Abstract

In the wake of the pandemic, I have seen more kids struggle than ever before. It is hard to return all the phone calls from parents of children and teens who are struggling and need a psychiatrist. And never before have I seen cautionary outcomes from research align as closely to my real-life experience as a clinician. The patients in my practice who made suicide attempts during the pandemic all shared common characteristics. They were all gender-questioning adolescents whose parents refused to use their preferred name or pronoun and did not allow them to dress and wear their hair in the style of their preferred gender.