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/

@Shizuku
You started a conversation. If there is a lot of info out there it should take you only mere moment to provide 2-3 links to reliable information.

And yet I have and I do and I still don't understand what you mean.

So I must be stupid or utterly wilfully ignorant.

Ah well.

@rabbitwoman

It's incredibly harmful to associate wanting to be a martial artist or racing driver with one sex excluding the other, and base your arguments on it.

The claim was that being trans is about gender stereotypes. Martial arts and motor racing are stereotypically male pursuits - they shouldn't be, but they are, and the fact that trans women pursue them indicates that there must be more to being trans than upholding gender stereotypes.

I also have a trans man friend who is gay, a fashion designer and as camp as can be.

"The Royal Children’s Hospital has received more than 130 patient referrals this year, and more than 700 since 2003. Of these, 96 per cent diagnosed with gender dysphoria continued to identify as transgender into late adolescence. No patient who commenced stage two treatment has sought to transition back to their birth sex."

So about 4%.

This was dated back in 2017. I would suggest that there has been changes to treatment plans since then.

ALSO, having had a tween in Australia at that time, and having many teenaged girls in my acquaintance, I can also assure you that the prevalence for young girls seeking to transition was not as high as it is now. I would suggest that the demographic and the number seeking to transition is quite different to the period referred to in this announcement. It is also likely to be quite different to the UK, as I can attest to because I know teenaged girls of the same age in both countries and Australia is still nothing like the numbers identifying as trans compared to here in the UK.

So, do you have anything that covers the UK and is up to date please.

I ask you whether you understand the significant differences of the affects of medical transitioning on females vs males. Have you looked at the consequences of these drugs on females vs males?

Do more research. Watch documentaries about actual trans kids - see what they say about how they feel, and how they navigate the world.

I've spent the last 4 years solidly researching it. But I can't find the answer to my questions.
I thought you might be able to help. So I asked you. I'll ask again:

if being trans isn't about gender stereotypes, what is it about?

What is a woman?

After all, you sound like you know what your talking about. Right?.... Or don't you really know?

@Shizuku

Attempting to change a child's gender identity is inherently harmful so trans people should be included in the ban on conversion therapy, unless you have some evidence that trans children are helped by someone trying to change their gender identity.

In what way do you think people have had their ‘gender identity’ changed? I put it in inverted commas because I don’t actually believe there’s such a thing as gender.

indicates that there must be more to being trans than upholding gender stereotypes.

Yet no one ever says what it is do they. Despite wanting to change laws and destroy women's safeguards, no one will tell us what this much more thing is that requires we throw safeguards out of the window.

[quote AIMD]@Shizuku
You started a conversation. If there is a lot of info out there it should take you only mere moment to provide 2-3 links to reliable information.[/quote]
I provided a link to the key information for this thread - namely the Trevor Project survey into the effects of conversion attempts on trans kids.

What you will find is that any science that in anyway supports trans identities or affirmation of those identities will be dismissed on here - too foreign, too old, the trans people are lying, it's big pharma, etc etc, but never-the-less I am sure there are many lurkers here who have open minds or are trans supportive, so it's good to put the information out.

A trans person is typically attracted to the same people before and after transition, so there has been no conversion of their sexual orientation even if a different word is subsequently applied to that orientation.

Gay conversion is about trying to change who you are attracted to, so transition cannot be gay conversion.

And yet clinicians currently are raising flags that homophobic parents are bringing their children into clinics because they find having a diagnosis of gender dysphoria easier to cope with than having a homosexual child.

@Shizuku

So would there be any agreement here that trying to convert a trans child to cis is likely to be harmful to that child?

Child is born female. Child tells parents shes now male. Parents say, no, you're female.

Is that considered ‘conversion therapy’ or just basic parenting 101?

The claim was that being trans is about gender stereotypes. Martial arts and motor racing are stereotypically male pursuits - they shouldn't be, but they are, and the fact that trans women pursue them indicates that there must be more to being trans than upholding gender stereotypes.

Shizuku you have made post after post saying trans isn't about gender stereotypes, but not a single one explaining what it is.

How does a boy 'live as a girl' if it's not about stereotypes?

The thing is that the information is all out there and readily available. You shouldn't expect strangers to do your leg work for you

That’s yet another trope wheeled out by those who are science deniers. No, there is only accurate scientific information out there that proves you CANNOT CHANGE SEX!

I also have a trans man friend who is gay, a fashion designer and as camp as can be.

You seem very focused on attributing stereotypes though.

"In what way do you think people have had their ‘gender identity’ changed? I put it in inverted commas because I don’t actually believe there’s such a thing as gender."

So, regardless of what you think gender means and whether you believe in it, you do know that there are people who were assigned male at birth and yet who feel that they are not male. If you want to describe that phenomenon without using any of the terminology used by the people who experience it or the doctors and scientists who treat them, it's entirely up to you.

But whatever you think that sense of being female is, the attempt to make them feel that they are male after all, is conversion therapy and harmful to the individual. In the case of the kids in the survey, 57% attempted suicide. Banning such practices is therefore a good thing.

@Shizuku

Do more research. Watch documentaries about actual trans kids - see what they say about how they feel, and how they navigate the world.

It was my questions that you responded to.
I read the article you posted, these questions were unanswered in the article. If there is so much research available that could these questions, you would be able to link it quickly.
It’s not up to us to evidence your claims or claims you agree with. That’s up to you ;-)

Attempting to change a child's gender identity is inherently harmful so trans people should be included in the ban on conversion therapy, unless you have some evidence that trans children are helped by someone trying to change their gender identity

What do you think is best

1. changing a child's body, potentially causing lifelong damage and early death / heart disease / brittle bones / stroke, so that their body fits their mind.

2. supporting a child with their feelings, careful watchful waiting, to ensure that medical tranistion is what they actually want to do, and that they are of an age / maturity that they are capable of weighing the irreversible consequences to their bodies?

Gay conversion therapy is wrong. And sexual preference harms no one.

I don't think the T can possibly be included in the 'ban conversion therapy' because of the serious physical harm it can cause individuals.

Although counseling someone and watchful waiting is hardly a conversion therapy anyway. But it sounds better right, (for the cause) when pushed up against and conflated with the gay conversion therapies of the past.

@OldCrone

The claim was that being trans is about gender stereotypes. Martial arts and motor racing are stereotypically male pursuits - they shouldn't be, but they are, and the fact that trans women pursue them indicates that there must be more to being trans than upholding gender stereotypes.

Shizuku you have made post after post saying trans isn't about gender stereotypes, but not a single one explaining what it is.

How does a boy 'live as a girl' if it's not about stereotypes?

By being legally female, and by being perceived as female by all the people she interacts with.

So if just one person perceives them as male then they are not living as a woman

I provided a link to the key information for this thread - namely the Trevor Project survey into the effects of conversion attempts on trans kids.

And we have read it and found it is not very robust. And it also doesn't clearly define what falls into the definition of 'conversion attempts'.

And clinicians in the UK have stated clearly that the rate of suicide after transition may even be raised for many reasons. Including that underlying mental health issues are often left untreated. There is no dispute that the risk is high.

Is it higher than any other group of similarly aged individuals with significant mental health issues?

And do you have any robust research that proves that medically transitioning improves mental health?

(knowing that there was one that was recently found to be false in its methodology and in fact proved no such thing when the figures were reviewed properly).

[quote Xpectations]@Shizuku

Do more research. Watch documentaries about actual trans kids - see what they say about how they feel, and how they navigate the world.

It was my questions that you responded to.
I read the article you posted, these questions were unanswered in the article. If there is so much research available that could these questions, you would be able to link it quickly.
It’s not up to us to evidence your claims or claims you agree with. That’s up to you ;-)[/quote]
The Trevor Project survey is evidence. If you have counter evidence suggesting that conversion therapy benefits trans children, you are free to post it.

In the meantime, the best evidence on the effects of conversion therapy on trans kids posted in this thread remains the Trevor Project survey.

A trans person is typically attracted to the same people before and after transition, so there has been no conversion of their sexual orientation even if a different word is subsequently applied to that orientation.

But if you believe that TWAW, then if a gay man transitions to being a TW, then he is now a straight 'woman', so no longer gay.

This is how gay men are treated in Iran. It is illegal to be gay, but they can escape punishment if they have surgery to become transwomen. Are you in favour of this treatment?

You also seem to be suggesting that TW who are attracted to women are not lesbians (which is how some of them like to think of themselves), but are still straight men. This would be considered transphobic by some.

By being legally female, and by being perceived as female by all the people she interacts with.

So the following premises have to be met then:

1. If one is not perceived as female by someone, just one person even, then they're not female right?

2. And no one is a female unless they hold a GRC?

I think the problem with the OP is it is more about proving feminists wrong than it is about caring about the medical and psychological trauma of young people.

Because having invasive and damaging surgery is, to me, akin to putting leeches on or other medieval medical treatments. I don't think it will be long before society as a whole looks in horror at the removal of healthy body parts to support a feeling.

Much as we now think of the treatment of epileptics and those with mental illnesses by chaining and beating them.

They used to do tours of Bedlam so people could look at the poor people kept there. I am not sure the modern way in which these children are watched and damaged is all that different.

@Shizuku
You responded to my questions about the Newsweek article you linked.
The claim was made about boys living as girls and I asked how this is understood without resorting to stereotypes.

If you can’t answer, how are you satisfied that 3 yr olds can?

Totally agree that we shouldn't try to change someone's gender

We also should not change someone's body either