Finnish Study: Mental Health Issues Remain After Transgender Medical Procedures

Abigail Martinez (R), the mother of a transgender teen who committed suicide, sheds tears as Erin Friday comforts her and transgender activists block TV cameras from capturing her story in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A recent Finnish study found that mental health issues for people who medically transition continue despite “treatment.”

An analysis of data showed the need for psychiatric care was greater both before and after medical transitioning compared to a control group.

“They present with many more common psychiatric needs than do their matched population controls, even when medical GR [gender reassignment] interventions are carried out,” according to the study.

The results of the peer-reviewed study using Finland cases showed that more individuals are seeking help for gender dysphoria and that it is happening at ever younger ages, with a marked increase in female patients.

The assessment appears to contradict the “gender-affirming care” model pushed in the United States. 

Many mental health and pediatric organizations in the United States and abroad advocate for so-called affirming care, saying that medically transitioning children and adults will alleviate suicidal tendencies.

Professionals often cut off objections to transitioning children by telling parents that a transgender son or daughter is better than a dead child.

Dr. Alan Hopewell, a neuropsychologist who treated gender dysphoric people early in his career, told The Epoch Times that the robust study shows transgender individuals usually have underlying mental health issues that don’t improve with medical transitioning.

“This confirms that you don’t go around thinking that you’re going to change your sex unless something’s wrong mentally,” he said. “It doesn’t fix the underlying mental problems,” he said.

That sentiment was echoed by London psychiatrist Dr. Az Hakeem, who told The Epoch Times a person feeling confused about his or her sexual identity may assume that it has to do with gender, especially in light of the current climate of gender affirmation.

“It’s a false solution to a different problem,” said Dr. Hakeem, an author on transgenderism and fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and honorary associate clinical professor at University College London Medical School.

Dr. Hopewell said transgender patients he saw while working at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston during the ‘70s would often go to Mexico to receive procedures denied to them in the States. 

Patients he saw in the 1970s while working at the branch appeared to be following a script in requesting sex-change surgery so they could get the diagnosis they wanted. And they were suffering from mental illness, he said.

Dr. Hopewell said gender dysphoric patients believe that changing their bodies will solve their problems. They may try hormones but still have issues, so they take more radical steps, such as cutting off breasts or adding artificial genitals. 

An Italian patient who identifies as transgender sits on a hospital bed after undergoing sex-change operations at a clinic in Belgrade, Serbia, on Oct. 11, 2016. Andre J. Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images

“And what happens is they get to the end of the road, where there’s nothing else that can be done,” Dr. Hopewell said. “They come to the realization that ‘I’m just as mentally ill as I’ve ever been, and I’ll never be a real woman or a real man.'” 

Dr. Hopewell pointed to a 30-year Swedish study indicating suicide rates increase after sex reassignment surgery.

The study tracked 324 people who had transition surgery in Sweden from 1972-2003. It calculated mortality, morbidity, and criminal rate after surgery through 2003.

The study, published in 2011, showed that those who transition through surgery or hormones had a higher mortality rate, particularly from suicide. It also found that transitioners had an increased risk for suicide attempts and psychiatric inpatient care.

Advocates of transitioning point out that the study didn’t state that sex reassignment surgery caused the increases in morbidity and mortality. The results may have been worse had participants not undergone sex reassignment, they argue.

Dr. Hopewell said studies like the Finnish one aren’t likely to be conducted in the United States because transgender activism has silenced scientific inquiry, he said.

Alan Hopewell, a Fort Worth neuropsychologist. Courtesy of Alan Hopewell’s office

Anyone attempting a similar study in the United States would likely be attacked or suffer a career loss, Dr. Hopewell said.

He compared it to the “Sauber Reinigung” tactic used by Nazi Germany to eliminate “undesirable” educators and professors from education systems.

The Finnish study’s authors recommended “cautious assessment” of the timeliness of medical gender reassignment procedures and to consider other treatment needs that may be more urgent.

The study was based on 3,665 gender dysphoric individuals who contacted the nationally centralized gender identity services in Finland from 1996–2019. They were compared to an age and sex-matched population control group of 29,292.

Psychiatric needs were assessed by specialist-level psychiatric treatment contacts in the Finnish Care Register for Hospital Care from 1994–2019.

Also, the study indicated that people who sought out gender treatments in the 1990s and 2000s had fewer psychiatric issues than those currently seeking to transition.

The study also concluded that the number of people contacting specialized gender services has increased vastly since the 1990s, with the age becoming steadily younger. Along with this, their needs for psychiatric treatment have increased.