Conversion Therapy and a Survey of 25,896 LGBTQ youth

[Shizuku]

Trigger Warning - this post discusses suicidal feelings.

As the banning of conversion therapy is currently being debated, it might be useful for members of this group to see a survey of 25,896 LGBTQ youth which found that 57% of transgender and non-binary youth who have undergone conversion therapy report a suicide attempt in the last year:

www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2019/?section=Conversion-Therapy-Change-Attempts

If anyone reading this is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please know that suicide is preventable, and that support is available. Here is a link to the Samaritans:

www.samaritans.org/

I wonder what effect a ban on conversion therapy would have on detrans people.

I've already heard stories of detrans having difficulties reverting back to their birth sex legally, and have even more trouble getting access to hormones and surgery.

C) your statistics have been thoroughly pulled apart and shown not to represent your conclusion."

They haven't, but if you think they have, you can always contact the scientists involved - I'm sure they'll welcome your input.

No need to contact the authors of the AJPH study you linked to earlier - the lengthy "Limitations" section in the Discussion shows that they are quite aware of the problematic aspects of the study.

For example, the authors make the following points (cited directly from the paper):

"Although noteworthy, our findings involve limitations that should be considered. For example, our data were cross sectional; thus, temporality cannot be determined."

In other words, the authors acknowledge that they couldn't tell which came first, conversion therapy or suicide attempts.

"Our study is also limited by the language of the [survey] item used to measure SOGICE [sexual orientation or gender identity conversion efforts]. Many young people may have undergone experiences that would be considered SOGICE but would not endorse the words “conversion or reparative therapy...Using questions that more comprehensively explain and address SOGICE will likely expand the rate at which young people report such experiences.”

So the authors and the survey participants also had trouble defining exactly what constituted conversion therapy.

"There is also a need to separately examine the associations of sexual orientation change efforts and gender identity change efforts with suicidality among young LGBTQ individuals...[a]lthough our question did not allow us to examine these differences"

"future studies should attempt to refine how SOGICE is measured, including how experiences differ between sexual orientation change attempts and gender identity change attempts, how age at exposure relates to outcomes, and how experiences differ according to the type of individual (e.g., licensed therapist or religious leader) conducting the efforts."

"Finally, our data did not allow us to attend to the impact of parental acceptance on the relationship between conversion therapy and suicidality...although parental acceptance was significantly associated with reduced suicidality"

Accepting parents are presumably less likely to try conversion therapy, so it's possible that lack of parental acceptance, rather than conversion therapy per se, may be driving higher suicide attempt rates.

The bottom line is this:

People who have been heavily invested in the affirmative medical pathway for children are terrified that the world is waking up to what has happened and is continuing to happen, namely children are being medically and physically harmed by puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for no psychological improvement in the name of something that can only be defined using stereotypes. As a result there is a significant push to corral anything that is not the affirmative medical pathway under the umbrella of “conversion therapy”. Because the two words “conversion therapy” evoke such repulsion, due to its use in relation to barbaric practices, it benefits those who have pushed for the affirmative medical pathway by negatively associating anything that is not that pathway as “conversion therapy” in relation to care of gender non-conforming children.

They want people to think pointing out reality to children is conversion therapy. They want people to think refusal to inflict physical harm on children with puberty blockers and cross sex hormones as conversion therapy. They want suggestions that the massive increase in girls presenting to gender clinics might have reasons other than “innate gender identity” as conversion therapy. They want people to think that attempts to study this phenomenon is a form of conversion therapy. They want people to think therapy that helps children deal with trauma, abuse, autism, anxiety or depression as conversion therapy.

They want people to think this because if they don’t, the automatic response of anyone is to pause and appreciate that the unquestioning progression down the affirmative medical pathway may not actually be right for many children. Such realisations will challenge the whole existence of people and organisations and their previous advocacy of this pathway.

This is my personal view. I think this because it benefits no child whatsoever to lead a child unquestioning down the medical affirmative pathway, and surely all adults involved with the care of children would want the best possible healthcare for them. To object to this would suggest that there is an agenda other than having children’s best interests at heart, because we now know the affirmative medical pathway does not benefit children and is itself a form of conversion therapy. So why else would people object to exploration of gender issues in children, other than for selfish reasons?

It should be quite simple. Whatever a child’s gender “identity” is, whatever their gender expression is, they can hold that view if they so wish. A child can hold the view they feel like they’re the opposite sex, even if they can’t really explain what that actually means. A child can express themselves however they like, regardless of the norms of society at any given time or point in history. What that should not mean is they are fulfilling a criteria that means their bodies should be altered with medication. What that should not mean is that any distress causing such expression or a result of such expression cannot be discussed out of fear of prosecution. What that should not mean is that children should be lied to and told they are the opposite sex or can be the opposite sex with hormone treatments and surgery.

I would seriously question the motives of anyone who wants to prevent the appropriate treatment of children presenting to gender clinics by tying up that treatment with historical awful practices and threats of prosecution for medical professionals who actually understand the realities of what is required for these children.

I don't think anyone's arguing taht conversion therapy is harmless or beneficial. But we need more detail about what this 'conversion therapy' is which is currently taking place in the UK

I'm still waiting for the OP to actually read and respond to what is being put to them by posters rather than putting words in our mouths that make us straw-women.

I’m still waiting for the OP to actually read and respond to what is being put to them by posters rather than putting words in our mouths that make us straw-women.

Yep.

OP you didn't answer my question. Please do.

I have other questions now too.

1. Should it have been a criminal act for an adult to try to talk Keira Bell out of her gender identity belief when she was a teenager?

2. Should it have been a criminal act for doctors to damage lesbian Keira Bell's body with drugs and surgery when she was a teenager?

3. Should doctors promoting, prescribing or performing "sex reassignment" through drugs or surgery on homosexuals to make them into straight people be banned from the practice?

4. Should the government recognise the historic abuse of lesbian girls like Keira Bell by the NHS and ban such barbaric treatment of homosexuals like Keira in future?

Today is the the day of awareness for detransitioners. Please pay attention to the stories of homosexual people. Many young lesbians were affirmed in the idea that they might be a straight boy not a lesbian girl. Their bodies were irreversibly damaged by the doctors' failed attempts to convert the lesbian's bodies to look like straight boy's bodies. Many of these girls report being suicidal at the time they wanted sex reassignment. Lobby groups told the children's parents that the alternative to conversion to the opposite sex would be death. Listen to their stories today.

I wonder if people who push the affirming only treatment route will take any notice of the Detransitioner’s Day.

And start wondering about the numbers of them telling their stories and how many more there is than the number being pushed (the anywhere from 0.3-3.8% stat that gets wheeled out disparagingly).

A study was posted recently on this or another thread that tracked people’s mental health and found 8.3-8.8% were not living as their reassigned sex. A stat that was not comfortably received or acknowledged by the poster who posted the study.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4182708-Trans-rights-are-a-part-of-womens-rights?msgid=105430712#105430712

I personally will be reading the stories that they post today. Because each one is a lesson in why affirming only is harmful.

I can certainly see why activists would be very angry that they have not been able to convince the government to ban what they consider conversion therapy before any count of the detransitioner community can be done. And before the court cases of malpractice start. Because they won’t get any bite of the cherry so to speak.

Of course, after the HoLs turned around the Maternity Bill, I also doubt that a flimsy definition of conversion therapy would get voted through either.

Please pay attention to the stories of homosexual people. Many young lesbians were affirmed in the idea that they might be a straight boy not a lesbian girl. Their bodies were irreversibly damaged by the doctors' failed attempts to convert the lesbian's bodies to look like straight boy's bodies. Many of these girls report being suicidal at the time they wanted sex reassignment. Lobby groups told the children's parents that the alternative to conversion to the opposite sex would be death. Listen to their stories today.

Thank you 30percent. This bears repeating.

In this light ‘conversion’ takes on a different meaning doesn’t it.

OP seems really intent on garnering scientific support for her beliefs. (And thereby convincing others? Her further motivation is unclear.) Sadly her quest is in vain from the start because the basis for the whole set of beliefs she wishes to promulgate itself has no scientific support.

In the absence of a scientific (experimentally falsifiable) set of criteria for the presence or absence of 'gender identity', belief in gender identity remains at best metaphysical. But everything OP wishes to convince herself and her readers of depends on the real existence of gender identity.

So, Shizuku, you may as well post links to studies assessing how many trans angels can dance on the head of a heavenly cross-dressed pin for all the scientific validity of the studies you have so assiduously collected and offered in this thread.

OP,

Of course the example of torture inflicted in the name of conversion 60 years ago is horrendous - and everyone bar none would say that should be outlawed. I believe it probably already is, though, under torture and assault laws. Quite rightly.

There is no evidence that that sort of 'therapy' is still going on today.

I fear that the scandal that will be shared on Mumsnet of the future will be 'There were children with gender dysphoria and they did what to them?! Gave them irreversible hormone treatments and allowed them to have healthy body parts removed?! Where was the therapy?! What were they thinking?!'

I am not sure (but I would very much like to be corrected) that according to detransitioners accounts, anyone really explores with people receiving hormones and surgery is encouraged to really explore what it will be like post-transition.
For instance, if they feel they don't fit as the sex they currently present as, do they really think hard about the possibility that they will end up 'not fitting' as their new sex either - and will end up in a perpetual half-way house of being neither one thing nor another? Or do they go through it all in the belief that the will easily 'pass' and be fully accepted and recognised as their transitioned sex?
Is saying to someone 'this might make things worse and you may never be perceived as male/female' conversion therapy or an attempt to dissuade them?

I think it is no surprise to see an influx of people with a particular agenda to push recently with the court cases, parliamentary debates and briefings and bills, and the twatter effect.

At least this OP is trying to present studies and work with statistics across different threads. I am unsure they have read thoroughly what they post rather than someone else’s ‘debunk’ or explanatory interpretation though. I am unsure as to whether they have even really thought deeply about the accuracy or sense of the resources they link in their posts.

And frankly, should stop posting those debunking articles that have the first two paragraphs calling women ‘t*rfs’ as completely undermines what they are trying to achieve.

And if they honestly think ‘scientists’ worth listening to call women derogatory slurs, as one of the explanatory links they posted did, they probably need to think about their own biases. And motivations.

I don't see people advocating for conversion therapy for young trans identified people. I do see people advocating for therapeutic support to explore underlying issues and co-morbid mental health problems. This is not equivalent to being strapped into a chair and being zapped with electrodes. However it is presented here as being the same thing.
The move to outlaw conversion therapy in the UK is being hampered by this dishonest conflation of therapy and torture and only serves to muddy the waters with untruths.

In the absence of a scientific (experimentally falsifiable) set of criteria for the presence or absence of 'gender identity', belief in gender identity remains at best metaphysical. But everything OP wishes to convince herself and her readers of depends on the real existence of gender identity

Yes @9toenails - we keep asking for scientifically verifiable (falsifiable, observable, replicable) data on gender identity.

And answer cam there none.

This thread is very funny to read - the lengths you will go to in order to say that literally thousands of doctors and scientists and trans people and experts on conversion therapy and it's effects have got it all wrong, and then you wheel out Blanchard - the man who said that if anyone doesn't fill in his questionnaire in a way that supports his theory, must be lying.

Honestly, it's hilarious, and a little bit sad.

Still waiting for any evidence at all that not banning conversion therapy for trans people is going to be in any way beneficial for trans people.

@MeltsAway

In the absence of a scientific (experimentally falsifiable) set of criteria for the presence or absence of 'gender identity', belief in gender identity remains at best metaphysical. But everything OP wishes to convince herself and her readers of depends on the real existence of gender identity

Yes @9toenails - we keep asking for scientifically verifiable (falsifiable, observable, replicable) data on gender identity.

And answer cam there none.

Gender identity is something we have known about forever - scientists are way beyond wondering if it exists - they know it exists, so they now study things like it's origins and development.

Here, this might help you. Don't worry, it's not from a trans site - it's from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Yes, it's American, but again, don't worry, American kids are the same species.

www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/Pages/Gender-Identity-and-Gender-Confusion-In-Children.aspx

@unwashedanddazed

I don't see people advocating for conversion therapy for young trans identified people. I do see people advocating for therapeutic support to explore underlying issues and co-morbid mental health problems. This is not equivalent to being strapped into a chair and being zapped with electrodes. However it is presented here as being the same thing. The move to outlaw conversion therapy in the UK is being hampered by this dishonest conflation of therapy and torture and only serves to muddy the waters with untruths.

"I don't see people advocating for conversion therapy for young trans identified people. I do see people advocating for therapeutic support to explore underlying issues and co-morbid mental health problems."

That's no problem at all - it generally is, and certainly should be part of the counselling that trans kids receive. It's not the same thing as attempting psycotherapy techniques to make their gender identity change (conversion therapy).

"The move to outlaw conversion therapy in the UK is being hampered by this dishonest conflation of therapy and torture and only serves to muddy the waters with untruths."

It isn't - everyone wants trans kids to receive all the support they need. One of the biggest complaints that trans people have is the incredible length of time trans kids have to wait just to speak to someone. All the support is wanted and needed and is not considered conversion therapy.

Once again, conversion therapy would be any attempt to change a person's gender identity. If by exploring their mental health issues, they realise they are not trans, no problem, but if the therapists attempt techniques to force a person's gender identity to change, big problem.

All trans people want is for a practice that has been shown to harm trans people, and that thousands of experts across the world agree harms trans people, to be outlawed. It's not a big ask.

14 pages of thoughtful, reasoned discussion and questions from posters and the OP's response is..."lol"?

The American Academy of Pediatrics article the OP links to is an opinion piece that does not reference any scientific evidence.

American and UK children are indeed the same species. However American and UK children do not experience the same societal influences, political climate or health care system.

What do you think about all the detransitioner stories today?

How would you ensure people like them don't transition in future?

In your links there is very little information about lessons learned from detransitioners. Weird. Normally scientist are obsessed with understanding patients for whom the treatment fails. It helps them to do better differential diagnosis.

How come only no other countries have come out with the same results? As we have seen recently Europeans are really very good at medical research. We are a liberal bunch too, much more so than Americans. So why is American research out on its own? Why is it so shoddy, as previous posters describe? Aren't you worried about trans identifying children potentially being given unhelpful treatments?

@Shizuku

This thread is very funny to read - the lengths you will go to in order to say that literally thousands of doctors and scientists and trans people and experts on conversion therapy and it's effects have got it all wrong, and then you wheel out Blanchard - the man who said that if anyone doesn't fill in his questionnaire in a way that supports his theory, must be lying.

Honestly, it's hilarious, and a little bit sad.

Still waiting for any evidence at all that not banning conversion therapy for trans people is going to be in any way beneficial for trans people.

And there it is. As I knew it would be. The number of transgender ideology advocates who want to disparage Blanchard is extraordinary.

Shizuku

Does it never occur to you that the number of people who know trans people, can see for themselves, how those people conform to what Blanchard says?

And he has added ROGD to his analysis. Do you have any idea, any at all how many parents of children with ROGD are posting here? This is first hand experience.

So, if it's not ROGD, not AGP, not HSTS, or gender dysphoria. what is it?

Why would people have a different gender identity to their sex?

One of the biggest complaints that trans people have is the incredible length of time trans kids have to wait just to speak to someone. All the support is wanted and needed and is not considered conversion therapy.

Dear lord. Hordes of transactivists on Twitter have just said that they are not going to allow trans people to be counted, in order to allocate resources.

Constant contradictions. It's chaotic.

@stuckinatrap

OP,

Of course the example of torture inflicted in the name of conversion 60 years ago is horrendous - and everyone bar none would say that should be outlawed. I believe it probably already is, though, under torture and assault laws. Quite rightly.

There is no evidence that that sort of 'therapy' is still going on today.

I fear that the scandal that will be shared on Mumsnet of the future will be 'There were children with gender dysphoria and they did what to them?! Gave them irreversible hormone treatments and allowed them to have healthy body parts removed?! Where was the therapy?! What were they thinking?!'

Or perhaps they will look at happy, well-adjusted women like Jackie Green, and then look at kids like Leelah Alcorn who took her own life after conversion therapy was attempted, and think, what a shame they didn't start helping trans kids transition sooner.

time.com/3655718/leelah-alcorn-suicide-transgender-therapy/

Once again, conversion therapy would be any attempt to change a person's gender identity. If by exploring their mental health issues, they realise they are not trans, no problem, but if the therapists attempt techniques to force a person's gender identity to change, big problem.

Meaningless. A gender identity can be the result of trauma, but you're trying to make out that it's something separate. It isn't. It can be internalised homophobia. It can be a sense of not fitting in due to autism.

You're trying to make words fit a concept that you cannot define and cannot explain.

You're trying to say gender identity is a concept in its own right. But you have no way of describing it, verifying it, or even ascertaining it.

What is it ?

"The American Academy of Pediatrics article the OP links to is an opinion piece that does not reference any scientific evidence."

It was posted to show you how nobody but you thinks it doesn't exist, and how it's a very normal topic for discussion amongst pedatricians.

@Datun

Once again, conversion therapy would be any attempt to change a person's gender identity. If by exploring their mental health issues, they realise they are not trans, no problem, but if the therapists attempt techniques to force a person's gender identity to change, big problem.

Meaningless. A gender identity can be the result of trauma, but you're trying to make out that it's something separate. It isn't. It can be internalised homophobia. It can be a sense of not fitting in due to autism.

You're trying to make words fit a concept that you cannot define and cannot explain.

You're trying to say gender identity is a concept in its own right. But you have no way of describing it, verifying it, or even ascertaining it.

What is it ?

Your evidence?