“Would you rather a live daughter or a dead son?” is a terribly manipulative question that is often bandied about by medical practitioners captured by gender identity ideology.

A new study has found there is no medical or scientific basis for the claim that pulls at parents’ heartstrings.

The landmark research from Finland, an international leader in the shift away from medicalised gender change, found that suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.

Dramatic claims of the risk of attempted suicide among trans-identifying youth are typically based on low-quality anonymous online self-report surveys with no follow-up checks, potential exaggeration driven by a constant “transition or suicide” narrative, and “convenience samples” unlikely to be representative.

The new Finnish study vindicates that country’s 2020 adoption of a more cautious treatment policy which first targets psychiatric, social and educational problems among gender-distressed youth before any assumption of a stable trans identity justifying “experimental” affirmation with hormones or surgery.

“It is of utmost importance to identify and appropriately treat mental disorders in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria to prevent suicide; in addition, health policies need to ensure that accurate information is provided to professionals along these lines,” the researchers say in their BMJ Mental Health paper.

The Nordic countries and the UK have all paused harmful medicalisation of gender confused youth due to the lack of data and rigorous, scientific studies.

As more studies are undertaken and published, it is believed that the evidence will reveal that the irreversible harm inflicted upon children via off-label use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones will confirm that there are better ways to treat minors who are questioning their identity.

There is a growing movement of practitioners calling for “watchful waiting” and addressing the underlying issues. The evidence shows that a very high percentage of children who are left to mature into adulthood without being medicalised will accept their natal sex. These children require psychological or psychiatric support to deal with their Autism, trauma or depression, but they don’t need the added complications harmful drugs inflict on their still maturing bodies.