Conversion therapy: Prohibition

[hoteltango]

I know very little about this, but Kathleen Stock retweeted this:

twitter.com/STILLTish/status/1153995960072253440

Private Members bill by Geraint Davies MP. Has had its first reading.

"Conversion therapy: Prohibition

(1) It shall be an offence for any person to practice, or to offer to practice conversion therapy.

(2) In this Act, 'conversion therapy' is any form of therapy which demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other and attempts to--
(a) change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, or
(b) suppress a person's expression of sexual orientation or gender identity.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale."

Wiser minds than mine could articulate better than I can why this doesn't make sense. All I can think of so far is a parent of a transing teen (or younger) opting for watchful waiting - would that be classed as "suppressing" as in (b)?

This makes me so angry, as someone went through 'gay conversion therapy'.

Gay conversion therapy involves various means, some reasonably benign, many overtly abusive, to convince a person that their demonstrable sexual and romantic orientation to members of their own sex isn't right or real, and that actually they are differently oriented.

The opposite of this is no intervention whatsoever except to love, and accept someone as oriented homosexually, and maybe show them some role models, which is why representation is so important.

What the Genderists are pressing for in terms of treating 'gender ID' is actually exactly the interventionist abuse that 'gay conversion therapy' involves, except it's perhaps more heinous, if you can credit that, because while gay conversion therapy can involve intense ritual and rape, Genderists think irreversible body modification and sterility is the answer to gender issues, and think that helping people be comfortable with their own bodies is conversion therapy.

So this legislation is attempting to say that conversion therapy is both wrong, and also right and appropriate. So it's damaging, dangerous rubbish. Which makes me even crosser because I would like to see actually conversion therapy disappear.

I am not convinced its a good idea to make laws about this at all. "Conversion therapy" could mean all kinds of things, and the medical opinion on it isn't set in stone, who knows what new things might be learned in the future or what unusual circumstances might apply to an individual? It seems over-reaching.

It's aimed to make watchful waiting or attempting to find underlying reasons for feeling dysphoric (Like autism) illegal, so affirmation will be the only legal course of action for Transgender children.

I'm afraid I can't answer that with any reasonableness at the moment, Goosefoot, having just come home from work, hot and very tired and lacking patience to defend why therapy to change sexual orientation is at best unnecessary and based purely in prejudice and ignorance, and at worst complete abuse. So I'll leave it at that.

Not everything that is a bad idea ought to be a law, especially when it's meant to cover every possible patient's circumstance and it's quite loosely defined. Normally practice guidelines and professional societies and standards of practice manage these sorts of things.

Well I don't disagree with that. But I do think there is a place for advisory stuff. And my ire is mainly directed at the conflation of gay conversion therapy with wanting people to be comfortable in their own skin. Apples and bacon bits, really.

Normally practice guidelines and professional societies and standards of practice manage these sorts of things.

And there already is a Memorandum of Understanding against conversion therapy. A law is totally unneccessary.
www.bpc.org.uk/sites/psychoanalytic-council.org/files/MoU2_FINAL_0.pdf

There are a number of problems with the wording of that bill. First of all, what is meant by 'gender identity'? Is it just allowing people to identify as one of the 72 (or however many it is) genders? Or is it about setting vulnerable people, including children, on a path towards being lifelong medical patients and possible sterility? If the latter, it's clearly not preferable to becoming comfortable with the body they have, with no medication required.

There seems to be some evidence that for some young people, being 'trans', is more acceptable than being gay. So therapeutic treatment in which that person's opposite sex gender identity is affirmed is a type of conversion therapy in itself.

So we need a definition of 'gender identity', and how potential clashes with sexual orientation would be handled if someone was favouring adopting a transgender identity over accepting their homosexuality.

FloralBunting

Thank you for expressing so eloquently my anger that they're trying to equate talking a child or adult out of the idea that they're in fact the opposite sex, with the conversion therapy that gays and lesbians have had to endure.

Recent coverage of the Tavistock reported that they don't advise social transition for children - but would that count as conversion therapy (ie not encouraging or recognising the child as the sex they say they are) under this law?

It's really important that this isn't written into law like this, especially with no definitions. But what to do? Write to mps? When is a second reading likely, how does it work?

It seems that that would count as conversion therapy. Not advising social transition, which feminists regard as the good and right thing to do, is being called conversion therapy.

When I think of the term "conversion therapy" it just makes me think of Nazis, that's how bad i think it is.

So trans activists are playing on public perception of conversion therapy being a bad thing.

A patriarchal reversal of the highest order

It'd certainly make it harder for schools to use Transgender Trends guidance pack. But I expect things like that are the whole point.

I still don't know why any of this is happening.

Exactly that. It's another cuckoo situation. The same way transactivists have piggybacked onto the more enlightened views about homophobia, so that any critique of gender ideology can be shut down as 'anti-LGBT' even though trans ideology is often appallingly homophobic and lesbophobic.

Most people seem to have grasped that trying to convert someone out of being homosexual to be heterosexual is at best foolish, and at worst, abusive. So the words 'conversion therapy' are clearly negative in the cultural lexicon. So here come the cuckoos again, using the words but changing the meaning completely.

Thanks for your posts Oldcrone and Floral.

However, my head is tied in knots trying to compare and contrast these two conversion therapies.

So the words 'conversion therapy' are clearly negative in the cultural lexicon. So here come the cuckoos again, using the words but changing the meaning completely.

Yes, this worries me, but also the wider implications. How else could the definition be stretched, if someone wanted to? Does it count for example if it is a matter of someone who has their own therapeutic goals? What if they have problems stemming from some kind of abuse that need to be explored? What counts as a sexuality?

There seem to be a lot of proposals for legislation that is more about scorng some kind of progressive points, and often it just isn't well crafted, and it's ineffective anyway. Usually it is just to make them look like they are taking action where it won't cost them anything.

Watchfulwaiter, I'm not surprised, tbh.

I'm trying to think of an easy shorthand, and the most obvious I can think of is "Raping a lesbian to make her straight is 'conversion therapy'. Talking a woman out of cutting her breasts off because she believes she is a man is not 'conversion therapy'."

Clearing the jargon and describing what it is under discussion seems the clearest way to make the gulf between these two things clear.

This is the stark comparison between the two vantage points, I think.

. So here come the cuckoos again, using the words but changing the meaning completely.

It's really evil. I know evil is a strange word, I can't think of anything else to describe it

Most than evil, this is surely dangerous.

The MP has a good record for Private Members bills, however I wonder if he has fully thought this one through. I wonder who sold him the idea. Trouble is who will oppose it. It sounds 'motherhood and apple pie' and I would not trust the relevant Civil Servants to take a neutral position.

What can individuals do?

Yeah, I just love how social, legal, chemical and surgical conversion/"transition" treatments are conveniently not considered conversion therapy, because Gender Fundamentalists have managed to hitch themselves onto the LGB and identify as Not Actually
Homophobic And Sexist. This truly must be Social Justice. Oh the sheer joy of it all. [seething sarcasm font]

I started a thread a while ago about the pile on when Anne Widdecombe said ‘Now it’s accepted that humans can change sex - perhaps science will enable people to change sexual attraction if they wished’. What amazed me was the huge pile on to her for advocating consenting adults use science to change sexual attraction - yet nobody appeared see the hypocrisy of people using science to change sex - One is super cool woke think - the other is seen as batshit religious fascism - I think they are both identical fuckwittery of the highest order

Does this mean that trying to get a lesbian to accept a penis would be illegal? 2 (b) ?

I saw this a while back and it just looks like it is stuck in the pipeline. Geraint Davies MP Swansea - where Katie "Elbow Creases" hangs out?

services.parliament.uk/Bills/2017-19/counsellorsandpsychotherapistsregulationandconversiontherapy.html

Any constituents of John Hayes around? Perhaps he could have a chat with Geraint Davies? Andrea Leadsom seems to "get it".

Maybe they will persuade Davies to drop the trans bit because otherwise I would guess that if this Bill ever gets heard that it will fall.

John Hayes MP (Con, South Holland and The Deepings) 11 April 2019

A number of NHS clinicians have quit the gender identity development service clinic over ethical and safety concerns. They state that they were

“often under pressure to refer young people for life-altering treatment even though they did not believe that it was in the individual’s best clinical interests. …
It feels like conversion therapy for gay children.”

They fear that homophobia is driving a surge in transgender young people. They say that

“experimental treatment is being done on children who have experienced mental health difficulties, abuse and family trauma.”

I know, having spoken to her, that the Minister responsible, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend Jackie Doyle-Price, would welcome the opportunity to make a statement, and I hope that the Leader of the House will facilitate that. We are driving too many young people down a road to a destination from which they will never return.

Andrea Leadsom Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons

My right hon. Friend raises an incredibly sensitive topic. We want to make the legal gender recognition process less intrusive and bureaucratic for transgender people. Being trans is not an illness and it should not be treated as though it is. That is why we held our consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is a sensitive topic, and it is important to hear all views on it, including those of some young people perhaps being pushed to make decisions too early. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities is determined to ensure that we get this right.

www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2019-04-11a.470.5#g479.2

Geraint Davies website:
www.geraintdavies.org.uk/stories/2019/07/09/no-more-excuses-its-time-to-ban-conversion-therapy/

I've been meaning to start a thread for a while saying that I agree with Christopher Chope. Virtue signalling private members bills put through with little scrutiny are dangerous. Sorry to Sir Christopher that I haven't done it yet and am only posting this now because a stupid bill has come up.

There is no such thing as a trans child, therefore no child should be on puberty blockers or cross sex hormones, until well after they have gone through puberty and are mature enough to make an informed decision about how they wish to live their life.

Trying to convert someone from being gay Is impossible.
Giving a child the time to mature and realise they no longer feel gender dysphoric is not the same as conversion therapy and this needs to made very clear.

Trying to convert someone from being gay Is impossible.

And why would you want to do it anyway? Who cares who loves who?

However, the bill seems to assume that everyone has a gender idenity, that there is a right or wrong gender identity for your sex, and that any gender dysphoria must be a result of 'being born in the wrong body', and not related to mental health, abuse or societal expectations. That is a huge number of assumptions, particularly when, as floralbunting says, the consequences of affirmative treatment could be infertility and lifelong dependence on drugs and surgery.