Conversion Therapy and a Survey of 25,896 LGBTQ youth

I am not sure that this individual is really reading and engaging

Yeah, me too. This isn't a conversation, this is someone wearing earplugs, who is handing us leaflets, which all say the same thing.

What I would take seriously is you presenting me with quality studies showing that conversion therapy is harmless or even beneficial for trans youths.

A quality study for setting policy or drawing conclusions to set world wide standards for health care is not a widely targeted quantitative questionnaire asking ill-defined and top level questions from self selected respondents. Furthermore, quality studies does not necessarily refer to the quality of the graphics used to present the data, although, I did love the way it was presented.

A quality study for influencing policy could use this as a foundation to do further qualitative studies to discover and confirm correlation and draw causation statements from those correlations. I would hope no scientist would use the information as it is presented in that link as their sole source of data.

(I will also point out I have not looked at the original questionnaire device and any other information given to the respondents. There might be more relevant information collected but not shown)

Any policymaker that had even a brief exposure to marketing would understand this is not quality data for the purpose you are stating it should be used, no matter the reputation for doing good work the organization behind it.

Just to make this even more clear, the size of the data set also doesn’t increase the quality much either. Rubbish in/rubbish out.

For driving awareness, which is the purpose of this project, it is fit for purpose and can be considered high quality. And as I said, high quality presentation if you are into infographics. This is a marketing campaign! Not a scientific study.

For policy making, this is poor quality research.

With a report like this, which cherry-picks soundbites to suit an agenda, noticing what isn't reported can be just as informative as looking at the information that is included.

For example, it would have had more impact to report that the incidence of suicide attempts in trans and non-binary young people was much higher in the group who had undergone conversion therapy than in the group who hadn't. The fact that the report doesn't do this, and only mentions the figure in the conversion therapy group, suggests that in reality the incidence of suicide attempts may have been very similar in both groups, regardless of intervention history.

This sort of "spin" is what the peer review process is designed to avoid. Good reviewers will spot these glossed-over gaps and ask researchers to include the missing information to give a more transparent picture of the data.

For the record, this definition is incredibly wide and still is non-specific. Because in some parts of the world, psychotherapy for underlying co-morbidites has been considered conversion therapy.

Note also that such actual/proposed laws are usually framed asymmetrically. "Converting" "trans" to "cis" is illegal, "cis" to "trans" is not.

So they make sure anyone suggesting "oh, you don't like football, are you sure you're a boy?" is in no danger.

I'd have a hell of a lot more confidence in such bills not being widely applied if they hadn't just made themselves exempt by fiat.

This is true Spartacus. I have had a previous decades long career in designing and analyzing these types of data collection tools, along with two qualifications in it.

I know very well how to word them to get different results and just how easy they are to misinterpret (accidentally and deliberately). And how to communicate those results to manipulate the message....

So, no. I don’t put any credibility in top level data like this. It would have been my job to present this data like this to suit the agenda of the client.

The OP isn't playing nice and I am not sure that this individual is really reading and engaging.

OP - so many very experienced posters (many with qualifications in scientific fields, the social sciences and research in general) have responded to your post, your claims, and your demands with careful, well-thought-out and reasoned responses. Do read these. You will learn from them.

Again I’m not sure why anyone with an ounce of sense would be in favour of the affirmation model for children.
Can I ask Shuzuku why they feel that children who are dealing with serious mental health issues that make them think they are in the wrong body should have surgery and if anyone who is safeguarding this child thinks that amputations and hormones aren’t appropriate that is suddenly conversion therapy?
I think you might not understand children.

You would dismiss a study that suggests conversion therapy causes suicides in trans youths when deciding whether to ban conversion therapy in trans youths?

In addition to the caveats already posted by others before me, I would like to add two more in response to your question:

This survey, useful as it may be for highlighting mental health pressure points for LGBT youth, is purely quantitative in nature. This is a drawback when studying suicidal behaviour, because respondents frequently overstate the number of suicide attempts made, or the seriousness of their suicidal ideation. When quantitative methods are combined with qualitative ones such as discussions, interviews, diaries, rates of suicide attempts are typically halved. So these numbers may or may not be accurate, but the survey is not designed to ascertain that because it does not capture anything other than self-reported data.

Furthermore, suicidal behaviour is a complex issue with multifactorial causes. As others habe sought to explain before me, it is overly simplistic (if not to say incorrect and often irresponsible) to blame one factor for such behaviour. There is a large body of research into suicides and suicidal behaviour that has established this fact, which is reflected in the Samaritans'media guidelines for reporting suicides.

Now I understand what the Trevor Project is aiming to and it is much needed work, which has undoubtedly saved lives in the 20+ years since it was founded. And I understand what they seek to do with their survey. But it cannot do anything other than suggest that certain things increase or decrease suicidal behaviour, because their survey isn't designed to do anything other than paint a mental health picture of LGBT youth in broad brushstrokes.

That isn't a sound basis for policymaking.

I find it rather disturbing that OP claims to care about children with gender dysphoria but refuses to engage with serious questions about the research into how to help those children.

OP, aren't you super interested in any correlation between religion, attempts at conversion and suicidal thoughts? That could be such helpful therapeutic information for the children and supporting adults.

What about correlation vs causation between suicidal thoughts and conversion therapy. Were the children suicidal before the CT? Did they seek out CT themselves or were they forced into it? Were they more, less or same suicidal afterwards?

Some of the respondents will have gone through some form of transition from hair length and name change through to genital alteration. What's the difference between the groups?

Is there any difference between experiences of each of the groups L,G,B & T? It would seem likely there would be differences wouldn't it?

If you care about helping these children why aren't you pushing hard for research to answer these questions? Why aren't you worried about the short-comings with the Trevor Project resulting in harm being done to children?

You sound like a pusher of one single miracle treatment for all, like a rep.

Don't you see any problems with using this research to drive legislation yourself?

I will repeat again, this survey done by the Trevor Project is a good indicative survey that surely shows areas for further exploration and study.

The major significant problem though is the lack of definition of conversion therapy. (And the OP's wide definition must also surely be considered a starting point for discussion on what is conversion therapy rather than leaving it ambiguous.)

How conversion therapies differ between LGB & therapies for the T.

Would you discourage a cis woman with a full beard from having it removed if she said that having such an overt physical masculinity made her uncomfortable and depressed?

This women may actually have a medical condition such as PCOS or maybe in menopause. You might already know this if you are a female. If so, there is likely to be also these significant health issues that could also be causing her discomfort.

Would you suggest she had therapy to convert her personality to one that enjoyed being a bearded lady?

This is not a logical equivalence. You have just stated she was uncomfortable and depressed.

Trans conversion therapy would be any "therapy" that attempts to change a trans person's gender identity to match the sex they were assigned at birth

For the record, this definition is incredibly wide and still is non-specific. Because in some parts of the world, psychotherapy for underlying co-morbidites has been considered conversion therapy.

Do you understand the issue with this?

[quote OldCrone]This is a study behind a paywall.

Full text is here

youthrex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Chosen-Name-Use-Is-Linked-to-Reduced-Depressive-Symptoms-Suicidal-Ideation-and-Suicidal-Behavior-Among-Transgender-Youth-2018.pdf[/quote]
Thanks OldCrone

So, this article states that a study where simply using the chosen name for people reduced their symptoms. This is absolutely fine and great information to have. Of course, we also know that actually reducing suicide ideation is rather more complex than simply using a chosen name.

I also don't believe that anyone on this thread has suggested that people don't have their chosen name respected.

I do not feel this gives us any more sense than before for your definition for conversion therapy however.

But thanks for posting it, it was interesting to read.

I would actually prefer a world where people understood the full diversity of people so that a bearded lady didn't feel it was "masculine "

If she didn't like it fine, as it does her no harm to remove it

But the fact remains that their data as presented in the report do not support the conclusions you are trying to draw

This, this, this. Maybe the survey is junk, maybe it's absolutely brilliant. But what we've been able to see does not in any way support @Shizuku's assertions.

It's certainly helpful for some and should be available to all trans people if and when they need it. Some don't need it

Also, do you consider counselling / emotional support / watchful waiting, to be gender conversion therapy?

All that the data you link to in you OP show are that some US trans and nonbinary young people attempt suicide after intervention that is classified by the data-collectors as conversion therapy. That's it. That's the extent of the evidence in the report.

There is no way to check that the rate of suicide attempts in this group is higher with or without conversion therapy, because that information is not presented.

There is no way to determine whether the suicide attempts reported in the conversion therapy group were caused (directly or indirectly) by the intervention, because not enough information is supplied in the report, nor are any statistical analyses reported that might support that conclusion - e.g. by showing that suicide attempts were more closely associated with conversion therapy than with other mental health diagnoses, or age, or educational attainment, or socioecenomic disadvantage, or neurodiversity, or length of time since transition, or level of social/familial support, etc.

There is no way of knowing whether survey results obtained in the US, where legal protections against discrimination, access to healthcare and religious demographics are very different, are applicable to the UK.

There is no way of knowing whether the results from this self-selected group of participants, recruited via social media, are representative of all trans and nonbinary young people in the US, et alone elsewhere.

It isn't evidence of the effects of conversion therapy, let alone "best evidence".

It's certainly helpful for some and should be available to all trans people if and when they need it. Some don't need it

Surely if someone is asking for such physical changes there is an absolute duty to ensure they are making the right decision? The amount of detransitioners who thought they didn't need it, well turned out they did. How would you know, considering this, which people do need it? And which people don't?

You can accuse the Trevor Project of doing "junk" surveys if you like. I can't take you seriously. What I would take seriously is you presenting me with quality studies showing that conversion therapy is harmless or even beneficial for trans youths.

But, @Shizuku, you can't even defend your assertations even if we all did accept that Trevor Project surbey, though, can you?

What I am interested in is someone who posts a survey about "LGBTQ" youth, but shows no regard at all for harm caused to gay and lesbian young people. There's a name for people like this.

Would you discourage a cis woman with a full beard from having it removed if she said that having such an overt physical masculinity made her uncomfortable and depressed? Would you suggest she had therapy to convert her personality to one that enjoyed being a bearded lady?

No. For one really good reason. Hair removal does not cause long lasting physical damage. Gender reassignment however can cause stroke, brittle bone, heart disease, inability to have children, the list goes on.

Knowing this, would you encourage someone to go ahead without recieving counseling and emotional support?