41% Yourself

About

41% Yourself is a slang term and an alternative way of saying "kill yourself," specifically used in a derogatory manner towards transgender people. The term references the findings of the 2014 National Transgender Discrimination Survey in which it was found that 41 percent of the participants in a survey of 6,450 transgender people claimed they attempted suicide at some point in their lives. The term first started to become popularized on sites like 4chan in 2015 and became increasingly prominent online over the following years.

Origin

In January 2014, the findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey were published by StudyLib^[1] in a report titled "Suicide Attempts among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults." The study, which uses data from a 2008 U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey, claims that of the 6,456 transgender participants surveyed, 41 percent claimed to have attempted suicide at some point in their lives.^[2]

The findings of the study and the way journalists have reported on it have been brought into question by some. On August 3rd, 2015, 4thWaveNow^[3] published an article titled "The 41% trans suicide attempt rate: A tale of flawed data and lazy journalists" in which it wrote:

The survey is seriously flawed because there is no reliable information about the actual mental health status of the participants; and, since mental health problems are a known self-harm risk, there is no way to accurately figure out whether the suicide attempt rate is as high as it is due to co-occurring mental illness–not necessarily because of “gender dysphoria.” Further, another high risk factor for suicidality is being physically or sexually assaulted, especially for people with mental health disorders. So the authors tell us two things: the 41% figure should be interpreted with great caution; and the causes of the elevated self harm/suicide attempt rate (whatever that rate actually is)–the “pathways”–cannot be reliably determined.

The earliest known use of the term "41% yourself" as a way of suggesting a transgender person should kill themselves is a post to 4chan's^[4] /pol/ on September 23rd, 2015. The thread asks, "What boards did you visit before /pol/?" One anon responds, "/lgbt/" and another responds, "I hope you're a f-g otherwise 41% yourself please." It is unclear if this is the first time the phrase was actually used.

Spread

The term saw increasing prevalence on 4chan and X / Twitter throughout the 2010s, with over 2,400 results for the search term "41% yourself" on 4plebs^[5] as of January 2024 and numerous results on X^[6] (examples shown below).

In February 2021, the term "41" was defined on Urban Dictionary^[7] in the referred context, writing, "41%, or the statistic of how many transgender people have attempted to commit suicide. Sometimes used as a synonym for suicide. James Charles makes me want to 41," garnering over 600 thumbs-ups in three years.

On November 2nd, 2021, Redditor u/NashsTrash posted a comic to /r/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns^[8] using the statistic and the phrase "kys," garnering over 8,800 upvotes in three years (shown below).

Search Interest

External References