes out on 12th March. Buy it for yourself or gift it to the transphobe in your life.
It is changing hearts and minds. It might just save a life.