Laura Ungar

USAToday

M.C. Lampe couldn't take any more bullying. Not one more homophobic taunt. Not one more classmate refusing to sit at a nearby desk or change clothes within view at gym. So the devastated 9th grader brought a knife to school and vowed: "If someone else says something, I'm done."

Someone did say something — and Lampe went to the high school bathroom and slit both wrists.

Suicide attempts are alarmingly common among transgender individuals such as Lampe; 41% try to kill themselves at some point in their lives, compared with 4.6% of the general public. The numbers come from a study by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute, which analyzed results from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Researchers are preparing to launch another version of the online survey on Wednesday.

More than a dozen other surveys of transgender people worldwide since 2001 have found similarly high rates, and the problem has grown more visible since Caitlyn Jenner's coming out raised awareness about transgender health issues overall.

"The way we treat trans people, especially trans women, is terrible," says Lampe, now a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Louisville who identifies as a genderqueer and transgender. "It's not surprising they don't feel they belong in the world."

That's borne out by the research, which shows those who are harassed, bullied, victimized, discriminated against or rejected by family and friends are more likely to attempt suicide. Some doctors and mental health experts say prevention begins with acceptance and kindness, especially by parents.

"The answer is love your kid as is," says pediatrician Michelle Forcier of Rhode Island, an expert on transgender children on the faculty of Brown University's medical school. "Your love and acceptance is the best medicine your kids can ever get."

Struggles for acceptance

Lampe grew up Southern Baptist in Louisville and never met a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person as a child. But eventually, Lampe, who doesn't identify with the pronouns "he" or "she", realized an attraction to girls and secretly began seeing a girlfriend in eighth grade.

When teachers discovered the two were together, Lampe says, they did an intervention of sorts with the girlfriend and the two realized for the first time that a homosexual relationship "was thought of as something bad."

At the start of ninth grade, Lampe began wearing makeup every day and trying to act "super-feminine" and "as straight as possible." But "I was increasingly uncomfortable trying to be this person I wasn't."

The insults were relentless, the rejection and ostracism unbearable — culminating in the suicide attempt two weeks before the end of freshman year. Lampe panicked afterward, telling a teacher and winding up spending two weeks at the psychiatric hospital Our Lady of Peace, and then going to outpatient therapy that fostered a new commitment to staying alive.

Lampe was lucky to find good care. Experts say discrimination remains a big problem in the health care world, and many medical professionals haven't been trained in transgender health issues. Inadequate mental health care can have devastating effects. In addition to lacking support from peers and family, Forcier says transgender people face chronically high stress levels linked to being part of a stigmatized minority, which can lead to anxiety and depression.

"Often the same factors that increase suicide risk among straight peers dramatically affect trans individuals: limited social support, poverty, substance use, school avoidance, rejection by parents," says Michael Leslie, director of LGBTQ mental health at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.

Grace Godin, a transgender woman from Brookline, Mass., says her life has been a struggle for as long as she can remember. Assigned male at birth, Godin, 20, always saw herself as a girl, drawing self-portraits in first grade with long hair and a dress. Over time she became the target of bullying, once getting punched by a friend in sixth grade for acting too feminine.

She struggled with depression and anxiety and self-harm by cutting. One night when she was 13, she decided to cut deeper than usual hoping she would bleed to death. "If I didn't belong," she recalls asking herself, "why should I be alive?"

Like Lampe, she recovered, went to therapy and is now in college. She gets support through the group PFLAG, which unites LGBTQ people with family members, friends and allies. She says her mom is very supportive, and she has a good relationship with her dad, too. But she laments "he still doesn't call me his daughter."

Finding answers

Greta Gustava Martela, of Chicago, has heard many similar stories. After struggling through life and planning her own suicide twice, the transgender woman and her wife last fall founded the Trans Lifeline, a suicide hotline for transgender individuals. Staff so far have handled more than 20,000 calls from 5,500 unique phone numbers.

While helping one caller at a time, Martela, 46, also hopes to push for more attention to transgender people among suicide prevention professionals, since "with 41% attempting suicide, you have to assume something's just not working for transgender folks."

Mental health experts say turning the tide will take more research, including random-sampling surveys in addition to the "convenience sampling" that depends on people deciding to participate, plus studies examining how many people who die from suicide are transgender. All research into this area is relatively new, Leslie says, adding, "There are a lot of holes in our understanding."

In the meantime, Forcier suggests pediatricians talk about gender issues with kids and parents during doctor visits. Some experts say they're encouraged that people under 40 seem more accepting of transgender people than older Americans but warn this shouldn't breed complacency because discrimination won't simply fade away with time; erasing it will take work. "It's getting better, but we've got a long way to go," says Ann Haas, a senior consultant to the suicide prevention foundation and an author of its report.

One initiative aiming to reduce suicide risk is the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, which among other things teaches families how to support their LGBT children through educational materials and training. Acceptance by family and friends, experts say, makes a huge difference in keeping people alive.

As for Lampe, things got much better in sophomore year of high school. Lampe came out to friends, finding "most of them were totally fine with it," and started the school's gay-straight alliance. Lampe's parents were also supportive. At Louisville, Lampe is now working toward a master's degree in gender and women's studies. While some transgender people identify as men or women, Lampe is most comfortable living in the "crossing" between the two genders.

Lampe proudly displays hard-won beliefs to the world through tattoos emblazoned on each arm. One is a combination question mark and exclamation point, which reflects "enthusiastically living in the question mark" when it comes to gender.

The other is a quote from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer that resonates with Lampe's journey out of darkness.

It says: Be Brave, Live.