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/

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 ?

I'd like a coherent answer to this question, too.

Come on Shizuku explain it in really simple terms for us. What is a gender identity? Is it more than just knowing your sex is whichever of the two it is, and if so, how?

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

What do you think of the idea that you propose a theory, test the theory and then claim that anyone who doesn't behave in way that supports your theory is a liar?

"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."

ROGD is a conspiracy theory popular in transphobic circles. With the exception of occasional, tarns-obsessed outliers like Blanchard (read his Twitter timeline), no one in academia takes it seriously.

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

No one knows exactly, but the consensus of scientific opinion now is that it is biological in origin:

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

"The medical consensus in the late 20th century was that transgender and gender incongruent individuals suffered a mental health disorder termed “gender identity disorder.” Gender identity was considered malleable and subject to external influences. Today, however, this attitude is no longer considered valid. Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity."

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Come on Shizuku explain it in really simple terms for us. What is a gender identity? Is it more than just knowing your sex is whichever of the two it is, and if so, how?

It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are. Scientists believe it is biological in origin.

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

"The medical consensus in the late 20th century was that transgender and gender incongruent individuals suffered a mental health disorder termed “gender identity disorder.” Gender identity was considered malleable and subject to external influences. Today, however, this attitude is no longer considered valid. Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity."

Your evidence?

You're asking me for the lack of evidence of something you can't define, describe, verify or ascertain? 🙄

If puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery were all so benign then why did Crispin Blunt and the other members of the APPG on Global LGB and T+ Rights state in their policy document that doctors and medics prescribing and operating should be exempt from being sued by detransitioners? It's a tenet of medical practice here in the UK that doctors should do no harm — and if they do harm, they need to be held to account. What other branch of medicine or surgery is exempt from consequences for those medics who behave recklessly or in their own interest?

Blunt and his friends know there's a tsunami of legal claims on the way.

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.

Really? I thought it was John Money who first started talking about gender identity when he was carrying out his abusive experiments on children.

Do you have any links to these studies about gender identity which actually explain what it is, since you seem to be unable to provide a definition.

twitter.com/ImWatson91/status/1370188608813023232?s=19

ROGD is a conspiracy theory popular in transphobic circles.

Dear lord. It doesn't take long does it. You do realise, that there are numerous women on here, whose children have ROGD?

How much is "innately knowing" your sex, and how much is socialisation into your sex class?

It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

The sense that they are one sex, when they categorically are not? But nonetheless, they need all the rights, protocols, and access based on the sex they are not? And you are saying that disagreeing with this is conversion therapy?

Have I got that right?

ROGD is a conspiracy theory popular in transphobic circles. With the exception of occasional, tarns-obsessed outliers like Blanchard (read his Twitter timeline), no one in academia takes it seriously.

These clinicians take it seriously:

Hutchinson, A., Midgen, M. & Spiliadis, A. In Support of Research Into Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. Arch Sex Behav 49, 79–80 (2020). doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01517-9

A direct quote from this letter:

"Unless we are free to discuss, explore, and research differential presentations of gender dysphoria, the range of interventions which might best serve each young person may not be available to them. We do not think that this is good enough for our patients. We are grateful to the academics and researchers involved in this much needed, though difficult, conversation about how to continue to do our best for all of those who seek our help."

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 [its -sic] origins and development

Really? When was it first mentioned then? Plato? Aristotle? Aquinas? Averroes? Or is it more, like, Twitter forever?

So shizuku. Have you got some evidence to support the assertion that transwomen are female?

And would you be willing to stake a transwoman’s life on that evidence in a medical situation?

Denying AGP, denying HSTS, denying the overrepresentation of autism, denying ROGD.

In an attempt to outlaw questioning and challenge as 'conversion therapy'.

How do you think it is going to go down with parents here, if you say they are not allowed to question whether or not their daughter is a boy?

It's too late for all this denial.

It's DeTrans Awareness Day, for heavens sake.

There's even an entire day devoted to questioning gender ideology.

It's too late.

@Datun

Denying AGP, denying HSTS, denying the overrepresentation of autism, denying ROGD.

In an attempt to outlaw questioning and challenge as 'conversion therapy'.

How do you think it is going to go down with parents here, if you say they are not allowed to question whether or not their daughter is a boy?

It's too late for all this denial.

It's DeTrans Awareness Day, for heavens sake.

There's even an entire day devoted to questioning gender ideology.

It's too late.

Have you considered not treating autistic people as idiots who don't know who they are?

It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Clearly someone who is female having a "sense" of being female is coming from a totally different place from the same "sense" of someone who isn't female. How are those even remotely comparable phenomena?

It seems to me having a "sense" of being female is a very male phenomenon - it occurs in men, but not women. So why are you calling it a "female gender identity". A sense of "womanhood" is a male gender identity.

Have you considered not treating autistic people as idiots who don't know who they are?

Yeah, disingenuous language jibber jabber doesn't work.

Do you have any idea why autism is over represented in the transgender community?

@NecessaryScene1

It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Clearly someone who is female having a "sense" of being female is coming from a totally different place from the same "sense" of someone who isn't female. How are those even remotely comparable phenomena?

It seems to me having a "sense" of being female is a very male phenomenon - it occurs in men, but not women. So why are you calling it a "female gender identity". A sense of "womanhood" is a male gender identity.

Quite.

"ROGD is a conspiracy theory popular in transphobic circles. With the exception of occasional, tarns-obsessed outliers like Blanchard (read his Twitter timeline), no one in academia takes it seriously."

I work with autistic youngsters and have done so for 20 years. I take it seriously because I have seen it, multiple times. A majority of my colleagues can also see it and take it seriously. If you were able to ask practitioners (who tbh live in the real world much more than some academic researchers) I suspect a large majority would be taking it seriously.

As another example, i am part of an online community most of whom are in America that began when our now young adult children were newborn; there are about 70 of us, probably about 200 "children" born to the group. Nobody had a child who was persistent and consistent in rejecting their assigned sex in early childhood. There are now at least 7 "trans" teens or young adults in the group, almost all natal female. Three have had mastectomies and are on testosterone. All have histories of diagnosed or suspected autism or complex trauma (eg adopted child whose adoptive mother then died).

My own child identified as female for a couple of years; now desisted. I remember his early childhood better than he does and I can tell you that he was entirely comfortable as a boy. He is also autistic.

If it were just changing name and clothes it wouldn't matter a bit. Teens explore; they always have.

ROGD is a conspiracy theory popular in transphobic circles.

Perhaps Shizuku can account for the four thousand percent increase in youngsters showing up at gender clinics?

When pressed, if I remember correctly, a trans ideology advocate here said it was probably something in the water, that the mothers of all those children had drunk. Simultaneously. Across the country.

I don’t know if ImWatson’s vid has been posted here yet but it is such a good one for this thread.

Pretty much sums up what we are advocating for. In-depth treatment on a case by case basis.

If this ISN’T what OP is also advocating for, maybe we need to keep going around in circles about properly defining conversion therapy.

Have you considered not treating autistic people as idiots who don't know who they are?

Can you stop with the hostile posting if you want a serious discussion.

Or, is that the purpose of this thread to show readers what’s what. Because I doubt it is going the way you think.

Particularly as on another thread you are declaring that transwomen are female while castigating us for ignoring (or pointing out irregularities and deficiencies) in your scientific study links. Or the links that are merely opinion pieces and present a very biased view.

Or all the organizations that seem to be following the WPATH guidelines that are, in words of young women who have been transitioned medically with drugs and surgeries, harming other young people.

Shizuku:
[re gender identity] It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are

So, as we thought, there is no scientific (experimentally falsifiable) set of criteria for its presence or absence. That is, to spell it out, there is no scientific evidence for there being any such thing as gender identity.

Believe in it or not. Believe in guardian angels or not. But please, do not think your belief has any scientific basis, in either case.

@9toenails

Shizuku: [re gender identity] It's person's own innate sense of what sex they are

So, as we thought, there is no scientific (experimentally falsifiable) set of criteria for its presence or absence. That is, to spell it out, there is no scientific evidence for there being any such thing as gender identity.

Believe in it or not. Believe in guardian angels or not. But please, do not think your belief has any scientific basis, in either case.

So when people talk about their gender identity, what is it that you think they are referring to?

Remember - it's not sex stereotypes or how masculine or feminine their personality is - some trans women are butch, some trans girls are tomboys. And it's not their sexual orientation - some trans men are gay, some are straight, some are ace, some are pan etc etc.

So what do you think they are referring to? Do you think they are simply lying? Or delusional?