U.K. House of Commons Conversion Therapy Survey- Deadline 13 July

Hopefully these will help - surely articles in mainstream medical journals can be discussed and add to the evidence.
www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A/core-reader

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/freedom-to-think-the-need-for-thorough-assessment-and-treatment-of-gender-dysphoric-children/F4B7F5CAFC0D0BE9FF3C7886BA6E904B

Yes to Stella and the silk.

Conversion therapy should only apply to sexual orientation.

It can't possibly apply to gender. One woman recently confessed that she transitioned because she was repeatedly raped by her father. No one should transition on that basis, obviously.

Absolutely thesilkshawl. As illustrated in transdimensional 's post above, the definition of conversion therapy as outlawed in Canada includes "encouraging dysphoric kids to be satisfied with their physical bodies". Is that really what people want to outlaw? And if so, why?

It sounds as though those questions are badly thought out, if one of them is ‘how to define conversion therapy’.

Conversion therapy should be defined as therapy provided by a practising professional therapist psychologist or psychiatrist, aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation. That’s it. Nothing about gender identity. (And the restriction to practising professionals is to avoid criminalising the grandmother who is upset about her gay grandchild’s sexuality & advises him to wait till he meets Miss Right - that should not be dealt with as a criminal offence.)

Whether to outlaw therapy as defined above is a separate issue. This type of therapy seems to me to be monstrously damaging. It’s a hideous idea. I wonder though why this is not being left to professional bodies to police? Is there actually a problem in that there is evidence this type of therapy is taking place? How many instances have there been over the last 2 years? How were they dealt with? Are the professional bodies pushing for this type of therapy to be criminalised?

How would this criminal offence work in practice? If someone goes for therapy because they are confused about their sexual orientation, would this prevent any therapy from being given? In this situation, could a therapist challenge or ask probing questions without risking a criminal offence?

My concern is that this isn’t about therapy as defined above, at all. I suspect this is aimed purely at stopping qualified professionals counselling young people about body dysphoria. This would be horrific. It would of course mean that no therapy could be given to detransitioners - but the TRAs would probably see that as a good thing.

Surely getting medical treatment to change something about you is a form of conversion? You are being physically converted

Surely the fact that the Tavistock themselves are viewing homophobia as the reason some children want to transition is going to ratify what we can and can't call conversion therapy.

Transdimensional I really hope that will not be the case here.

Children with feelings of gender dysphoria must be allowed to explore why that may be-not affirmed as the other sex and set on a medical pathway.

There could be an entire generation of potentially gay kids prevented from becoming gay adults.....

I was reading in Abigail Shrier's book about how when they banned conversion therapy in Canada, they included conversion of "gender identity" in the ban, and an immediate consequence was that a famous dysphoria expert and therapist advocated watchful waiting was hounded out of his job on allegations of encouraging dysphoric kids to be satisfied with their physical bodies - a practice that had just been criminalised.

rogdmum sorry I got my wires crossed-so many consultations going on. Has the gov actually given a definition of Conversion therapy do you know? As there are parallels with giving a potentially gay child cross sex hormones so they appear like the opposite sex...

rogdmum Barones Nicholson retweeted Labour Womens Declaration

Yes, I agree that telling a child that because they like things not normally associated with their sex and they are uncomfortable in their physical body, this means that something is 'wrong' and it needs 'correcting' is surely the absolute definition of 'Conversion therapy'.

This perfectly illustrates why the T should not be tacked onto LGB.

'Conversion therapy' for a young person who is attracted to the same sex as themselves, solely in order to make them attracted to opposite sex instead: wrong and totally unnecessary.

'Conversion therapy' for a young person who feels so uncomfortable in their currently perfectly healthy physical body that they want to cut off their healthy breasts, get their penis cut off, be put on an irreversible lifelong medical pathway of dodgy drugs that is highly likely to result in infertility and sexual dysfunction at the very least, in order to try make them happy with the perfect body that they are in and not want to go down that path before they are fully matured and fully understand the enormous ramifications: not so bad........

They are completely different things. You can't even begin to compare them.

I don't get what about the original tweet was offensive?

Just seen on twitter that responses to this consultation, originally were sent to No. 10 direct, now they will be filtered through gendered intelligence. Anyone else smell a rat here?

Isn't telling children they were born 'wrong' the definition of conversion therapy? Is that allowed to be stated?

Stop medicalising children-let them develop naturally

''We have deleted a tweet about a petition relating to #conversiontherapy that caused offence. We apologise.
Our intention was to provide a platform for people to share their opinions with the Petitions Committee, and inform its case to the Government. Clearly we misjudged this.''

twitter.com/HouseofCommons/status/1279088499338235904

I've just looked at the link in Scrimshaw's post and it says petition closed?

They're watching this thread from twitter, hence the Swiss cheese.

Excellent post sultana.

The problem with a lot of the main glamour clamours and charities such as mermaids is that they don't open up the idea to different options. They follow complete affirmation of an inmate sexist "gender" rather than the more common route, if allowed to explore options, that the majority of yp who think they're trans are actually gay.

So who's doing the "barbaric conversions." (To quite someone from twitter)

Sterilisation and mastectomies on young people who may actually be gay are pretty barbaric.

Apparently my post was blunt. I guess we all remember our first deletion. II'll try to re-state my position in a less blunt way. I also respect and thank the subs for doing a difficult job.

One particular form of conversion therapy that I believe would benefit from research, is the encouragement of homosexual children to believe that they are transgender, rather than gay or lesbian.

I hope this is OK. If this is deleted too, then I will stop posting and return to lurking because I won't have any confidence in my ability to understand the rules. I will however continue emailing MPs, publishers, the BBC, businesses, filling in surveys and consultations, and talking to people in real life.

I can only presume that a section of the populace finds the discussion itself beyond the pale, gardenbird48.

I'm really confused now - on Twitter they've said the tweet was misjudged and has been removed - what was the original tweet?

I'm also very confused about conversion therapy - trans'ing the kids seems to be the ultimate conversion therapy. I think gender questioning kids should be given all the therapy they need to become happy with their existing body rather than amputating healthy parts of their bodies and taking hormones for life that are likely to create all sorts of ongoing major health issues.

Ah, seems survey is still open. Another secret consultation.

Here tis:

www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/7WBGPZ/