Appleby study showed no suicide increase after blockers stopped
Andrew Neil said:
“his study showed that when the puberty blockers could no longer be used by the Tavistock clinic, and I think the Portman was another clinic, There was no increase in the suicide rate.”
A named academic from a named university, described as thorough, with a specific testable outcome, is exactly the kind of evidence that sounds decisive. If stopping blockers did not raise suicide rates, the claim that blockers prevent suicide appears falsified.
One study, examining one clinic's referral population over a short window, cannot carry the weight being placed on it. The young people turned away from Tavistock did not disappear: many found care privately, abroad, or through other services, which means any rise in adverse outcomes would not show up in Tavistock's own numbers. Absence of a detectable signal in that population is not the same as evidence that denial of care is safe, and the broader body of research on gender dysphoria and mental health does not support that conclusion. Families who take this study as the final word are making a decision about their child's life on the basis of a gap in one dataset, while the weight of evidence points the other way.
What I said at the time:
“people like me, medics like me, we go to the medical research, and we look at the medical research. And the medical research for transgender children who are denied, transgender affirming care is clear. There is a very high rate of suicide.”
Young trans people and their families are harmed if a methodologically limited study is used to justify withholding care that the wider evidence base supports.