Terrible Bill against gender identity "conversion therapy" proposed in Ireland.

[NotAWhacktivist]

Fintan Warfield of Sinn Féin is proposing a bill. It sounds innocuous to anyone who doesn't understand what this means in terms of transgenderism. These are some of his tweets (I have read the bill and it is very badly written, but some version of it might get through in the end)

"Today, I have launched legislation which aims to prohibit conversion therapy, as a deceptive and harmful act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression."

"A special thank you to the National LGBT Federation @nxfie for their support for this bill. We will be submitting it to the Bills Office in Leinster House next week. 21 senators from across parties and none have co-signed the legislation to date."

twitter.com/fintanwarfield/status/973883960349650945

A copy of the bill can be read here (it is very short and easy to read) www.sinnfein.ie/files/2018/Prohibition_of_Conversion_Therapies_Bill_2018.pdf

There is a good chance this would force professionals to go down the gender affirmation route, and not explore possible reasons for dysphoria. This is a quote from the act:

"In this Act:
“conversion therapy”,
(a) means any practice or treatment by any person that seeks to change, supress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression; and"

'"“gender identity” refers to each person’s internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance and, or functions by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including name, dress, speech and mannerisms;'

Conversion therapy sounds horrific to me.

Unfortunately most people will adopt the same knee jerk, feel good response, devoid of critical thinking or understanding what is meant by this term in the context of transgenderism.

What is meant by "gay conversion therapy" and conversion therapy for transgender people is not at all the same thing, at all, which if anyone took time to educate themselves they would understand (but most people don't do this).

Ironically, Transgenderism could be seen as an extreme form of gay conversion therapy.

What is likely to happen in this context is that professionals either won't deal with transgender children at all, or they will feel forced not to question the child's assertion that they are the opposite sex to what they are. Lunacy.

Just a tip, if you want people to come round to your point of view, I'd try dialling down the condescending tone by about 80%.

I think I understand you op.
Does this mean (in simple dumbed down terms because I don't have book learning) that in Ireland under these terms, my son could see his gp and say he feels like a girl and instead of the gp looking into the cause of my sons feelings of self loathing he would pretty much be told ok you're a girl and on to the hormones etc?

Fiantan just tweeted this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

twitter.com/fintanwarfield/status/976777392697028608

This is why Trump got elected in America.
The Micheal Woolf book sets out the steps they are taking to unravel this legalisation. The final piece in the jigsaw is removing a democrat from the Supreme Court so that it can be taken apart.
Once you realise this you realise you have been finagled by the left.
I'm a lefty saying this.

finagle
fɪˈneɪɡ(ə)l
verb US informal
obtain by dishonest or devious means.
"Ted attended all the football games he could finagle tickets for"
act in a dishonest or devious manner.
"they wrangled and finagled over the fine points"

Yes. The language used sounds nice and fluffy, and most people will have no idea of how such a law will be put in practice, in terms of dealing with children who are questioning the body they are born into.

Basically under this schema, creating patients-for-life and chemical castration = good

Therapy exploring reasons for gender dysphoria (other than accepting the sexed soul/brain argument) and trying to help a child become happy with their biological sex = bad.

The vast majority of gender dyphoric children will become happy with their natal (birth) sex if allowed to go through the puberty of the sex they were born into. This seems to me like it should be the preferred option, under the "first do no harm" principle.

Now I know there will be some terrible professionals out there who might decide to force the child into sex-stereotyped roles, as a way of getting them to stop saying they are of the opposite sex (ironically possibly pushing the child more to want to be the other sex, as they think they need to change sex to get to do "girl" or "boy" things). Any "treatment" like this ought to be stopped, but I don't think this bill is the way to deal with it, and the description of conversion therapy is too vague and looks to me like it would be applied to anyone who doesn't accept the child story that they were born into the wrong sex.

Funnily enough I was watching some videos on You Tube yesterday that was touching on the issue of trans identified children. This is good from peachy yougurt (I will look for the other videos again, they were talking more about therapy)

I forgot to mention that this bill threatens people with a prison term, even if they are not the one doing the therapy but merely refer someone for "conversion therapy". Does this mean people are going to be held responsible for what another professional does?

Interpretation
1. In this Act:
“conversion therapy”,
(a) means any practice or treatment by any person that seeks to change, supress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression;
...
“gender expression” refers to each person’s manifestation of their gender identity, and/or the one that is perceived by others;

2. (1) It shall be unlawful -
(a) For any person to:
(i) Perform or offer to perform conversion therapy on a person

Imagine the situation of the legal battle between the parents where Mermaids intervened. The father in that case would need to think very carefully about dressing the boy in boy's clothes because, following the wording, he would be changing the boy's gender expression and so could be found to be carrying out conversion therapy and as such could be breaking the law.

Perhaps there should be a carve-out for parents. But with such a broad brush approach there'll be other circumstances where this could cause chaos.

Yes the law as it is is far too vague. I am hoping some civil servants will see sense and scupper it, but some version of this law could still get through.

I was writing to politicians about the Gender Equality Act Review (there is no medical gate-keeping for getting your legal sex changed here. Some people want this extended to under 16's and to introduce a category of non-binary). The panel set to review the law is totally biased in favour of transactivist. The chairperson is a transactivist (by her own description). There are 4 transactivists/ideologists on the panel, and no one from the gender critical perspective. Not even a pretence at balance.

I decided to add a comment about this newly proposed law by Fintan as I was writing to them anyway.

Anyone who lives here, if you could write to them about this law it would be great. Contact details of TD's and Senators are here www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/contact/

I am going to post some links about children and transgenderism now in case people want some ideas of what to raise.

My main worry is that it is so vague that anyone who wants to explore the child's issues and that reject immediate affirmation could be prosecuted.

A few articles on this subject:

Schools rushing ‘on whisper’ to label pupils as transgender

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/schools-rushing-on-whisper-to-label-pupils-as-transgender-0d8zm53qs

"A psychologist at the only NHS gender clinic for children in England says some may be making choices they could regret.

Children as young as 11 are being offered medical treatments that could leave some infertile, according to a psychologist at the only NHS clinic in England and Wales for children seeking to change their gender."

-------------------

The Transgender Experiment on Kids

“We also know that hormone treatments affect bone mass density and result in life-long sterility, but there is no research on other long-term effects on health
.
In fact, no ‘gender specialist’ can tell you the long-term consequences of these radical treatments on children’s healthy bodies, because nobody knows. By setting children off on a path of sterilisation and medicalisation for life we are performing nothing less than an unprecedented and mind-boggling experiment using the children of this generation as the guinea pigs.”

stephaniedaviesarai.com/the-transgender-experiment-on-kids/
----------------
CBC's decision against airing Transgender Kids doc should leave everyone unsettled

Ideology is now taking precedence over science

But first, some background: in December of 2015, Zucker was fired from his position at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), where he had served as head of the Child, Youth, and Family Gender Identity Clinic. Many activists who had petitioned for his removal claimed victory.

What was so controversial about Zucker's approach? In short, he did not blindly follow the current popular dogma of affirming young children who say they want to transition to the opposite sex. Instead, Zucker's therapy was informed by research that shows that the majority of gender dysphoric children desist by puberty.

Indeed, across all 11 studies conducted on this topic, including research published in the last five years, about 60 to 90 per cent of gender dysphoric children grow up to be gay in adulthood, not transgender.

Zucker's approach was not about "curing" transgender kids or conducting "reparative" or "conversion therapy," as some of his critics contend. Rather, it was about recognizing that it simply doesn't make sense for a child to undergo the challenges of a social or physical transition if they are likely to grow comfortable in the body they already have, on their own. That is the so-called "harmful" view the documentary explores.

…To be clear, Zucker wasn't against transitioning for transgender people; he published academic studies supporting the use of hormonal blockers and cross-sex hormones for patients upon reaching puberty. He simply challenged the notion that every single child who says he or she is of the wrong gender is actually transgender.

The film also discusses the subject of detransitioning: a process whereby people who have transitioned end up regretting it and transition back to their birth sex. It also shed light on the theory that underlying conditions can be mistaken for gender dysphoria, including autism and borderline personality disorder.

When Transgender Kids was released earlier this year, I sensed a feeling of relief among my colleagues in sexology that someone was finally willing to challenge the "gender affirmative" approach, especially in a way that was made for public consumption.

Nowadays, clinicians face extreme pressure to endorse the early transitioning model for their young patients, even when it may not be the best way forward for them. That's certainly the message that Zucker's firing sent, and it speaks all the more to why the film needed to be aired.

www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/transgender-kids-documentary-1.4453667

This documentary can be viewed here vimeo.com/247163584

I think you really need to look into exactly what conversion therapy is and how it's carried out.

As a lesbian, it makes me feel physically sick to think that someone could hate another group of people so much that they wish a practice like this on children.

I agree that gay conversion therapy for gay people is terrible (it also doesn't work so a waste of time), and I am against that. The problem I have with this bill is that it conflates gay conversion therapy, with something else alltogether, when it comes to transgenderism.

Someone not going down the total affirmation route with a trans person is not necessarily in the wrong. It might help the trans-identified person in the long-run not to have it immediately affirmed that they are in the wrong body. To me total affirmation is like agreeing with an anorexic that she is fat.

Most dysphoric children would become happy with their birth sex if allowed to go through the puberty of the sex they were born into. Medically it is better to help the child to try to become happy with their birth sex, if at all possible (I don't mean bludgeoning children over the head with dogma, I mean helping them work through their issues, to see if they can become reasonably comfortable with their birth sex. The children should be allowed to be gender non-conforming. I still think some people will chose to go through transition, and I would support their right to do this as adults).

That documentary I linked to above was an eye-opener to me, as I started off thinking parents were being cruel if they did not go down the affirmation/medicalisation route, and now I think it is bad medical policy to go down this route, and I am a bit shocked that it is allowed to the extent that it is. They are experimenting on children to a horrifying extent. I think this is going to implode in a decade or two, and medics, politicians, and sections of the media will wring their hands and say they did their best, that they didn't know etc.

Unfortunately once again transactivists are hijacking the LGB movement for their own aims with this bill, and making it sound like both struggles are the same. Ironically affirming that a gender non-conforming child is really of the opposite sex is like medical gay conversion therapy, as most of these children would have grown up gay, lesbian or bisexual if left alone. It is the new "pray the gay away" but is worse as it is permanently medically altering children/people in some cases (sterilising them etc).

Transgenderists also regularly promote sex stereotypes in order to bolster their claim (e.g. if a boy in the US likes soccer this is evidence they might be a girl, if a boy likes dolls in the UK this is evidence they might be a girl). They mostly seem to believe in either sexed brains (children are taught about pink brains, blue brains) or sexed souls. Anyone who goes against this is deemed transphobic.

The irony is is that I used to believe all of the transgenderist narrative. I thought middle eastern countries were being very progressive in doing s"ex-change surgery", now I know this is being used to "trans" gay people, which horrifies me. I can't believe I fell for the born in the wrong body stuff, as now that I have read into it, it seems to be based on sexist ideas of what male and female are. I do think there could be a neurological basis to some dysyphoria, and that some of these might benefit from transition, but I think this is a medical disorder and not a case of someone literally being female in a male body or vice-versa.

Sorry for the long reply.

A visibly distressed detransitoner in the audience spoke at the A Woman's Place meeting in London last month. She was shaking at retelling her experience at the hands of the practitioners. You cannot hear and see a young person that has gone through this without feeling very disturbed at this process.

My kids have seen girls do this. They too are very shocked at the level of self harm they are encouraged to undergo. I know its not all trans.

A City Lawyer friend of mine met me last year for drinks late last year and told me her daughter, just joined a new school in London, was now self harming and claiming to be trans. My friend is sensible and strong enough to handle it but she was stunned by this.

I was contacted by a complete stranger last year after I wrote a gender critical post on the internet.

He thanked me for challenging the idea of 'affirmation only'

He had transitioned from a gay man to a 'straight woman' and no-one had told him it was OK to be a gay man, to be who he was. No-one challenged him along his transition path. He was only affirmed.

And now he was de-transitioning, with surgery imminent to attempt to undo some of the damage transitioning had done to his body.

Transgenderism IS GAY CONVERSION THERAPY.

"Affirmation only" is sinister and evil.

www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikk/i/BJvg49/Vi-har-fatt-en-eksplosiv-okning-i-antall-tenaringsjenter-som-onsker-a-skifte-kjonn-Tar-du-ansvaret_-Bent-Hoie--Anne-Wahre-og-Kim-Alexander-Tonseth
This Norweigan article has been published this week.

This is the google translate version

Its from some Norwegian GID doctors.

Lets be clear what this bill actually does.

It proposes criminalising research into trans health. It makes it difficult for HCP to tackle any co-morbid mental health issues without being vulnerable to being accused of transphobia.

How this actually helps, trans people themselves is beyond me.

Thanks Mouth and Barrack. Yes the detransitioning stories are very worrying. There seems to be no way of distinguishing in advance between who will desist after puberty and who will persist. So operating on the principle of doing the least harm, it sounds like most people should not be transitioned until after puberty.

Apologies @thisnamechanger that I was a bit snippy in my second post.

I am worried that with this bill people will see "conversion therapy" and not read the rest properly. I think it has happened on this thread a bit, and worrying as people here would be above average in terms of spotting dodgey stuff, I think. Of course that is the point of the wording of the bill.

The T's are getting their way a lot here at the moment (there is a totally rigged committee looking at a law at the moment, and now this), riding on the wave of positivity towards gay people, but they are the cuckoo in the nest.

Here are some pieces of information on detransitioning that I have come across.

Who am I? | 60 minutes story on a detransitioned 14 year old boy

------
This is a short piece by a detransitioner on YouTube by a lesbian who tried to transition to male and then later changed her mind. They have had irreversible changes made to them from medical treatments.

-------------- This is another woman’s story:

“For eight years I had thought I was transgender, before coming full circle to calling myself a woman again… In these women's revelations, I heard thoughts that I'd held privately for years. Like them, the only way I had known to process the frightening, uncomfortable, or disempowering aspects of being a woman had been to escape womanhood and see myself as something else…My gender dysphoria was real and often painful, but the way for me to resolve it wasn't by becoming a man. It was by questioning and rejecting the stories society had told me about what it means to be a woman.”
www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201803/different-stripe?collection=1111884
---------------

‘Transition caused more problems than it solved’
By Joan McFadden

“I told the psychologist I wanted to be female but nothing about the other issues involved, such as being bullied. I wasn’t aware that bullying had anything to do with my gender issues, but he didn’t ask any deeper questions. So, I was just like, ‘This is who I am and this who I want to be’, and they were like, ‘That’s great!’, and after just two sessions I was given hormones, which was actually not good practice.

… I feel regrets about not having children and not being able to have biological children. This was something I didn’t appreciate when I was younger, but really feels like something missing now.”

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/16/transition-caused-more-problems-than-it-solved
_

A man in the UK was stopped from doing research on transgender detransitioners. A doctor had reported that he was seeing an increasing number of detransitioners and this researcher wanted to find out why.

“The fundamental reason given [by the university] was that it might cause criticism of the research on social media, and criticism of the research would be criticism of the university. They also added it’s better not to offend people,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.”
www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/25/bath-spa-university-transgender-gender-reassignment-reversal-research

Sorry I didn't understand the refetence to the US and the 8th amendment.
The Eighth Amendment, or Amendment VIII of the United States Constitution is the section of the Bill of Rights that states that that punishments must be fair, cannot be cruel, and that fines that are extraordinarily large cannot be set.

Why and who is trying to get rid of it?

Oh OP, this is really scary. This is an interesting blog post from the mum of a de-transitioned child. It woke me up to the danger to kids from the new approach of affirming trans feelings. I dread this affecting my children or their friends, their bodies are perfect and the only ones they have. To tell children that it is possible to change their sex is a cruel lie.

lilymaynard.wordpress.com/2018/01/16/what-makes-somebody-real-trans-part-2-kids/