Conversion therapy for homosexuality is apalling. What is the harm to anyone if someone is gay/ lesbian? Wondering about your sexuality does not require making lasting physical changes beforehand.
But there are so many things we don't properly understand about trans people's diffuclties, and there is not merely one type of trans person so clearly there should no be just one solution.
There are also other MH illnesses that can present with identity/ gender issues such as the complex and serious DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) which I have wanted to mention a few times now (and NC to do so) and is frequently misunderstood and mis-represented, especially in the media.
DID sufferers have frequently suffered severe abuse, often sustained sexual abuse and is thought to be exacerbated by the neglect, (intentional or not) of care givers, seemingly the child feels severely trauamtised and utterly alone, with poor/ no attachment figures/ healthy role models or anyone to help them.
To severely paraphrase, the traumatised child brain 'copes' with this overwhelming horror by splitting off into parts (aka alters). A time goes on, these parts may be any age (child and adult) and sometimes opposite sex, and of a variety of often contrary or even hostile personalties, who generally do not evolve in their outlook but remain 'stuck'. It is a survival strategy and tremendously complex and painful for sufferers, who often live in a state of internal conflict and may have MH crises in adolescence and middle age as DID is an energency strategy, not suited to the complex real world.
For some people this leads to developing opposite sex/ gender parts or feelings of dysphoria for a vareity of reasons (out of disgust for 'the body'; opposite sex alters who are 'stronger' and can defend; or who not at risk ie the paedophile does not abuse girls,;or as a way of putting distance between similarities between vicitm and abuser if of the same sex - I will not grow up to be that/ I am afraid of being that/ idealsing the opposite sex as 'safe'). Parts can be utterly dominating of other parts at times, for good or for bad, and there is often amnesia between parts.
It can be unreasonably difficult to get treatment for DID even though it is real, recognised and well documented (the NHS have The Clinic for Dissociative Studies etc) and has no none of the prominece of trans issues, despite having very serious consequences for many sufferers and high rates of suicide. Most psychologists/ psychotherapists/psychiatrist are woefully under-educated about the condition, and possibly are actually afraid to treat it becasue of the complexity, and it leaves sufferers confused, desperate and vulnerable.
I also believe it is under diagnosed in men.
It would be utterly apalling if anyone who actually has DID was misdiagnosed and steered to a trans pathway simply because therapists are afraid to ask questions, especially in children, or are frightened by the constant references to suicide (by the client and in the trans information) and feel emotionally balckmaied and string armed by the law to employ the unquestioning affirmation method.
I know people with this illness and they have said they are frightened by what is going on. One person said that were they a teenager now they can see that they would have been put on a trans pathway, but now although still suffering in many ways, they did not go on to develop opposite sex alters.
I understand that for some people the pain of dypshoria, suicidal thoughts etc, are only eased through transition as a survival strategy, but it is so complex that it should not go unquestioned.
There is a valid argument for not allowing 'deep' therapy until the person is in a more stable state of mind, but because there is so little help with day-to-day managing from the NHS/ social services, some people never reach a safe/ stable state and so end up being denied any treatment at all. Possibly a more stable/ dominant state could be one that is opposite gender. But I really worry here that transtion is seen as the end point and people go without the help they need.
There are trans people who do have DID many of them blogging etc and the confusion and distress is as clear as it is for non trans DID people, but obviously not every DID person will even have opposite sex alters at all; and nor does every trans person suffer dissociation although it is strongly correlated; it is very complex, but to simply 'aaffimr' (appease) and not gently and safely explore possibilites with vulnerable people is cruel and abusive in my mind.
Thank you to anyone who read to the end of this. I am scared by the wide range of impacts of rolling out selfID etc.