The Heritage Foundation has published a lengthy report on “gender-affirming care,” i.e. hormonal and medical interventions for gender-confused persons, and its effect on suicide rates. The study found that, contrary to what gender ideologues claim, providing children and adolescents with easy access to puberty blockers and other cross-sex treatments does not reduce these youths’ chances of suicide. In fact, such interventions might actually increase the likeliness of suicidal thoughts and attempts among young adults, according to the report.

The study is important for a number of reasons. First, it offers a good summary of the many methodological problems with past studies that endorsed gender-affirming care for minors. Most, if not all, of these past studies, for example, relied upon surveys of trans-identifying patients recruited by LGBT activist organizations, and few included gender-dysphoric patients whose problems were resolved without medical intervention. That’s a major problem, considering more than 70% of all minors who struggle with gender dysphoria end up growing out of it naturally.