Transgender people experience suicide attempts at dramatically higher rates than the general population. Across multiple countries, between 32% and 50% of transgender individuals report attempting suicide at least once in their lifetime. In the United States, the most widely cited figure is 41%, drawn from the U.S. Transgender Survey. These numbers reflect attempts, not deaths, because completed suicide among transgender people is nearly impossible to track accurately.
Lifetime Suicide Attempt Rates
The 41% lifetime attempt rate in the U.S. is roughly nine times higher than the general population’s estimated 4.6% lifetime rate. Among transgender youth under 25, attempt rates climb even higher. A study in San Francisco found a 50% attempt rate among transgender people younger than 25, compared to 32% for the broader transgender sample in that city.
These figures come from self-reported surveys, which measure whether someone has ever attempted suicide at any point in their life. They don’t tell us how many transgender people die by suicide each year, a distinction that matters when interpreting the data.
Why Completed Suicide Rates Are Unknown
There is no reliable national count of how many transgender people die by suicide annually. The core problem is that gender identity is not recorded on U.S. death certificates. When a transgender person dies, the death certificate typically lists only their sex assigned at birth. Research published in LGBT Health found that transgender decedents are frequently misgendered on death certificates, and there is little consistency in how sex is recorded across jurisdictions. The National Violent Death Reporting System, which tracks suicide deaths, has no standardized way to identify transgender decedents.
This means the statistics you’ll encounter almost always describe suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts, not completed suicides. The true mortality figure remains a significant gap in public health data.
Rates Among Transgender Youth
Young transgender people face particularly high risk. The 2024 Trevor Project survey of LGBTQ+ youth found that 46% of transgender and nonbinary young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 14% attempted it. Among cisgender LGBTQ+ youth surveyed, 7% attempted suicide in the same period.
Broken down further, transgender men reported the highest rates: 52% considered suicide and 18% attempted it. Transgender women reported rates of 47% considering and 14% attempting. Nonbinary and genderqueer youth reported 43% considering and 13% attempting.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a federal survey of high school students, found similar patterns. In its 2017 pilot data, 34% of transgender students reported a suicide attempt, compared to 7% of cisgender students. Transgender students were also nearly three times as likely to seriously consider suicide (44% vs. 16%). Children and adolescents referred to gender clinics are 32 times more likely to engage in suicide attempts or self-harm than their non-referred peers, and risk increases after the onset of puberty.
What Drives These Numbers
The elevated rates are not explained by being transgender itself but by the social and psychological stressors that come with it. Researchers use what’s called the gender minority stress model to describe how discrimination, victimization, and rejection accumulate to damage mental health. A nationally representative study of transgender adults found that experiencing gender-based victimization was associated with a 33% higher risk of suicidal thoughts in the past year. Expecting future prejudice or rejection raised risk by 37%.
The 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 44% of respondents had experienced serious psychological distress in the prior 30 days, a measure that captures the kind of acute mental health burden that elevates suicide risk. These stressors are layered: discrimination in housing, employment, and healthcare compounds with interpersonal rejection from family and peers.
Even the political environment plays a measurable role. Research has found that the volume of proposed anti-transgender legislation in a state is associated with worse mental health outcomes among LGBTQ+ people, regardless of whether those bills actually pass. The public debate itself functions as a stressor. One study found that transgender participants had more than twice the odds of reporting increased suicidal thoughts compared to cisgender participants during periods of active legislative debate.
What Reduces Risk
Social support and community connection are the most consistently identified protective factors. Research shows that social support and feeling connected to a transgender community can buffer the effects of victimization, internalized shame, and anticipated prejudice on mental health.
Access to gender-affirming medical care is also associated with significant reductions. A review of existing studies found that suicidal ideation dropped from 73% before treatment to 43% after initiating gender-affirming care. Suicide attempts showed an even steeper decline: from 36% before treatment to 9% after. Among those who specifically underwent surgery, the attempt rate fell from 29% to 5%.
These findings don’t mean that medical care eliminates risk entirely. But they suggest that much of the crisis is driven by treatable distress and modifiable social conditions rather than something inherent to being transgender. The combination of acceptance, reduced discrimination, and appropriate healthcare access is associated with suicide risk that moves substantially closer to population averages.