There is no high-quality evidence that 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide.

The frequently repeated claim that 41% of transgender respondents had attempted suicide at some point in their lives comes from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which included 6,450 participants.

However, a 2021 paper noted that participants were recruited through transgender advocacy organizations and were encouraged to promote the survey among friends and family. This recruitment method produced a large but highly selected and non-representative sample, meaning that the findings may not reflect the experiences of transgender people more generally. Nearly 40% of participants had not socially or medically transitioned at the time of the survey, and many reported no intention of transitioning in the future.

A 2016 article, “The Power of 41%,” examined how this statistic came to play a prominent role in discussions about discrimination, family acceptance, and transgender health. The author argued that the number had acquired a symbolic significance extending beyond its original context.

Importantly, suicide attempts and suicide deaths are distinct outcomes. Although the frequently cited 41% figure refers to lifetime suicide attempts in a highly selected survey sample, studies of actual suicide mortality have reported much lower proportions.

A Swedish government-commissioned study found that 39 of 6,334 individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria (0.6%) died by suicide. A Finnish nationwide register study found that 20 of 2,083 adolescents and young adults referred to gender identity services (0.96%) died by suicide during long-term follow-up, while a study of approximately 15,000 young people referred to the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service identified four known or suspected suicides (0.03%).

In the Finnish study, suicide mortality was initially higher than among matched controls from the general population, but after taking previous psychiatric treatment into account, the difference was no longer statistically significant. These findings suggest that pre-existing psychiatric comorbidities, rather than gender referral status itself, are major predictors of suicide mortality.

A separate Swedish cohort study of 324 individuals who had undergone sex reassignment surgery found an elevated risk of suicide mortality compared with matched population controls (adjusted hazard ratio 19.1). In other words, the rate of suicide death during follow-up was approximately nineteen times higher among the post-surgical cohort than among matched controls. The authors emphasized that their findings could not determine what outcomes would have been in the absence of treatment.

^{D’Angelo, R., Syrulnik, E., Ayad, S., Marchiano, L., Kenny, D. T., & Clarke, P. (2021). One size does not fit all: In support of psychotherapy for gender dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50, 7-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01844-3}

^{Dhejne, C., Lichtenstein, P., Boman, M., Johansson, A. L. V., Långström, N., & Landén, M. (2011). Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: Cohort study in Sweden. PLOS ONE, 6(2), e16885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016885}

^{Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J., Harrison, J., Herman, J. L., & Keisling, M. (2011). Injustice at every turn: A report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. National Center for Transgender Equality.}

^{Ruuska, S. M., Tuisku, K., Holttinen, T., & Kaltiala, R. (2024). All-cause and suicide mortalities among adolescents and young adults who contacted specialised gender identity services in Finland in 1996-2019: A register study. BMJ Mental Health, 27(1), Article e300940. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2023-300940}

^{Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare. (2020). Utvecklingen av diagnosen könsdysfori: Förekomst, samtidiga psykiatriska diagnoser och dödlighet i suicid [The development of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria: Prevalence, co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses and suicide mortality]. Socialstyrelsen. https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/globalassets/sharepoint-dokument/artikelkatalog/ovrigt/2020-2-6600.pdf}

^{Tanis, J. (2016). The power of 41%: A glimpse into the life of a statistic. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 86(4), 373-377. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000200}