Is a conversion therapy law necessary?

At a community level (and I'm not talking about "society" here but specifically thr LGB community) the worst case scenario is that the normalisation of conversion therapy and attempts to market it as a harmless and neutral choice will create a culture where many LGB people feel obligated to "just try" in order to maintain family relationships, acceptance within religious communities etc. If sexuality becomes seen as a choice rather than something innate and unchangeable then I can see that having an incredibly damaging effect on the already tenuous acceptance of LGB people in many areas of society.

OK, I would accept that, but only as a speculative worst case scenario. That we can imagine the scenario, doesn't make it likely to happen in practice.

Gay conversion therapy is still apparently legal at the moment, and it's not apparently having the effect that you worry about. I doubt that the mere existence of some people doing it, can really roll back social attitudes at this point.

I would also question whether you can ban things, not because of any proven problem, but just because you can imagine a worst case scenario where it causes such and such a harm.

Actually, if you are worrying about social attitudes becoming less accepting of gay sexuality, then one thing that could (hypothetically) do that, would be a revival of conservative Christianity in the UK. Should that be prevented by law? What about letting in large numbers of immigrants with conservative religious beliefs? Should that be prevented in case it leads to less acceptance of the gay community?

FWIW I've tried googling various combinations of words like 'sexuality' 'gay' 'lesbian' 'conversion' 'therapy' 'find' 'uk' therapist' 'counsellor' 'help' 'suppress' '

But I'll be buggered if I can find anyone that is offering such a service

I think Murray would take the view that we don't get to tell individuals what their personal goals or values should be with regard to their personal sexuality.

Which was why it was argued that laws and even strong social condemnation of homosexuality was wrong.

If the occasional person chooses to go for gay conversion therapy, the worst that can happen is they end up regretting it, feel bitter at their therapist, feel they were under unfair social pressure and that kind of thing. Now that may be damaging to the individual, but it's not a real threat to society.

I disagree and I think I gave quite comprehensive reasons why in my earlier post. The worst that can happen at an individual level is that the person who underwent conversion therapy experiences long term trauma from it and it sets their personal journey to self acceptance back by a long way. At a community level (and I'm not talking about "society" here but specifically thr LGB community) the worst case scenario is that the normalisation of conversion therapy and attempts to market it as a harmless and neutral choice will create a culture where many LGB people feel obligated to "just try" in order to maintain family relationships, acceptance within religious communities etc. If sexuality becomes seen as a choice rather than something innate and unchangeable then I can see that having an incredibly damaging effect on the already tenuous acceptance of LGB people in many areas of society.

Society can function just fine with the occasional person regretting their gay conversion therapy.

"Society" is mainly made up of straight people who benefit from a system that sees being straight as a synonym for "normal". Will "society" continue to function if a few LGB people regret conversion therapy? Sure. It'll keep functioning even if lots of LGB people regret conversion therapy. It'll keep functioning even if every single member of the LGB community ends up traumatised for life by conversion therapy. The ability of human societies to keep functioning even if some minoritiy groups are harmed and marginalised is frankly one of the worst things about us.

I would say alcohol is far more dangerous to society than that!

Alcohol is dangerous and does damage societies, that's why so many people have at various points and in various ways attempted to ban or at least moderate it. We haven't succeeded but that doesn't mean we should never try to prohibit any damaging choices.

But people need to be protected from bad decisions when they may be under social pressure?

That's just not how you treat adults imo. That's how you treat children.

So for anyone that tends to support maximizing individual liberty where it's reasonably possible, I think they would take the side of gay conversion therapy being legal.

Yes, as I said in my post supporting conversion therapy is absolutely consistent with a libertarian world view. Which is why I think it's interesting that lib fems and TRAs are so pro things like prostitution/ pornography/ surrogacy where the promotion of individual choice and the right of the individual to take actions even if they are extremely harmful at an individual and community level is held highest, but are anti conversion therapy which rests on exactly the same argument. It's not a logically consistent position unless you are making a distinction between the groups experiencing the harm (in this case it seems that its fine for women to harm themselves and other women as an expression of "choice" but not OK for LGB people to harm themselves and other LGB people as an expression of "choice"). However I am not a libertarian. I believe that opportunities for people to harm themselves should be limited, that the concept of harm should be analysed at a community level not just at an individual level, and that where the potential for harm is significant then protecting communities is more important that promoting individual freedom.

As for your later post about sex offenders, I don't really see what this has to do with it as being a sex offender isn't a sexual orientation. But either way their have been many attempts to change sexual behaviours in this group ranging from talking therapy to chemical castration. Is there any evidence that this has changed those behaviours? I've never heard of any.

A better question in my opinion is why is the conversation always about gay conversion therapy? Why not just sexuality conversion therapy? Where are the queues of straight people waiting to try and become same sex attracted? If I had a pound for every time I heard a straight woman say she wished she was a lesbian I'd be rich, and yet funnily enough we never see articles arguing for the right of straight people to become gay. When we see equal number of straight men going to see therapists to help them become gay then I'll believe that conversion therapy for LGB people is a truly free and neutral choice that has no potential to harm individuals or the LGB community.

I would also mention: what about sex offenders with out of control fetishes or whatever?

Surely we would try to use therapy on such people, not just that they don't act on their sexual desires, but that they try to suppress those types of thoughts if they are troubling to the individual, (or getting them in trouble), or a problem for society.

I don't know how successful such therapy attempts would be, but it's worth experimenting with it right? You don't just dogmatically declare that it can't possibly work; not for anyone; and not for any type of therapy you try.

Now obviously I'm not saying homosexuality is equivalent to being a sex offender. I'm rather saying don't be dogmatic about what can or can't be achieved by some type of therapy.

There's a brilliant overview of the potential problems of including gender identity in this legislation from the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM). link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01844-2

Their conclusion:
Turban et al.’s (2020) singular endorsement of “affirmative” therapies, which their data failed to substantiate, contributes to the alarming trend to frame any non-“affirming” approaches as harmful. We are deeply concerned that this false dichotomy, reinforced by Turban et al.’s unproven claims of the harms of GICE, will have a chilling effect on the ethical psychotherapists’ willingness to take on complex GD patients, which will make it much harder for GD individuals to access quality mental health care. We maintain that availability of a broad range of non-coercive, ethical psychotherapies for individuals with GD is essential to meaningful informed consent, which requires consideration of the full range of treatment options, from highly invasive to non-invasive. Further, given the potential of agenda-free psychotherapy to ameliorate GD non-invasively among young people with GD, withholding this type of intervention, while promoting “affirmation” approaches that pave the way to medical transition, is ethically questionable.

They are the experts here. Hope they are listened to.

No one has yet been clear what they want banned

Douglas Murrays argument comes down to "if it can be done, and some people want it done, then they should have the choice of doing it. " I can't agree with him there. For me there are some things which have such a great potential to harm communities that they should be banned even if some might freely choose them on an individual level.

But this isn't crack cocaine! It can't devastate communities.

If the occasional person chooses to go for gay conversion therapy, the worst that can happen is they end up regretting it, feel bitter at their therapist, feel they were under unfair social pressure and that kind of thing. Now that may be damaging to the individual, but it's not a real threat to society. Society can function just fine with the occasional person regretting their gay conversion therapy. I would say alcohol is far more dangerous to society than that!

But people need to be protected from bad decisions when they may be under social pressure?

That's just not how you treat adults imo. That's how you treat children.

So for anyone that tends to support maximizing individual liberty where it's reasonably possible, I think they would take the side of gay conversion therapy being legal.

Fucking hell, of course sexuality can't, and shouldn't, be changed.

But people can sometimes report their sexuality naturally changing over time. I don't believe it's correct that it can't change at all. Maybe a therapist could make a difference in some situations.

You also say:

"Of course sexuality shouldn't be changed"

And I really don't see the argument for that.

Imagine ideal circumstances where no one is under any pressure from other people, but (somehow) someone just feels a desire to have a different sexuality. Would it be immoral to act on that? (Imagine hypothetically you could just take a pill and switch.)

I can't see why it would be wrong to take such a treatment. I would just say if they are an adult, and they have thought about it, let them do it if they want.

This is the biggest Trojan horse I have seen since I was hanging out with Paris in Troy.

"It must be banned! There has to be a new law against it!"

"What, precisely, are you calling to be banned and what's your evidence that your proposed ban is going to solve the problem?"

"You are a bigot. You hate X people."

This seems to be the prevailing way these discussions go these days. Activists have become allergic to defining anything except that it is the worst thing imaginable. It is dispiriting.

Of course using gender reassignment surgery is super popular in Iran where homosexuality carries a death penalty but clerics accept the "trapped in the body of the opposite sex" narrative. Of course it's not an issue for gay women, since they will be forced into heterosexual relationships anyway but gay men in particular have been forced into gender reassignment surgery. If that isn't conversion therapy I don't know what is.

I am not reporting it because it is useful to stand as a testament to your bigotry. Once again you have utterly failed to appreciate the point of view through you fog of self righteous zealotry.

I think OP means, in this day and age, what gay conversion practices are not already illegal.

I think maybe the "pray the gay away" fundamental religious practices still go on within communities, but they would be illegal anyway if the person being "converted" flagged it up.

It couldn't be classed as "therapy".

The only thing I can think of that comes close is the chemical castration of sex offenders, which has been used in recent history in the UK.
I read (in the Metro so maybe not reliable) that in 2017 an "experimental ‘opt-in’ NHS programme saw some convicted paedophiles being treated this way, showing it still has weight in the medical and criminal world".

They use a prostate cancer drug, that effect the hormone releasing pituitary gland in the brain. This was the same as "organo-therapy" used on Alan Turing to chemically castrate/ remove his sex drive.

The morbid irony is, THEY ARE PUBERTY BLOCKERS. The same drugs we give off license to prepubescent children with gender dysphoria.

With gay conversion therapy, homosexuality, a totally normal sexual orientation shared by a stable minority of the population was treated as a pathology and medicalised.

With trans kids, we are taking perfectly physically normal, healthy kids, and medicalising them, and saying that not medicalising them/ doing nothing/ offering them non drug/non surgery interventions is conversion therapy.

I mean it isn't like the NHS, the government and multiple involved agencies have been endorsing untested, untried experimental anti homosexuality therapies to both groups, just the one that can't consent.

What a ridiculous sentiment - of course it’s necessary.

I actually have so many issues with this article that I'm not sure where to start!

Leaving aside the issue of trans kids for a minute and just taking the LGB bits, as far as I can tell Douglas Murrays argument comes down to "if it can be done, and some people want it done, then they should have the choice of doing it. " I can't agree with him there. For me there are some things which have such a great potential to harm communities that they should be banned even if some might freely choose them on an individual level.

If there's one thing rad fems have taught me it's that the concept of choice is at best loaded, and at worst impossible, when made within a system of uneven power structures. Murrays thinking may be in line with that of libertarians for whom individual choice is paramount even if it harm other members of society and actively support oppressive systems, but I can't buy into that myself. The number of people who would seek conversion therapy out of a feeling of obligation to their families, religious guilt, internalised homophobia etc and be tremendously harmed by it, would almost certainly out weigh those making a truly free and neutral choice.

Murray says that coercive control is already illegal, but he fails to appreciate how hard it would be to prove that this had taken place and also ignores the fact that someone could feel coerced into that choice without the coersion ever coming close to levels deemed criminal (for example just knowing that your parents were upset to have a gay child would be a sufficient motivator for some to seek therapy even if it they didn't really want to). Also, saying "coercive control is already illegal" sounds awfully like "it's already illegal for people to attack you in a toilet". It just doesn't sit right with me. And yes I know that the other reason he raises this is to question what a new law would cover that existing laws wouldn't, but I'll come back to that in another post.

Just as I don't believe that women can make a truly free choice to sell sex in a mysogynistic society where they may be coerced by circumstances like poverty even if they aren't coerced by an actual person, so I don't believe LGB people can make a truly free choice to undergo conversion therapy in a homophobic society where they may be coerced by circumstances such as fears of job discrimination even if they aren't coerced by an actual person. Even if some people did freely choose it, just having the choice available (and presumably the evidence of some people who have been "converted" and are happy about it) would lead to immense pressure on others to at least try it. Just as industries that commodity women such as sex work and surrogacy harm all women even if the individuals who choose it are happy, so conversion therapy harms all LGB people even if the individuals who choose it are happy.

He also says "harmful practices" are already illegal and links this with electro shock therapy in a way that implies it is illegal. It isn't, it's actually a treatment for clinical depression that is referred to by webMD as "safe", "painless", and "harmless". Of course that's because there's a clear and well understood clinical mechanism for its efficacy, but if the bar for permitted conversion therapies is set at "not harmful" then I doubt it would take much for this to be used as evidence that it should be included. My point is that the definition of "harmful" is not static and can be easily changed to suit political agendas. We've seen this with the clinical pathways for children with GD and I absolutely believe that allowing conversion therapy to be promoted as a neutral choice consenting adults should be allowed to make would create a huge incentive to mangle the definition of "harm" even further.

OK, I don't remember the rest of tee article well enough to comment further and I have to get my kids ready for bed, but I'm going to reread it and try to post again because I have additional thoughts on this issue.

I am pretty sure that what is usually thought of in terms of conversion therapy isn't allowed under professional regs for counsellors and psychologists, etc.

If there is a need for a law around it, there should probably be some kind of evidence presented about how often it is happening today, under what circumstances, who are the people involved. You aren't going to have good law without that kind of information.

It remains an open question whether or not a law like this would make any material difference to people's lives, without any data.

And then there are questions of how widely it would or should apply. There is really limited knowledge about gender identity in general, and however uncomfortable it makes people, the scientific understanding of sexuality is still a lot more rudimentary than we might like. So a law that is casting quite a wide net may actually impede further knowledge. We could also ask whether it would apply to people who themselves feel there is some kind of problem with their sexual expression, and whether the law should be telling people what their goals in that area should be.

Is biology an ideology?

Someone call David Attenborough!

Secondly, your assumption here is that teens just walk into a GID clinic and are handed blockers. That's not what happens. At all.

3+ years waiting for first appointment. Several appointments necessary to obtain any form of treatment.

Almost as if this is a non-issue.