While TDOR is still a very sad and solemn event, one of the benefits is that there is increasing media interest in it. That means slightly more favorable coverage of trans issues than we are used to. In yesterday’s Guardian there was an article giving the results of a mental health survey of British 16-24-year-olds. They found that 48% of those who identified as trans had attempted suicide, as compared to 6% of the general population. So young trans people are 8 times more likely to try to take their own lives than non-trans people of the same age.

Those numbers tally well with a 2012 survey of British trans people. In fact the number is exactly the same: 48%. That may strike you as odd. You would have thought that the percentage would go up as people got older. I’ve seen suggestions elsewhere, though I don’t have a source yet, that trans people are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide during the transition process than before or after. That is, while they are under the “care” of the NHS they become distinctly more likely to try to kill themselves. But there are two good reasons why the number doesn’t go up.

Firstly, a lot of trans people know that something is wrong very early on in life. Being a teenager is hard enough, without being trans. So if you are trans the likelihood is that your first suicide attempt will be when you are very young.

Secondly, these surveys only count attempted suicides. They don’t count the dead. So 48% of young trans people attempt suicide. And 48% of those who survive to be older attempt suicide.

As Paris Lees notes today, actual suicides are a reality for trans people. I want to talk about one she didn’t include.

Jacqueline Cowdrey from Worthing, Sussex, is on this year’s TDOR list. When her body was discovered, the police assumed that she must have been murdered because of the extent of her injuries. However, further investigation, and a coroner’s report, revealed that, yes, she had been very badly beaten, but she had made it home, and had then taken her own life.

No one knows why she did this, but there are two strong possibilities. Firstly she may well have wanted to get away from neighborhood bullies, but also she may have been afraid to get medical help for her injuries, on the assumption that this would only result in more bullying and humiliation. Because that happens, a lot.

The main point of TDOR is to raise awareness of the appalling body count in places like Brazil and Mexico. But if it can also help educate people in the UK and other supposedly civilized countries, and stop them treating trans people as badly as they do at the moment, that would be a very good thing.