Based Florida strikes again at our common foe, Erin Reed. (
nationalreview.com,
archive.ph) Ron DeSantis for President of Earth.
(Sorry,
yet again, for double-posting. I was hoping that in the time it took me to write this that someone would post but … maybe I’m the last Tony fan
alive able to connect to the farms.)
Tony's thread on the hearing (today's actual hearing, not the previous hearing that he jumped all over earlier) is here: (
twitter.com,
archive.ph) It is as exceptional as you would expect.
I am thoroughly bored by now with Tony's politics-by-who-can-shout-the-loudest so I just wanted to focus on one of his tweets that made me go digging in the wardrobe for my
.
Tony by now has a sizeable following on Twitter (87k) and TikTok (233k). Given his obsession with giving vulnerable children life-changing drugs, we might guess that a good portion of them are those same vulnerable young people or parents of young people. So it leaves me very
indeed when Tony starts shovelling coal into the suicide fire.
Suicide is typically complex and not reducible to a single cause, and we know that painting it as simple and resulting from a particular cause can increase the risk of suicide in vulnerable people. So when Tony goes online and says to his tens of thousands of followers that a policy decision by the Florida Board of Medicine “will lead to” suicides we can say with some certainty that Tony has helped to increase the risk of suicide among his followers and others who see his tweets and videos.
In Britain we have a national suicide prevention charity, the Samaritans, who are very well-regarded and publish advice for the media on how to report suicide in order to reduce the risks that coverage might pose. Here are some relevant excerpts from the Samaritans reporting guidelines, both
the main set and also those
specific to youth suicide. I've included quite a few but none of it is rocket science and they overlap to emphasise the point.
And lastly:
So, in summary, suicide is complex, the result of many factors, and shouldn't be sensationalised, shown as the natural result of something, or a solution to someone's problems. Young people are at particular risk from sensational reporting of suicide.
With that in mind, let's look at what Tony, trans activist extraordinaire, said about suicide in just the past 5 months on Twitter:
Tony has repeatedly and consistently told his audience that not giving “gender affirming care” to vulnerable young people suffering discomfort with their sexed body will lead to them committing suicide. I cannot overemphasise how reckless this is.
Let alone that it's not supported by the facts. Here's what NICE had to say about “gender affirming care” and suicide risk in
its two systematic reviews:
Tony will say "but new studies show … !", such as the Tordoff et al one from earlier this year. I keep howling "sYsTeMaTiC rEvIeWs!" from the rooftops like a coked-up werewolf on a stag weekend for a reason: the typical study in this field is garbage, and the "73% less risk of suicide!!!111" paper is no exception. (
jessesingal.substack.com,
archive.ph)
The certainty of evidence that “gender affirming care” has any benefits is exceedingly low, particularly in young people. Faced with this, and the known risks of these interventions, national health services in Sweden, Finland and England have decided to take a more cautious approach. Florida has now joined them. But Tony will say to anyone who will listen that this is going to mean more suicides among vulnerable young people. Not only is that just
wrong but also it
increases the risk of those suicides taking place.
