Government to ban LGB conversion therapy but not T.

[BowtieBling]

Aibu to think this sounds right?
My understanding, which despite me reading a lot of the media around this today could be all wrong.
I take it to be that actions such as 'praying away the gay' and other harmful abhorrent practices are to be legally banned but the government are holding off on this being LGBT conversion therapy just now.

My understanding is that when it comes to Trans they are holding off.
Does that mean that talking therapy for those questioning their gender remains an accepted practice?
Would talking therapy come under conversion therapy?
Surely considering changing gender, facing operations, taking medication in order to change gender is helpful in the same way that therapy for other body dysmorphia exists and is accepted/encouraged for example in the case of eating disorders?

I have enabled voting

YANBU - Of course LGB conversion should be banned. The T needs more careful consideration.

YABU - Conversion therapy should be banned for all under the LGBT umbrella

When I saw the headline I thought they were holding off on banning any conversion therapy including LGB. But if it's just the T they're holding off on then I think that's very good news. We know without a shadow of a doubt that conversion therapy for the LGB community is very damaging and doesn't work. When it comes to the T things are a lot more complicated, particularly with the number of autistic children that come to feel they are T and the number of young girls and old men that think they are T ( in contrast to the numbers of young men and older women).

I think the term 'conversion therapy' is very damaging though. It suggests that you're trying to change a person into someone they're not. I think 'gender exploration therapy' or something along those lines would be better. Gender has become a very dangerous and toxic concept IMO, where people who don't fit into the terrible male/female stereotypes think there must be something wrong with them and as a result, that they must be non binary (which is meaningless) or trans (which can have very serious long term implications). Gender is a social construct ie made up by people, it should not be something we're all so concerned about just because we don't fit into the stereotypes.

No, talk therapy with a qualified therapist is not covered under conversion therapy and is vital for anyone questioning, or considering, transitioning. So again, it is not considered conversion therapy.

Talk therapy is also very useful for those who struggle with any aspect of their lives.

You are confusing two very, very different things.

The proposed law was an absolute dog's dinner, and would have resulted in therapists being too scared to explore gender with clients at all, or even under threat of being struck off for doing anything other than 100% agreeing that the client is trans. Therapy should help clients question, explore, and reach their own best answers, the proposed ban would have squashed that for gender questioning young people.

LGB conversion therapy is of course wrong (and I think from memory was found to be very rare in this country?) but mandating therapists to just affirm gender would have been wrong too.

The articles I've read mention talking therapies as being conversion therapy @AuntieMorag
So I wouldn't be the only one confused.
It's one of the reasons I'm asking the question.

What is considered conversion therapy towards the trans community?
Difficult to know if you support the stance or not if the therapy being discussed isn't clear

The impression I got was that talking therapy would also be banned, which sounds dangerous considering the 4000% increase in young girls being referred to the gender identity clinics.

If someone has evidence to show I'm wrong I'd love to see it, as I have seen talking therapy included in the ban.

Sounds a very sensible move.

@AuntieMorag

No, talk therapy with a qualified therapist is not covered under conversion therapy and is vital for anyone questioning, or considering, transitioning. So again, it is not considered conversion therapy.

Talk therapy is also very useful for those who struggle with any aspect of their lives.

You are confusing two very, very different things.

But people, especially children, will want to and should have the right to discuss gender issues with other adults not just qualified therapists - their parents and other adult relations, their teachers, other adults they might come into regular contact with.

Example: girl, a bit of tomboy, plays football and whose right-on mates at school are trying to 'affirm' her into thinking she's a boy because she also does not like pink, sparkles, etc. She might raise it with her tomboyish woman football coach. Who might say, 'Slow down, perhaps you're going to be a woman who likes football, perhaps you might work out that you're a lesbian, perhaps not. No rush. Girls can like football. Don't let people tell you what you are.' A reasonable reaction and the kind of menroing conversation many adults might have with a young person.

But with threat of non-professionals being prosecuted - what would the woman coach say: 'I can't talk about that with you.' Teen reaches out and is pushed away, into the arms of the no-debate mates who without even fully realise what they are doing are potentially transing away the gay.

Bad enough to push the kid away if you're a football coach or teacher - but if you're the kid's parent of elder sibling or aunt??

Awful law, badly thought through. And problems caused by lumping the T with the LGB - sex and sexuality are not the same, they need different laws, different protections, different discussions. They need to be treated seriously not as 'identities to worn on a lanyard or pro-nouned at the end of an email.

*mentoring conversation - para 2 typo

I did read the proposed legislation. I also work with therapists, including CAMHS therapists, who have such conversations with their clients. All were appalled that the legislation was being shelved, and now also appalled that it's been un-shelved, but removing the Trans parts.

Again there is a big difference between conversations between someone with questions, and conversion therapy. Having a conversation, whether a therapist or friend or relative, that explores all the options, is NOT conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is 'therapy' that CURES you of your desires, and as such, would not include any form of looking at all options. It's basis is that LGBT is wrong, an illness, and thus can be cured and the desires removed. There's no open conversation. If a therapist stated that the person questioning their gender was wrong with no discussion, and suggested they could cure of them of these feelings, then THAT would be conversion therapy. And frankly, any therapist that does that deserves to be struck off anyway.

OK @ChristinaXYZ so talking withing a trusted adult is classed as conversion therapy but talking with a therapist isn't?

If you've fully read and understand the proposed legislation, I haven't as yet only the news articles @AuntieMorag is it right that a student exploring these issues with a teacher may lead to the Teacher being at risk of disciplinary?

I think it's right that there should be a disctinction between the LGB and the T.

When my son was at school, several of the boys in his form announced that they were gay, or bi. None is so now. And so what? They tried a little exploration , with no consequences.

With my daughter's cohort, the flirtation is with gender. A significant number are clamouring for binders, puberty-blockers, and 'top surgery'.

If they follow the boys' path, some if not all will change their minds later. But will they have damaged their bodies irretrievably in the mean time?

The trans-rights lobby have tried to push their insidious laws through by hitching their wagon to the LBG movement. Thank fuck it hasn't worked on this occasion.

Transitioning is seen by many as a form of gay conversion therapy. Countries with strict homophobic laws have high numbers of trans individuals. GIDS's own documents suggest many of the patients' parents are homophobic.

@BowtieBling

No, no where does it say that someone exploring these issues with someone such as a teacher may lead to the teacher being sacked under conversion therapy legislation, and it's not even hinted at.
What is, and isn't, conversion therapy was quite clearly laid out. Someone who is a teacher COULD be prosecuted if they were providing conversion therapy, but a discussion on feelings and options is not conversion therapy. Using the situation laid out above about a 'tom boy' girl who likes football, the teacher would say that it doesn't mean they are trans, and that many people feel many different things. If the child wanted more information, it would be sensible of the teacher to suggest seeing a therapist to discuss it further and get more information.
IF the teacher said "no you cannot be trans, trans isn't real, you just need to x, y and z and these feelings will go away", they, frankly, should be sacked

What is, and isn't, conversion therapy was quite clearly laid out

I don't think it was clearly laid out though, especially for trans people, and that was the major problem.

Counselling absolutely should be required before people are allowed to do irreversible things that can cause future issues, like hormone therapy or surgery.

If someone thinks they’re gay, has sex with someone of the same sex, decides actually they’re straight, that’s fine, there’s no lasting repercussions of changing their mind. If someone thinks they’re trans, starts to physically transition, decides actually they’re not trans, while they can stop taking hormones, the damage to their body and fertility may already be done.

@AuntieMorag

I did read the proposed legislation. I also work with therapists, including CAMHS therapists, who have such conversations with their clients. All were appalled that the legislation was being shelved, and now also appalled that it's been un-shelved, but removing the Trans parts.

Again there is a big difference between conversations between someone with questions, and conversion therapy. Having a conversation, whether a therapist or friend or relative, that explores all the options, is NOT conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is 'therapy' that CURES you of your desires, and as such, would not include any form of looking at all options. It's basis is that LGBT is wrong, an illness, and thus can be cured and the desires removed. There's no open conversation. If a therapist stated that the person questioning their gender was wrong with no discussion, and suggested they could cure of them of these feelings, then THAT would be conversion therapy. And frankly, any therapist that does that deserves to be struck off anyway.

I have also read the proposed legislation and completely agree with everything here.

The problem is the no debate culture. The trusted adult would feel afraid that any advice would be misconstrued and therefore would back off. We have many cases of vexation reporting of people to their employers, professional bodies, and even the police. Even if found to have done nothing wrong the process is the punishment and parents and other concerned adults would have been penalised (by the process at the very least).

Again, it is the lumping of LGB and T together. Banning conversion therapy for the LGB is a no-brainer. It is not something that that is something that comes with possible de-transitioner regret nor something that is potentially permanent and irreversible or causing life long medical needs. Being homosexual does not require medical intervention.

Kids and young adults need to talk about their gender issues. There must be no doubt in adults' minds that they can talk to kids about it. The bill would have sown serious doubt.

It is that - process is the punishment and possibility (probability) of vexatious claims - that teachers will run a mile from. It does not matter @AuntieMorag what the fine print says - it is the fear caused by this bill hitting the no debate mob. And teachers are not going to read the fine print - most teachers are only in a teaching union because they know they're only one misconstrued comment (on anything - religion, politics, even educational things) away from a career ending newspaper headline.

The T part of this bill would have a tremendous chilling effect and anyone who thinks otherwise is naïve.

It seems to me there is too big a difference between trans and LGB for it ever to be practical to have a 'one size fits all' approach. I am glad to see this split.

Why? ...

To be gay is just to feel attracted to people of the same sex. And to feel attracted is to be attracted. So if I feel I am gay, I must be gay. It would be invidious, then, to think of asking someone a child, say, who sincerely feels she is gay whether she is really gay. The question cannot arise because to feel attracted is to be attracted, so to think one is gay is just to be gay.

It is different with trans, as detransitioners illustrate. If I feel I am trans, it might be that I am trans ... but I might be making a mistake. (Keira Bell, for those of you who know the case, illustrates this possibility with utmost clarity -- someone who wrongly thought she was trans and regretted the choices made following this mistake about herself.)

So, particularly for children, it is really important to understand that feeling one is trans is not the same as being trans (unlike, to reiterate, the way in which feeling one is gay is, precisely and exactly, the same as being gay).

It follows from this that there needs to be caution, in particular, about children. Asking questions and discussing feelings around the subject and veracity of a child's self-description as 'trans' will always be called for and is to be encouraged, in a way that discussing the veracity of a child's self-description as 'gay' would be out of the question (and, in the extreme, to be banned as a 'conversion practice').

Of course a lot of people trans people included have not understood this, which is one of the reasons the 'T' got to be linked with 'LGB' in the first place. People say things like, 'Take me as I am' ... 'Surely I know my own identity' and so on. Some things, indeed, we know for sure about ourselves; however some things we think we know about ourselves and this is particularly true of children turn out to be mistaken.

There definitely is a difference between a self-description as gay, which must be true, and a self-description as trans, which might not be true.

[To see this distinction with the heat taken out, so to speak, think of someone self-describing as 'hungry', and compare with someone self-describing as 'wonderful': 'I am hungry' must be true if said sincerely (because, again, to feel one is hungry is to be hungry). However, 'I am wonderful' may not be true, however sincerely claimed, because to feel one is wonderful is not necessarily to be wonderful. In this respect, 'gay' is like 'hungry', but 'trans' is like 'wonderful'.]

In short, then, T is sufficiently unlike LGB as to require a distinction about 'conversion' practices.

[Oh, and just for the record. There is nothing transphobic about this. None of this derogates in any way from the rights trans people have to live their best and fullest lives however they see fit, which I support to the fullest extent possible. (Thought I better say that, just in case!)]

Spot on @wasibat spot on!

I dont understand what practices the law is meant to be stopping. If a heterosexual person, say married with kids, suddenly developed feelings towards someone of the same sex they might want to see a counsellor to talk it through and decide what to do next. Would the counsellor have to affirm the person and say yes you are definitely gay? Would it be conversion therapy if they suggested that there could be another cause (stress of work, manic episode?).

@ChristinaXYZ

Spot on *@wasibat* spot on!

Thanks ChristinaXYZ. Much appreciated.

@AuntieMorag

No, talk therapy with a qualified therapist is not covered under conversion therapy and is vital for anyone questioning, or considering, transitioning. So again, it is not considered conversion therapy.

Talk therapy is also very useful for those who struggle with any aspect of their lives.

You are confusing two very, very different things.

This. But according to Mumsnet trans people shouldn't get any legal or social protection because they don't exist 🙄🙄🙄

I think this is good decision and pleased that the bill has been changed - at the moment there appears to be few breaks applied in preventing young people and vulnerable people changing sex.