Urgent: banning gender identity conversion

Just to clear up a few points on this thread.

A previous post stated that Gender Dysphoria was a mental health condition. This is factually incorrect.

Historically there was a mental health condition called Gender Identity Disorder. This condition was originally treated by various methods to convert the individuals gender identity to be hetronormative, in a similary way that homosexuality was considered to be a MH disorder that could also be cured by forms of conversion therapy.

As with Homosexuality it was discovered you cannot cure ones internal sense of self, be that sexuality or gender identity. Both sexuality and gender identity were then defined as not being a MH disorder.

People still need medical assessment and treatment with gender identity so when it was declassified as a MH disorder and named Gender Dysphoria it remained under the MH classification in the World Health Organisations classifications

World Health Organisations ICD 11 classifications.
Gender Dysphoria is now called Gender Incongruence

Gender incongruence, meanwhile, has also been moved out of mental disorders in the ICD, into sexual health conditions. The rationale being that while evidence is now clear that it is not a mental disorder, and indeed classifying it in this can cause enormous stigma for people who are transgender, there remain significant health care needs that can best be met if the condition is coded under the ICD.
www.who.int/health-topics/international-classification-of-diseases

There is also a discussion about what conversion therapy is for gender identity.

So to be clear:

Conversion therapy is an umbrella term for a therapeutic approach, or any model or individual viewpoint that demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to suppress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis.
www.psychotherapy.org.uk/about-ukcp/public-policy/conversion-therapy/

Can Any Type of Therapy Change a Person’s Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity?
www.nclrights.org/bornperfect-the-facts-about-conversion-therapy

No. In 2009, the American Psychological Association conducted a comprehensive review of the published literature on these practices and concluded that they are not supported by any reliable evidence. In fact, the APA found that the opposite was true: “The results of scientifically valid research indicate that it is unlikely that individuals will be able to reduce same-sex sexual attractions or increase other-sex attractions through SOCE.”

Similarly, in 2000, the American Psychiatric Association published a statement concluding that: “In the last four decades, ‘reparative’ therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure.”

How Bad is Conversion Therapy?

Conversion therapy can be extremely dangerous and, in some cases, fatal. In 2009, the APA issued a report concluding that the reported risks of the practices include: depression, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame, social withdrawal, suicidality, substance abuse, stress, disappointment, self-blame, decreased self-esteem and authenticity to others, increased self-hatred, hostility and blame toward parents, feelings of anger and betrayal, loss of friends and potential romantic partners, problems in sexual and emotional intimacy, sexual dysfunction, high-risk sexual behaviors, a feeling of being dehumanized and untrue to self, a loss of faith, and a sense of having wasted time and resources.

The risks are even greater for youth. Minors who experience family rejection based on their sexual orientation or gender identity face especially serious health risks. Research shows that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were more than eight times more likely to report having attempted suicide, more than five times more likely to report high levels of depression, more than three times more likely to use illegal drugs, and more than three times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse compared with peers from families that reported no or low levels of family rejection.

Conversion therapies are dangerous.

People of all ages should be allowed to develop and understand their own gender identity and sexuality. Within supportive environments they will grow to understand themselves and when ready tell their families friends and peers. They will seek the support they need to be themselves wherever that leads.

You can love your family, friend and peers but you cannot walk in their shoes or live their lives for them. Just love them for who they are.

I'm still unclear what exactly is under reference here. Telling a homosexually oriented person they are in fact heterosexually oriented, and employing certain techniques to reinforce that idea is 'gay conversion therapy', yes?

So what would qualify as 'conversion therapy' for my daughter who questions whether she is in fact a boy because she hates her body so much and has mental health problems? Would it be counselling to help her come to terms with her body as it is, allowing her to present to the world socially however she wants to? Or would it be guiding her down a path of body modification that would cause irreparable damage, because of her unhappiness with all the things she perceives as 'girlish' but feels pushed towards because of gendered role modelling?
Because one of those approaches seems straight up abusive to me, and therefore much more appropriately called 'conversion therapy' and scorned.

HilaryMGSDC
Are you familiar with the Transgendertrend School toolkit?

There has been some confusion as to whether this was regarded as supporting 'conversion therapy' or whether there had been a mis-reading as it discussed 'conversation'.

I am aware of the memorandum of understanding mentioned previously in this thread but don't completely understand the scope.

I actually think TRAs are unhinged. And I will be guarding my children so carefully to make sure they do not get caught up in all this madness.

because we do not need others to tell us who we are

errrrrrrrr ....... some people are desperate to have outside validation of their identity.

Conversion therapy has been discredited by professional counselling and psychology bodies. You cannot 'cure' someones sexuality, you cannot turn gay, lesbian bisexual, pansexual, asexual, androsexual, gyneosexual, skoliosexual to be hetronormative straight people. Likewise you cannot 'cure' someones gender identity, their sense of self identity through conversion therapy. You can only force them to hide who they really are from you. This law has nothing to do with care pathways for transgender people seeking help to be seen by society as their true selves, be that within or out of the gendernormative binary. This law would prevent people / organisations forcing their will on others, be it for religious/ political or other reasons. Think about it! Did anybody need to tell you about your own sexuality or gender identity? I bet the answer is NO, because we do not need others to tell us who we are. All humans are individual and unique and sexuality and gender identity are core parts of who we are, this law should be passed as soon as possible.

New Statesman article:
www.newstatesman.com/politics/religion/2018/07/will-uk-ban-gay-conversion-therapy-work

Penny Mordaunt has just been on BBC Breakfast. She took care to state they were looking at conversion therapy which included extreme practices such as corrective rape, forcing people. Exploring sexual orientation or gender identity was not conversion therapy.

I certainly feel we need to make sure this approach is maintained and encourage it, since TRAs seem to think that any sort of questioning about ones trans identity is transphobic and wrong.

The conflation of sexual orientation (objectively real) and gender identity (entirely subjective) is designed to confuse.

There is no scientific evidence to back up the claim that children who adults label as trans benefit from 1) being told that the laws of biology don’t exist (ie, it is categorically impossible to change sex) 2) being put on drugs that prevent them from developing naturally and going through puberty.
Watchful waiting and loving assurance that a child is perfect just the way they are has never been proved to be dangerous. But this is being labelled as conversion therapy for gender identity.

There is loads of scientific evidence that conversion therapies for sexual orientation don’t work and are cruel.

The paper you linked to R0wan even acknowledges that the scientific evidence referred to relates ONLY to sexual orientation

“The MoU updates one released in 2015 at the Department of Health, which focused exclusively on sexual orientation”

This whole topic is getting out of hand. Talk about experimentation set up to go wrong. Sure so let’s all just push people towards the idea that I’d you believe something, it’s real/actual. No help needed or given because it’s the persons rught to believe it. Hmm right and I’m an alien and you all have to accept it and treat me as special because that’s the law. Sure.

I have only just heard of this R0wantrees. It is awful.

Sexual orientation is not a mental illness obviously, by any criteria.

But I am apalled at those organisations haivng signed up to this when actually there is so much evidence of mental illhealth in trans/ identity issues.

So many co-morbid conditions (I don't count depression as depression in this case can be a reaction to other MH issues, or not related at all) Narcissitic Personality Disorder is prevalent - and surely any MH professional can see the downsides of appeasing/ affiriming a person with such a condition, even if it is to 'save their life'.

I do believe trans people when they say they suffering is great and have compssion but as a GC woman, and a person with repsonsibility to others, inc women and children, I am scared by this.

I have only known one trans woman personally and not well, so cannot speak to their personal MH, but I believe that there is a full spectrum of MH issues linked with gender dysphoria and find it incredibly troubling that it is demedicalised as if it were nothing.

There is a blog which I won't link to was it wouldn't be fair, but the person is trans gender and 'plural' ie with DID, and they have a similar stance to some 'trans women are women' people ie DID isnt a pathology, neurodiversity is cool, not broken, my body is a 'spaceship that my mind(s) inhabit'. They don't subscribe to having been female all along, but that it becasue they are happy to be embrace being 'plural'.

I don't agree with this and think it is the illness talking, a survical strategy, but I will empathise with their very real pain and struggle for survival, even if I have real concerns about their method of doing so. It is not 'wrong' to be DID or trans, but it does have serious downsides.

But back to your Q, MH care is generally apalling and often nothing more than a sticking plaster or box ticking exercise so I am not that surprsed that these agencies have found a way to make complex and intransigent MH issues someone else's problem. (no pun intended)

fractalplimsoll

Have you seen the memorandum of undertanding which was secured last autumn?

www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/leading-uk-psychological-professions-stonewall-unite-conversion-therapy/

Interested in your thoughts.

Conversion therapy for homosexuality is apalling. What is the harm to anyone if someone is gay/ lesbian? Wondering about your sexuality does not require making lasting physical changes beforehand.

But there are so many things we don't properly understand about trans people's diffuclties, and there is not merely one type of trans person so clearly there should no be just one solution.

There are also other MH illnesses that can present with identity/ gender issues such as the complex and serious DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) which I have wanted to mention a few times now (and NC to do so) and is frequently misunderstood and mis-represented, especially in the media.

DID sufferers have frequently suffered severe abuse, often sustained sexual abuse and is thought to be exacerbated by the neglect, (intentional or not) of care givers, seemingly the child feels severely trauamtised and utterly alone, with poor/ no attachment figures/ healthy role models or anyone to help them.

To severely paraphrase, the traumatised child brain 'copes' with this overwhelming horror by splitting off into parts (aka alters). A time goes on, these parts may be any age (child and adult) and sometimes opposite sex, and of a variety of often contrary or even hostile personalties, who generally do not evolve in their outlook but remain 'stuck'. It is a survival strategy and tremendously complex and painful for sufferers, who often live in a state of internal conflict and may have MH crises in adolescence and middle age as DID is an energency strategy, not suited to the complex real world.

For some people this leads to developing opposite sex/ gender parts or feelings of dysphoria for a vareity of reasons (out of disgust for 'the body'; opposite sex alters who are 'stronger' and can defend; or who not at risk ie the paedophile does not abuse girls,;or as a way of putting distance between similarities between vicitm and abuser if of the same sex - I will not grow up to be that/ I am afraid of being that/ idealsing the opposite sex as 'safe'). Parts can be utterly dominating of other parts at times, for good or for bad, and there is often amnesia between parts.

It can be unreasonably difficult to get treatment for DID even though it is real, recognised and well documented (the NHS have The Clinic for Dissociative Studies etc) and has no none of the prominece of trans issues, despite having very serious consequences for many sufferers and high rates of suicide. Most psychologists/ psychotherapists/psychiatrist are woefully under-educated about the condition, and possibly are actually afraid to treat it becasue of the complexity, and it leaves sufferers confused, desperate and vulnerable.

I also believe it is under diagnosed in men.

It would be utterly apalling if anyone who actually has DID was misdiagnosed and steered to a trans pathway simply because therapists are afraid to ask questions, especially in children, or are frightened by the constant references to suicide (by the client and in the trans information) and feel emotionally balckmaied and string armed by the law to employ the unquestioning affirmation method.

I know people with this illness and they have said they are frightened by what is going on. One person said that were they a teenager now they can see that they would have been put on a trans pathway, but now although still suffering in many ways, they did not go on to develop opposite sex alters.

I understand that for some people the pain of dypshoria, suicidal thoughts etc, are only eased through transition as a survival strategy, but it is so complex that it should not go unquestioned.

There is a valid argument for not allowing 'deep' therapy until the person is in a more stable state of mind, but because there is so little help with day-to-day managing from the NHS/ social services, some people never reach a safe/ stable state and so end up being denied any treatment at all. Possibly a more stable/ dominant state could be one that is opposite gender. But I really worry here that transtion is seen as the end point and people go without the help they need.

There are trans people who do have DID many of them blogging etc and the confusion and distress is as clear as it is for non trans DID people, but obviously not every DID person will even have opposite sex alters at all; and nor does every trans person suffer dissociation although it is strongly correlated; it is very complex, but to simply 'aaffimr' (appease) and not gently and safely explore possibilites with vulnerable people is cruel and abusive in my mind.

Thank you to anyone who read to the end of this. I am scared by the wide range of impacts of rolling out selfID etc.

We are opposed to transitioning away the Gays and Lesbians.Aren't you?

Foxy
James Kirkup refers to comments by The Tavistock clinical lead Dr Polly Carmichael and GIDS service:
(extract)
"The total caseload for the service rose 2,078 per cent in seven years. The number of assigned females being referred rose 3,500 per cent in seven years. Why have the numbers risen in this way? Is there a clear and undisputed explanation, which would render Lord Tebbit’s suggested research into causation redundant?

This is an issue addressed by Dr Polly Carmichael, who runs the GIDS, in a recent talk to the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. In her thoughtful hour-long lecture, she said this:

“The rapid rise in the number of assigned females…. exemplifies the importance of keeping discourse open and allowing different voices to be heard.

“You might say the increase in the numbers of assigned females coming forward is [because] that it’s easier for females to talk about their gender-diverse feelings so what we are seeing is an increase in awareness getting towards a better representation of the true prevalence of this among females.

“A converse explanation, a question: are there issues for young women around how they perceive their gender? There has been a worry by some that people who would previously have had an outcome around sexuality are now having an outcome around gender.”

(In other words, these are girls who do not readily identify with the predominant idea of femininity and are sexually attracted to biological females, and who would, a decade or two ago, have grown up to consider themselves lesbians.) Dr Carmichael’s conclusion:

“The truth is we don’t know, but we need discussion in order to be thinking about what this could mean.”

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

There is an embedded link to the lecture Dr Carmichael gave to the to the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. here:

Foxy in answer to your question: no. I suggest you actually read the thread.

I see that you state that you are an activist against women’s issues all you life. I had already suspected as much.

Let me get this straight, most of the women on this thread are advocating banning Conversion/Aversion Threpays for Lesbians and Gay adults

but want to allow same Aversion/Conversion Therapy for small children ?

as a lefty feminists , my first reaction was to report this thread , but its important Advertisers and mainstream people see the type of people there are now on mumsnet

who want to see little children treated in the 21st century

and I am not a activists other than against Clause 28 , FGM and womens issues all my life

These are links from Mermaids website, 'Resources for Young People':
www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/resources-for-young-people.html

Information About Reparative / Conversion therapy
www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/leading-uk-psychological-professions-stonewall-unite-conversion-therapy/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#Controversy_over_conversion_therapy

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/10/obama-conversion-therapy-lgbt-teens-leelah-alcorn

Seems this topic will feature on Victria Derbyshire Show tomorrow at 10am.

Today it focussed on children and young people who have or or questioning their gender identity:
thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3294478-Victoria-Derbyshire-show-today-transgender-children-buying-time-by-delaying-puberty

Despite campaigns and attempts by backbench MPs to ban the practice there are currently no laws against the practice and the LGBT+ charity, Stonewall, suggests there is evidence that individuals continue to experience the therapies.

They should know since they advocate transitioning away the Gays & Lesbians.