Conversion therapy? It must be banned. I should know - Times Article

You are attempting to argue that such a therapy could have been a positive experience after all, if only the journalist had been 'fair'.

I think this is where you have misunderstood what people are saying.

I don’t imagine anyone here thinks the therapist is doing something particularly good

It’s quite possible to criticize the way the “journalist” investigated the topic without thinking that.

I've just read that earlier article. At the end it says that The Times contacted 'Carol', the therapist, who told them:

“I have never held myself out as a provider of, nor do I offer, counselling to any client with the aim to change their sexuality. To the best of my knowledge there are no UK therapists who have ever described themselves as ‘conversion therapists’. The term ‘conversion therapy’ is an imposed term, is misleading and forces an implied definition of ‘conversion’. I took ‘Rachel’ at her word and sought to serve her in a bid to help her come to terms with her true self.” She added that she was very sad to learn that “Rachel” is a journalist.

OK for journalists to be deceptive or withhold things for the sake of a story; but if that then (possibly) messes up the process, and you are later complaining about the therapy process in your story, arguably you aren't in a position to give fair criticism

Except the journalist did hide that from the therapist - and then moaned about how the "therapy" made her feel....She went in undercover and misled the therapist about her intentions while making much of the fact that she didn't like the experience

Can you two actually hear what you are arguing for here?

This was an article about how it feels to be told there is something inherently wrong with a core part of you. Its the same as going to a racist counsellor who confirms to you that yes, there is something wrong because you are black. Or a misogynist counsellor who tells you, yes you are inferior because you are a woman.

The article was about how it feels, to be in that sort of therapy that tells you there is something wrong with an inherent (and unalterable) part of you, a part of you that a prejudiced culture is telling you is wrong and bad.

You are attempting to argue that such a therapy could have been a positive experience after all, if only the journalist had been 'fair'.

That if only the journalist had revealed more of her traumatic past to such a person, there was a possibility that the therapy might have been helpful after all! What are you thinking here? That maybe, the counsellor could have convinced her that her abuse had made her a lesbian and now she could be cured of that bad lesbianism. Hoorah! And then we could have all seen that converting lesbians to being straight can be a great thing after all and the article was fair??

There is no sense in this case you are making.

We have to argue with integrity. Knee jerk reactions where on tries to demolish everything someone says, simply because of the box we have put them in, not only makes us no better than TRAs, but means we have lost our integrity.

Should your worldview be imposed on everyone else, when we are talking about consenting adults doing some "therapy" you disapprove of?

Those adults are not equal. One of them is vulnerable because of internalised homophobia. The other is exploiting that to push their ideology onto them.

That should not be allowed, no.

Just as therapists should not be pushing their gender identity beliefs onto those presenting with apparent symptoms of gender dysphoria.

@PorcelinaV

I absolutely don't agree with this open market place of all ideas and practices and adults can do what they like.

No I don't.

That's why I don't think its okay to purchase access to women's bodies for money.

I don't think its okay to surgically remove women's breasts, or iron them flat, if sexism has caused them to reject their femininity, or to feel safer if they don't look feminine.

I don't think its ok to perform nullification surgery on a man.

And I don't think its okay to offer a 'therapeutic' service to agree with clients that being same sex attraction is a manifestation of something that is wrong with them, when that belief is rooted in homophobic beliefs.

All of these things are exploiting someone's vulnerability rather than enabling them to withstand the forces oppressing them.

They are all the opposite of what feminism should be.

@aarghnotmeagain

Sexual orientation is part of normal human (arguably mammalian) variation. It only causes distress if the culture the gay/lesbian person lives in is homophobic. Same as the social experience of being a female only causes distress if there is sexism, and being black only causes distress if you live in a society where there is racism targeted at your race. Sexual orientation does not inherently cause distress, only the culture the individual lives in. That is why attempts to 'cure' homosexuality are inherently homophobic.

This is a reasonable perspective, but why force it on the whole of society?

Against a Christian, you would be begging the question that there can't be a spiritual reality, and the spiritual reality can't be in conflict with the natural order in certain ways.

Should your worldview be imposed on everyone else, when we are talking about consenting adults doing some "therapy" you disapprove of?

Obviously we can't allow just anything in the name of religion; but I think we shouldn't be treating adults like children.

@aarghnotmeagain

Firstly, its a bit of a non-starter as the journalist clearly and openly went in there to get material for an article, not to actually receive therapy. She does not hide it. So no wonder she did not talk about very personal matters like sexual trauma. That's perfectly legitimate.

I'm not sure in this situation.

Of course it's sometimes OK for journalists to be deceptive or withhold things for the sake of a story; but if that then (possibly) messes up the process, and you are later complaining about the therapy process in your story, arguably you aren't in a position to give fair criticism.

Perhaps you could say that such and such criticisms don't depend on her genuinely taking part in the therapy.

It does say at the start of the article that she did this in 2021, it’s cheap on the Guardian’s part but it doesn’t really change anything about it, does it?

Hold on, have they trotted out almost the same article from 2021?

x.com/transgendertrd/status/1753068176706052498?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Except the journalist did hide that from the therapist - and then moaned about how the "therapy" made her feel. An honest approach would have been to interview her. She went in undercover and misled the therapist about her intentions while making much of the fact that she didn't like the experience.

Of course feminists should analyse journalism. Imho especially when a journalist attempts to conflate LGBT as one coherent group and then writes a disjointed article that presents her "experiences" as a rationale for why "conversion therapy" is wrong, ignoring all the recent in depth debates as to why this is more complex than it at first appears for different groups.
.
I'm not defending the therapist or her practices - they appear unimpressive. I just think that the "journalism" was rather uninformed and failed to accurately represent the issues and that's a perfectly legitimate position.

How you get to "But if the arguments people are presenting here are the best you have, then you have no case at all" I'm not sure?

@NecessaryScene

Okay, so the evidence is that the counsellor probably can't provide the service being asked for, but this is something for trading standards at most, surely?

I would say just require that people are given a warning about the lack of evidence. If adults then choose to try anyway, that's up to them.

There is lots of questionable stuff in religion, like handling poisonous snakes. I doubt it's a good idea; it's clearly dangerous, but I'm not going to tell consenting adults that they can't do it.

Genuine wow at this post on a feminist board.

Firstly I completely reject your equivalence between sexual orientation and gender dysphoria.

Sexual orientation is part of normal human (arguably mammalian) variation. It only causes distress if the culture the gay/lesbian person lives in is homophobic. Same as the social experience of being a female only causes distress if there is sexism, and being black only causes distress if you live in a society where there is racism targeted at your race. Sexual orientation does not inherently cause distress, only the culture the individual lives in. That is why attempts to 'cure' homosexuality are inherently homophobic.

Gender/ sex dysphoria is a condition that always causes distress because of the condition. There are many different potential causes of GD, as outlined in the Cass report, and as used to be accepted. People can find their gender dysphoria resolves naturally, or they can find ways to manage it without transitioning, perhaps with therapy. It is a condition, like other mental health conditions, that may be resolved or managed with support or therapy ( or just puberty if you are a child with GD). Furthermore, due to the 'marketing' around GD, there is good reason to believe that children who do not have GD are self diagnosing and progressing down inappropriate health care paths. All of these factors need to explored.
A conversion therapy ban assumes, that GD is not GD but is rather an innate, born state of Gender Identity being that must be affirmed and supported with transition. In other words, this legislation is based on an ideological rather than an evidence based understanding of why people express feelings of GD. And it will lead to the cause and management of GD not being fully or appropriately explored.

Bad faith was perhaps not the right word.

Reprehensible may be better.

This therapy is bad faith. It starts with the premise that being gay or lesbian is a sinful aberration, and that there is a reason for that to have happened, and if you can deal with that you can ungay people.

But what's actually the problem here that merits a "ban"?

"I want to become straight." "I can help you with that with some talking therapy."

Okay, so the evidence is that the counsellor probably can't provide the service being asked for, but this is something for trading standards at most, surely?

It's on a par with homeopathy or astrology. Do we ban everything nonsensical or ineffectual? If you want to lobby for not spending public money on it, I'm with you, but trying to go around prosecuting people who waste clients money while providing what they ask for is rather illiberal.

And it's clearly far less bad than

"I want to become a man." "Okay, I can give you testosterone injections and chop your breasts off, and maybe later we'll remove part of your arm."

That's not being ineffectual - that's actually doing permanent physical damage with no benefit.

If you are going to ban attempts at sexual orientation change through talking therapy while not banning attempts at sex change through physical operations then your ethical framework seems to be incoherent.

If you're going to fling around words like "abhorrent" for the idea that there can be something wrong with your sexuality, then why aren't you applying it to the idea that there can be something wrong with your sex?

This therapy is bad faith. It starts with the premise that being gay or lesbian is a sinful aberration, and that there is a reason for that to have happened, and if you can deal with that you can ungay people.

I have read quite a bit of Christian literature by Christians who think you can 'ungay' people and this counsellor comes out with all the classic lines and arguments that these particular Christians do.

Well yes, but the website the journalist mentions (Core Issues Trust) is very upfront about who they are and what they do. This is from their home page:

We support those leaving LGBT identities, behaviours, attractions and life choices.

We campaign for the freedom to access pastoral care, counselling and therapeutic choice, now under threat, internationally, by ‘conversion therapy’ bans. Its trustees and projects are advised by a range of like-minded individuals from Anglican, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Reformed traditions.

I don't like what they do but they can hardly be accused of 'bad faith'. They have a genuine belief that homosexuality is wrong and can be 'cured' and they do exactly what it says on the tin.

I admit I am somewhat disturbed by some of the responses on this thread, on a feminist page, arguing against the journalist as she went in 'in bad faith' and seeming to argue that she did not give the therapy a chance.

Firstly, its a bit of a non-starter as the journalist clearly and openly went in there to get material for an article, not to actually receive therapy. She does not hide it. So no wonder she did not talk about very personal matters like sexual trauma. That's perfectly legitimate.

This therapy is bad faith. It starts with the premise that being gay or lesbian is a sinful aberration, and that there is a reason for that to have happened, and if you can deal with that you can ungay people.

I have read quite a bit of Christian literature by Christians who think you can 'ungay' people and this counsellor comes out with all the classic lines and arguments that these particular Christians do.

We can surely mount arguments against the bad arguments for including gender identity in the conversion therapy bill, without having to resort to apparently defending such abhorrent practices of the counsellor in this article. I know we can.

But if the arguments people are presenting here are the best you have, then you have no case at all.

"I asked Carol at the end of our first appointment if she thought I could become straight. She told me that, yes, she had faith it could happen. “There’s not a plan of where it has to go, but if that was something you wanted to explore the possibility of I would be open to that. Are you open to that?” I said that I was."

So she asked the therapist whether she could be converted, and when the therapist checked that was really what she wanted, she agreed.

Surely that's affirming? Just swap out 'straight' for 'trans'.

Not only did the “journalist” go in with bad faith, she didn’t even allow the therapist to explore the sexual abuse she had experienced and whether that might have contributed to her sexuality. It’s not impossible that trauma might play a part in who we find attractive in some cases. She lied, thus rendering the whole process pointless.

If she actually wanted to explore her sexuality and the therapist was indeed open to the end result being that the patient concluded they wanted to continue in same sex relationships (she apparently said this) then what we are being told is the story of someone going into an encounter with a completely set mind over the outcome, who was looking to find fault.

It’s not journalism. A real journalist would have gone in, perhaps with an idea, but also with an open mind. This was simply an exercise in anti-conversion therapy activism. The fact that she found it so unsettling suggests she does still have some underlying problems that she is unwilling to address. Maybe dredging it up really wouldn’t be helpful, but the whole “experiment” was a pointless waste of everyone’s time.

The ‘journalist’ was acting in bad faith, though, by her own admission

Quite. And why is it labelled "first person"? It isn't. She pretended to be in need of counselling. She even characterises what she did as going undercover. It's misleading. I wonder if this is worthy of a complaint to the regulator, in fact.

So many posters saying clearly what I was fumbling towards. Thanks.

Just a thought... Abusive and coercive practices aside, I wonder if you could successfully prosecute someone for trans conversion therapy just because it wasn't affirmation-only.
A therapist questioning whether you really are homosexual, or encouraging you to find routes to dealing with the supposed trauma which turned you homosexual, processing it and thus achieving heterosexuality is attempting to change your sexual orientation (with/without your consent). But I'm not sure that a person who claims an opposite sex gender identity is necessarily being challenged to change that through talking therapy. They (I assume, pure conjecture as I have no idea what happens in non-affirmation talking therapy sessions) might be invited to accept their sex, to find out if there are other reasons for feeling that it's wrong. On the surface, that last part sounds similar to gay conversion therapy, but the person claiming a trans identity doesn't have to renounce it for the therapy to be successful. I'm thinking here of some old school transsexuals and some younger people who would call themselves "trans". They accept their sex has not changed, that many others will not see them as the sex they would like to be - all the while still retaining the feeling of being different to others of their sex. The aim of talking therapy is to help the patient live with their feelings and not do unnecessary harm to themselves.

That counsellor will have been a Christian counsellor, and probably an evangelical (see her comment about her 'faith' the client could become straight). There is a huge problem with homophobia in many evangelical churches, which I have mainly seen manifest in gay and lesbian people being pressured into life long celibacy or straight marriages. Its truly disgusting.

Of course, we also know that there is problem with religious people, communities and countries who are homophobic, preferring people to 'transition' so they can appear straight, thus removing the stigma/sin of being gay.

The thing is, if someone says they are gay, there is no harm from them being gay or lesbian. Even in the unlikely event, though I have known it happen, of them later changing their mind. You can change your mind on being gay or lesbain and no harm has occurred at all. If someone says they are trans and wants to medically transition, they are going to become a life long medical patient and have life long consequences. Which is why we need to be sure that person is making the right decision. Especially as we know feelings of GD can be caused by things other than a life long condition of GD. We know if can be caused by trauma and it can be caused by being same sex attracted, and in that case, normally resolves through puberty. We also know that some people prefer to manage their feelings of GD whilst living fully in their actual sex ( so without any transition).

Trans conversion has been lumped in with gay conversion for political purposes, and probably has been argued for by campaigners both as part of their agenda to equate being trans with being gay and to make their affirmation only model predominant, by crushing 'the opposition' ( as they must see it) with fear of prosecution.

Is there even any evidence of counsellors trying to 'convert' people out of being trans? Does this even exist?

The ‘journalist’ was acting in bad faith, though, by her own admission. She wasn’t unhappy with her sexuality, and she did not want to change her orientation. She lied about her experience of sexual abuse when asked, she could have said that she did not want to reply rather than tell a lie.

I don’t see how she can ‘judge’ the service offered at all, since she was not actually participating in it. She doesn’t seem to have been able to register any evidence of unpleasantness or accusation on the part of the therapist, who seems to have been just rather ineffectual. (Although it is hard to judge when the ‘patient’ is actually a stalking horse).

I agree that the whole business of unlicensed and unqualified therapists is a very dangerous area, I know from personal experience ( at second hand) that they can provide misleading and even harmful ‘advice’. What can be done though when so many people want to outsource their problems, I suspect that if ‘banned’ it would pop up again in some different guise.

I must make it clear that I don’t think that gay people should feel any societal pressure to change their orientation, although if someone really wanted to for reasons of their own, should they be prevented from that exploration? Anyway, we all know this is nothing to do with gay people, it is just another attempt by the TRA to capitalise on the widespread acceptance of homosexuality. ( which I supported long before it was popular ).

Things I took from this article: Talking about your relationship with your parents may be a red flag for possible conversion therapy "a method used by most so-called conversion therapists" (it's actually pretty standard in psychotherapeutic formulation to explore this)

That understanding current conflicts or difficulties in the context of previous experience including trauma is also a sign of conversion therapy "The counsellor's mission is to find the 'wound' or the trauma - a 'weak' father figure for example, or sexual trauma" - again, also pretty standard to seek to understand current difficulties in light of previous experience, especially but not only in psychodynamic therapy.

That the writer specifically asked on the first meeting if she could become straight and indicated she wanted to explore this - essentially a fishing exercise.
Whilst it does sound that the therapist had a view that being straight was preferable, what we don't know if that's because the journalist wanted this or because the therapist did, or both. The judgement / holding of a position that being LGB is wrong doesn't strike me as compatible with an exploratory approach. But should this be a matter for criminal courts or for training / supervision /complaint systems /regulatory bodies

Other questions I have - if someone is unhappy with their sexuality, is it ever ok to consider the question whether experience may have shaped it?

Should this therapist be in the dock over this encounter, or should therapists be better regulated, as tipulophobia suggests.

What effect would it have on the practice of psychotherapy as a whole if this therapist ended up convicted of conversion therapy?

Difference is virid,

1. I can read that Wikipedia article myself, whereas the OP gave me access to something I can't read freely, and

2. The OP's article is new and on topic for the forum and there's a high chance many here will want to read it once made aware. If this were an AA Milne board and that were a brand new Wikipedia article, it might make sense to post it with "Won't have time to read till this evening but this might interest some".