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/

Just popping back in to see if anyone has found any evidence at all that conversion therapy is not harmful to trans people.

Anyone?

Just popping back in to see if anyone has found any evidence at all that conversion therapy is not harmful to trans people

Just re read the thread if you've forgotten. It's all there for you already.

I really think you haven’t been reading with an open mind. I think it is clear to those reading. But feel free to continue to not read nuance.

Not a single piece of evidence that conversion therapy is harmless to trans people has been presented. All the evidence suggests it is harmful.

This has been one of the best threads we've had on the subject for a while. I'm glad the OP started it, and his lack of further contribution has been illuminating.

I'd still like to see this stuff taken more seriously though, not treated like some sort of ideological warfare with manipulative language. But I think that is increasingly happening, due to conversations like this.

The shallowness of the analysis presented here is alerting more and more fence sitters to what's missing from research, as per the Bell judgment.

@Shizuku

Just popping back in to see if anyone has found any evidence at all that conversion therapy is not harmful to trans people.

Anyone?

You've had 26 pages of answers to that question. Until you

a) provide a definition of conversion therapy that doesn't seek to demonise supportive psychological therapies,
and
b) understand the type of scientific evidence that is needed to determine an optimal therapeutic approach,

you're likely to continue to find the answers unsatisfactory.

@NecessaryScene1

This has been one of the best threads we've had on the subject for a while. I'm glad the OP started it, and his lack of further contribution has been illuminating.

I'd still like to see this stuff taken more seriously though, not treated like some sort of ideological warfare with manipulative language. But I think that is increasingly happening, due to conversations like this.

The shallowness of the analysis presented here is alerting more and more fence sitters to what's missing from research, as per the Bell judgment.

You talk about what's missing from the research, and you know what that is? Any evidence at all that conversion therapy is harmless to trans people.

Must be some study somewhere which looked at conversion therapy in trans people and found a neutral or beneficial effect rather than a negative effect, right?

Go on - just post it right here.

No one has said that conversion therapy is a good idea. Apart from you who supports physical and social conversion.

Everyone else is about minimising or eliminating mental and physical harm now and in the future

"a) provide a definition of conversion therapy that doesn't seek to demonise supportive psychological therapies,"

Have said multiple times that supportive psychological therapies are not conversion therapy and that it's vital they are available. You've made up your own little story about me there.

Conversion therapy is a very simple concept, but let me give it to you again - it's any attempt to force a trans person's gender identity to change - it's not "talking about problems", it's not psychotherapeutic support, it's not dealing with childhood trauma etc etc - it is specifically any attempt to force a trans person's gender identity to change.

"b) understand the type of scientific evidence that is needed to determine an optimal therapeutic approach,"

The OP doesn't ask what the optimum therapeutic approach is, it merely states that the evidence is that conversion therapy is harmful to trans people. 26 pages later, that is still the claim and no evidence to the contrary has been offered.

Do you have any?

@midgedude

No one has said that conversion therapy is a good idea. Apart from you who supports physical and social conversion.

Everyone else is about minimising or eliminating mental and physical harm now and in the future

So you'll want trans women for example to be able to avoid lifelong gender dysphoria derived from the effects of going through a testosterone puberty.

@NecessaryScene1

This has been one of the best threads we've had on the subject for a while. I'm glad the OP started it, and his lack of further contribution has been illuminating.

I'd still like to see this stuff taken more seriously though, not treated like some sort of ideological warfare with manipulative language. But I think that is increasingly happening, due to conversations like this.

The shallowness of the analysis presented here is alerting more and more fence sitters to what's missing from research, as per the Bell judgment.

The tone has been very similar to when a TRA with the Twitter handle WhatTheTrans started a thread asking for “any evidence of the GC argument” then posted on Twitter that no one could answer their vague question after the thread was deleted, thus “proving” that there is no evidence to back up the GC argument.

“I’m just going to ignore you and not clarify anything or answer any questions, which will prove I’m right! Ha!”

It’s very odd.

"I’m just going to ignore you and not clarify anything or answer any questions"

There is only one question to answer here - is there any evidence that conversion therapy for trans people is either harmless or beneficial rather that harmful?

Just post the evidence and we can all move on.

@midgedude

No one has said that conversion therapy is a good idea. Apart from you who supports physical and social conversion.

Everyone else is about minimising or eliminating mental and physical harm now and in the future

I'm afraid just making up your own definition of conversion therapy and using it to oppose trans people's rights to transition is not going to cut it.

Conversion therapy is specifically any attempt by someone to force someone's sexual orientation or gender identity to change.

If you want to argue against trans people's right to transition at all, go ahead, but that's a whole different debate.

You haven’t clarified what conversion therapy includes, what it entailed for the people in the survey, how many people in the survey who reported it were doing so for gender rather than sexuality, nor what gender identity is to be sure we know what is meant to be being “converted”.

Post those things then we can move on.

@midgedude

No one has said that conversion therapy is a good idea. Apart from you who supports physical and social conversion.

Everyone else is about minimising or eliminating mental and physical harm now and in the future

Aww. You did try to explain it again. Nice one.

But maybe when a poster assumes a style based on their expectation of who they believe are posting on MN FWR boards, they probably can never see any nuance.

The style of posting they think is showing what’s what and all that (and displays the degree of socialisation behind it), is more illuminating than they think.

I encourage them to keep posting in this fashion. It piques the interest of the readers.

This thread is beginning to feel abusive - as if women have been carefully and meticulously stating their cases with nuance and a great deal of patience and OP has been coming in, not listening, riding roughshod and stating we are wrong because we are not playing their game.

I'm out because I know what this looks like, sounds like and walks like.

And just read the cross posts. The nuance of this thread is still not apparent it seems......

@NotBadConsidering

You haven’t clarified what conversion therapy includes, what it entailed for the people in the survey, how many people in the survey who reported it were doing so for gender rather than sexuality, nor what gender identity is to be sure we know what is meant to be being “converted”.

Post those things then we can move on.

"You haven’t clarified what conversion therapy includes"

It includes any attempt by someone to force a trans person's gender identity to change.

"what it entailed for the people in the survey"

It entailed any attempt by someone to force a trans person's gender identity to change.

" how many people in the survey who reported it were doing so for gender rather than sexuality"

Irrelevant - all you need to know in order to ascertain that is harmful, is that some of them were attempts to change gender identity, and that the people it was attempted on were harmed.

"nor what gender identity is to be sure we know what is meant to be being “converted”."

Gender identity is a person's own innate sense of what sex they are. The scientific consensus is that it's biological in origin. But you don't need to understand what it is in order to observe that attempts to force people to change whatever it is are harmful.

"Post those things then we can move on."

Good. So your evidence that conversion therapy is harmless or beneficial to trans people rather than harmful is?..

It includes any attempt by someone to force a trans person's gender identity to change.

Like what?

It entailed any attempt by someone to force a trans person's gender identity to change.

Like what?

posted on Twitter that no one could answer their vague question after the thread was deleted, thus “proving” that there is no evidence to back up the GC argument.

I'm inclined to think the OP's best bet at this point is provoking enough problems on the thread that it gets deleted, and I've just seen about 10 posts in a row from them, so I would gently suggest all other posters to disengage now.

I'm not sure we can reach page 40 without incident, and even if we could I don't think there are 14 pages of value to add.

I had noticed that their is a history of deleted threads lately.

Again, it is a style of posting that doesn’t do anything but shine light on the intentions of the poster. And it comes across very clearly. I doubt readers cannot see it.

There. Not their!!

And it comes across very clearly. I doubt readers cannot see it.

Absolutely. So please keep this thread up for future reference.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

This thread is beginning to feel abusive - as if women have been carefully and meticulously stating their cases with nuance and a great deal of patience and OP has been coming in, not listening, riding roughshod and stating we are wrong because we are not playing their game.

I'm out because I know what this looks like, sounds like and walks like.

All you need to do is post some evidence that attempting to force a trans person's gender identity to change is either harmless or beneficial rather than harmful.

Could have been over in 2 posts.

You may find this simple request abusive, but I can't really help that. It actually sounds more like an attempt to deflect from your own inability to prove the science wrong by steering the conversation on to my personality instead. Ad hominem won't work with me.