But the bigger challenge is in the rest of the exchange, where the suicidality of people who identify as trans is cast as entirely the fault of a society that has “denialism” in it. This is an astonishing claim given the fact that people who have come to believe that their identity and their body are in some way “mismatched” would, presumably, experience some level of psychic torment no matter how understanding and supportive the rest of society was. When the reality of what is called “gender-affirming care” — the experimental use of hormones or surgeries that create nonfunctional simulations of the opposite gender’s genitalia (often requiring repeated surgeries throughout all of life to maintain) — is added to this turmoil, it sure seems as if it is the gender ideologue who is the denialist, and who is partly responsible for the suicidality of people who suffer from gender dysphoria.

It is on this ground that we must fight back. The rote and ritualistic recitation of trans suicide rates, and the scapegoating of nonbelievers and dissenters for these suicides, amounts to a sinister homily. It is Bridges who is encouraging suicide by casting it as an act of quasi-martyrdom. The suicide becomes the testimony to the wickedness of the deniers; that is the public meaning she allows for it. She’s trying to give a pro-social meaning to an act of personal despair and vindictiveness. The more suicides there are, the more condemned stand the deniers.