Transgender people face alarmingly high risk of suicide
Suicide attempts are alarmingly common among transgender individuals such as Lampe; 41% try to kill themselves at some point in their lives, compared with 4.6% of the general public. The numbers come from a study by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute, which analyzed results from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Researchers are preparing to launch another version of the online survey on Wednesday.
More than a dozen other surveys of transgender people worldwide since 2001 have found similarly high rates, and the problem has grown more visible since Caitlyn Jenner's coming out raised awareness about transgender health issues overall.
"The way we treat trans people, especially trans women, is terrible," says Lampe, now a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Louisville who identifies as a genderqueer and transgender. "It's not...
