Suicidality and crisis
Talking about suicide in trans and gender diverse communities is really important.
Compared to the general Australian population, trans people are disproportionately impacted by suicide. This reflects the distressing challenges we, as trans people can face in our daily lives, and the impact of structural oppression such as cisgenderism, racism, misogyny, and homophobia1.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has also increased distress and isolation and created new challenges for us, particularly for our trans mob, Sistergirls and Brotherboys, trans people of colour and those living with disabilities and more2,3.
As a community its important to feel prepared to prevent suicide, so we’ve developed this page to offer support and help.
Being prepared can involve knowing who you can turn to for support, what services to access, being able to define the support and care we need or being better resourced and confident in helping others in our community to have difficult conversations about their distress and thoughts and/or feelings of suicide.
Suicidality can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to go through it alone.
If you’re having a rough time at the moment, click on I’m Feeling Suicidal Now to find links to support, help lines, and more.
This section of TransHub has been made possible with the generous support of the Mental Health Commission. You can find out more about the MHC here.
Links
1 Ingrid Bretherton, Emily Thrower, Sav Zwickl, Alex Wong, Daria Chetcuti, Mathis Grossmann, Jeffrey D. Zajac, and Ada S. Cheung.The Health and Well-Being of Transgender Australians: A National Community Survey.LGBT Health.Jan 2021.42-49.
2Sav Zwickl, Lachlan M. Angus, Alex Wong Fang Qi, Ariel Ginger, Kalen Eshin, Teddy Cook, Shalem Y. Leemaqz, Eden Dowers, Jeffrey D. Zajac & Ada S. Cheung (2021) The impact of the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Australian trans community, International Journal of Transgender Health
3 COVID-19 Submission – Equality Australia