Surveys show that adolescents who identify as transgender are vulnerable to suicidal thoughts and self-harming behaviors (dickey & Budge, 2020; Hatchel et al., 2021; Mann et al., 2019). Little is known about death by suicide. This Letter presents data from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), the publicly funded clinic for children and adolescents aged under 18 from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. From 2010 to 2020, four patients were known or suspected to have died by suicide, out of about 15,000 patients (including those on the waiting list). To calculate the annual suicide rate, the total number of years spent by patients under the clinic’s care is estimated at about 30,000. This yields an annual suicide rate of 13 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval: 4–34). Compared to the United Kingdom population of similar age and sexual composition, the suicide rate for patients at the GIDS was 5.5 times higher. The proportion of patients dying by suicide was far lower than in the only pediatric gender clinic which has published data, in Belgium (Van Cauwenberg et al., 2021).
