The Swedish study

The 2011 study, “Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden” has been used and misrepresented by anti-trans activists to “prove” that trans people are more suicidal due to transition, are likely rapists and that trans women exhibit male socialization after Paul McHugh, writing for the Wall Street Journal, published an op-ed in 2014 with these assertions. It was quickly debunked here.

Dr. McHugh (former Johns Hopkins chief psychiatrist and anti-LGBT activist) grossly miscontrued the findings and selectively read the literature to support his own agenda.¹ The Heritage Foundation has uncritically repeated these assertions in their 2018 commentary page “Sex Reassignment Doesn’t Work. Here Is the Evidence.”²

Cristian Williams writing for The Trans Advocate interviewed the author of the paper (Cecilia Dhejne) to dispell these misrepresentations³:

• No, the study does not show that medical transition results in suicide or suicidal ideation. The study explicitly states that such is not the case and those using this study to make that claim are using fallacious logic.
• No, the study does not prove that trans women are rapists or likely to be rapists. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a euphemism for rape.
• No, the study does not prove that trans women exhibit male socialization. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a claim that trans women were convicted of the same types of crime as cis men.
• “It’s very frustrating! I’ve even seen professors use my work to support ridiculous claims” — Dhejne
• “Of course trans medical and psychological care is efficacious. A 2010 meta-analysis confirmed by studies thereafter show that medical gender confirming interventions reduces gender dysphoria.” — Dhejne

References

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