Conversion therapy ban discussion in the House of Commons

If a person is gay, that's between them and their sexual partner(s). It's a private matter. It harms nobody. Society has prejudices, but a person's sexual orientation isn't really society's business. The only safeguarding issues relating to not being conventionally heterosexual arise through prejudices.

If a person claims a trans identity, it suddenly becomes everybody's business because it depends upon everybody pretending that something patently untrue is true. It becomes everybody's business because safeguarding the vulnerable is everybody's responsibility. Vulnerable people who will be physically harmed by inappropriate drugs and surgery. Vulnerable people who will be emotionally harmed by lies and gaslighting - I count as vulnerable both trans people and the ordinary people occupying the spaces that trans people want to colonise.

The incoherency of conflating gay and trans in the same conversion therapy ban is made even worse when you consider that a large proportion of 'trans' youths are gay, but are struggling with self-acceptance - ie have internalised societal prejudices. In these cases, 'gender-affirming therapy' is gay conversion therapy!

WhatterySquash · Today 13:34

How very well put, I agree entirely that if you're gay, you just get on with life, no drugs or surgery required. If you think you're trans, it's very different indeed and it needs to be explored verbally; that doesn't mean someone repeating "You're not trans, snap out of it," of course.

I have met lots of young trans-identifying people and the thing they have in common is vulnerability. Therapy works best when there is a good relationship between client and therapist which needs to be build on trust and truth. Gagging the therapist is going to make it harder to achieve that.

And therapy is also often about gently challenging the person's assumptions that they have about themselves or life generally (particularly if the client is young). I think that there will be quite a few therapists who would say they cannot work with trans-identifying young people (especially) if they are worried about the 'conversion ban'. Could you suggest something they hadn't thought of? Would that be construed as encouragement to 'convert' (to being what they already are and always will be!)?

I couldn't agree more, WhatterySquash. I hope that someone can put this to the politicians as well as you have explained it.

I can't see how anyone is still so dim as to accept the idea that being gay (or bi) belongs in the same category as being, or thinking you are trans, especially for minors.

Aside from the qualitative differences, like the fact that being trans can't be defined or proved whereas being gay is an external reality related to who you want to be with romantically/sexually - the consequences of blind affirmation of a trans identity in a minor are absolutely huge, orreversible and potentially massively harmful.

A young person says they're gay, so what? Of course they shouldn't be pressured to not be gay/subject to "conversion therapy", that should not be allowed – but being gay isn't something that requires them to make any decisions. Maybe it's a phase, or influenced by wanting to be cool or piss off their parents (like some temporarily gay people I knew in the 80s), maybe not. It doesn't matter because they can change their minds at any point - as straight people can and do too. You can just say "Oh, thanks for telling me, I love you whatever, but remember you're young and there's no pressure to decide this right now."

Saying you're trans is totally different because it comes with medical interventions and decisions that absolutley should be subject to a process of questioning, making sure that is the best thing for that person, and checking for other factors that could have made them feel that way, such as sexual abuse, to make sure they don't make a trult awful and irreversible mistake.

That's the important difference. Aside from the fact that gender ideology is based on zero evidence, illogical, sexist and regressive, no one should be entering into that treatment like that without a significant process of checks and MH support, and especially not as a minor. Of COURSE that should result in some of them changing their minds, as the stats show over 80% change their minds anyway if left alone.

That is not "conversion therapy".