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/

And it's no good deferring to the tiny number of "GC" people who claim to be trans and who almost all other trans people will tell you do not represent their experience.

You mean, "GC people who are trans". There is no such thing as claiming to be trans without actually being trans, is there? That's gatekeeping someone's identity.

@midgedude

I was talking about identity .

A trans child isn't the same concept as a child with a trans identity

I guess it depends on what we think identity is. I see it as relating to groups of people with whom you feel an affinity. You identify as a goth if you like the clothes music and culture of goths and want other goths to accept you as a goth. Not everyone who is friends with goths and likes the culture will view themselves as goth as some people have less need of external validation and belonging . It would be mean to tell a person who identify as goth that they are not goth because it's ill defined or they look wrong

A trans child is any child that identify as trans. Any child that for whatever reason thinks that they do not identify with/feel part of the group of their sex. They don't feel they belong with group girl s, they mix more easily with group boy so they identify with /see their tribe as boy.

Around puberty it's often coupled with a real hatred of the sexed body, but even a small child may think" where's my penis the " It's a personal identity not a physical object

It doesn't matter why . It is a term used by a person to describe themselves , and a tribe of people with whom they feel an affinity. They feel they suits them and describe them. They exist as a tribe.

My personal belief is that in a society or family with strong sex stereotypes it will be a very common feeling. How can you identify as a girl when you are nothing like what a girl should be ? Bullied because of that? Why should I identify with my bullies ?

It will also be a common feeling for pubescent children.

And I don't think that conflating sex and gender is the right thing to do. But I also think it's very wrong , and self defeating, to pretend that the identity does not exist

Thanks for trying to explain. But your post leaves me no further forward with the issue of what a trans child is.

' A trans child isn't the same concept as a child with a trans identity ', you say. That says what a trans child is not , but not what a trans child is . No?

Later, you say, ' A trans child is any child that identify as trans. ' That looks like an explanation of what a trans child is that uses the term 'trans', so it seems circular. It cannot work as an explanation because it requires we already know what 'trans' means when applied to a child in order for us to understand what 'trans child' means. But we do not already know this: if we did we would not need an explanation, would we?

This all seems to be connected in your mind with a kind of feeling. But what feeling? How do we identify this feeling?

You say, ' They don't feel they belong with group girl s, they mix more easily with group boy so they identify with /see their tribe as boy .' Hmm.

Look. ' I don't feel I belong with group 'poor people' -- I mix more easily with group 'rich folk' ' would seem clearly insufficient to make me rich. So what would it be to ' identify with/see my tribe as rich folk ', given that I would anyway remain poor? Likewise, what would it be to ' identify with /see my tribe as boy ' if I were a girl, given that I clearly could not be a boy?

I think you are a bit mixed up with the idea of what it means to identify as something. You are not alone in this, of course.

But still, there are no trans children.

[Yes, I think a look at the notion of 'identity' would help all round. I would suggest, for starters, a consideration of how the idea of 'personal identity' (which you refer to above) relates to the relation of 'identity ' -- of being ' the same '. The philosopher John Locke got all this going at the end of the seventeenth century. His Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a good place to start, although he is far from having the last word. Much talk of 'identity' nowadays would benefit from some perspective on the connections between what we think of as 'ID' and this relation of 'identity' as 'the same', I think. But that is a lengthy study, and meanwhile we can sort matters out well enough if we are careful. I hope so, anyway.]

@midgedude

Totally with you not bad, except some here are denying how other people are feeling . It's most bizarre.

If a child really really felt they could fly, should we let them jump out of a fifth floor window or tell them feelings don't change facts and stop them?

It is likely that they are seeking this conversion therapy because they feel suicidal? Rather than the other way round?

OP, I've just spent a few hours reading the stories on reddit/detrans. And I actually cried. Do you want to know why?

Because, on-site, there's countless first-hand accounts of people who decided as children, that they were trans, all of which eventually de-transitioned, and the majority of these people all say similar things:
they wish that somebody, anybody, had gently explored their issues with them and hadn't just assumed they were trans.

All of them had reasons for wanting to transition: they were groomed by older people to think trans was the answer to their problems, they were immersed in online communities encouraging them to consider their gender identity, they wanted to protect themselves from further rapes, abuse and sexual exploitation and thought that transition would be the ticket, they talk about internalized homophobia, about how they were pushed into identifying as trans based on outdated stereotypes about what boys/girls should do and feel, they had autism and were misfits and a new tribe told them they would fit in 'here'...

It didn't help these people. Some of them mourn their missing wombs, their excised breasts, their removed penis' that they never even had the chance to use.

These people are not lying. They all wish that somebody had helped them explore their reasons for being trans rather than simply accept their declarations and push them into the medical pathway which, as de-sisters and de-transitioners, they woefully regret.

If you're an adult and have crippling gender dysphoria and you think that medical intervention will help you be less dysphoric, then I'm okay with that.

But if you're a child, making big decisions which legally you cannot begin to understand the eventual repercussions of, I would hope that somebody, somewhere, would gently explore the reasons for your decision to transition with you, unpick that internalised misogyny and homophobia and self-hatred and address those comorbid psychological issues before you made a massive, life-changing decision that you may very well regret.

That's not 'conversion therapy': that's good therapy.

Why is anyone so desperate to transition kids, anyway?

For kids, the toys they want to play with, the clothes they want to wear, the way they want to wear their hair, does not matter, they are all still kids. They will be treated like kids, no matter what they do.

I think that a lot of the ideas behind transitioning are to do with the role you play in society, what society expects of you. If you think you somehow fall short of what society expects then you begin to think surely you must actually belong to the opposite sex? Well, society doesn't (or shouldn't) expect anything from kids except just to be kids.

I also think a lot of the drive behind transitioning is to do with sex - from a range of paraphilias to confusion about who you are sexually attracted to; but kids should be protected from the adult world of sex.

Then there is the argument that the younger you transition, the better the effects will be, the better you will 'pass' - so is this all about aesthetics, then? It would be unconcienable to allow a child to have a nose job, liposuction, even botox or fillers, so why are we pushing them into transition?

The thing with a watch wait ( and I think support ) approach is not that I would expect the trans nature of someone to change

I would however expect that in the vast majority of cases the child finds a way to understand and live happily with themselves without the need for interventions ( physical conversions) that are physically harmful

I still have dreams where I am a man. It's a natural part of who I am. I still find i am most likely to fit in better and more easily with a group of men than a group of women. I would never accept a gender identity of woman. I would not choose she/her pronouns. It would feel wrong /disgusting

But I find the group of people who would suggest I make physical changes threatening. Those changes would have sterilised me. They would have taken away my reproductive capabilities.

What's so wrong with me that people want to do that? Who is really feeling threatened by people like me?

But I find the group of people who would suggest I make physical changes threatening. Those changes would have sterilised me. They would have taken away my reproductive capabilities.

Who is doing so? I'm part of a community of trans people who embrace all of them, who think it's horrible and wrong to suggest, especially to force, someone down a path that they themselves don't stand behind. Where trans people deserve respect regardless of the choices in their transition and where forcing them onto hormones or to have surgeries against their will is a human rights violation.

On the contrary I've been told on numerous occasions that not wanting bottom surgery is a sign of fraudulence and all real trans people have had it, that a trans man who's not sterilized because he wants his own child can't be a man and that it should be mandatory to begin with to protect children from confusion, mockery towards men with breasts because 'how can they demand to be called men when they're clearly women' and more by the same 'gender critical' people.

I would never accept a gender identity of woman.

What do you mean when you say this?

On this forum at least, you’ll find that the majority of women reject gender and sex-based stereotypes. So we also reject a “gender identity” of woman.

And in real life, I don’t know anyone who 100% accepts the stereotypes of their sex. What is it you believe you’re rejecting exactly? Do you not think it’s possible to be a woman unless you’re a walking stereotypes of a woman?

There is a community who supports the whole idea that children should be supported with beast binding & puberty blockers ( to give them time to think) and surgery ( if it's right for them ) , when in fact it seems to be in practice steering them down a specific path , as puberty blockers seems to lead inevitably to surgery

Even the very existence of the community messes with your head as it makes you think things that are actually impossible are possible . Now you know what you want is possible ( ish) and it's just a matter of "what do in need to do to get it"

I hear you midge.

As someone who also wanted to be the opposite sex as a child, and am eternally grateful that I was a child today, I do wonder why there are those who argue so passionately for early transition. Particularly those who will then minimize the lack of sexual organ development for males as being done because that young person could be asexual.

Helping anyone learn to love their body for what it is rather than yearning for it to emulate something it can still not be, is a far better strategy for better mental health. If that person still feels the same as an adult, then they have an adult’s understanding of what they are doing to themselves.

Yes yaboo exactly!! All detrans people say the same thing. Adults should have explored it more with me, talked about why I felt the way I did and been more honest about the physical impact of hormones & surgery.

How can a 14 year old girl possibly know about the impact of vaginal atrophy for example especially when it’s described euphemistically as “vaginal dryness”. It isn’t it’s the effect of permanent & irreversible loss of oestrogen causing vaginal & vulval skin to thin & tear, the shrinking & shortening of the vaginal passage making smear tests which a TM would still need painful, accompanied by itching and burning. It’s bad enough as a menopausal woman when you’ve had a lifetime of vaginal hoohah but how could a 14 year old understand the effect of it? They couldn’t.

It’s sad that adult trans people often struggle with the fear of not passing and feel if they had had surgery at a much younger age then they would but that’s the basic fundamental problem. Wanting to be a different sex to the one you were born is a circle you can’t square. Even with the best surgery in the world, a TW or TM will not be the opposite sex but the approximation of it.

There is a community who supports the whole idea that children should be supported with beast binding & puberty blockers ( to give them time to think) and surgery ( if it's right for them ) , when in fact it seems to be in practice steering them down a specific path , as puberty blockers seems to lead inevitably to surgery

Alternatively, puberty blockers are rarely prescribed to youth, so unless someone is absolutely sure that a child had either precocious puberty or gender dysphoria, they aren't prescribed, thus meaning that children with gender dysphoria who are prescribed them are significantly more likely to proceed on to HRT and/or surgery.

There's groups of lesbian and bisexual girls who wear binders who aren't trans and who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's girls with precocious puberty who aren't trans and use puberty blockers who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's an overlap in those groups who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. Which suggests it's not binders and/or puberty blockers that lead to someone starting testosterone or getting surgery, but the overlap does appear to be the reason why they're prescribed it in the first place.

Funny that.

It was one thing whilst it was 10s of children

The sudden growth to thousands of children wanting to follow this path should give you great concern

If capacity was available it would be more again

Something has changed

Yes there are multiple things happening in the world today , Straight body problems as well as gender problems. I am only talking about gender problems.

There's girls with precocious puberty who aren't trans and use puberty blockers who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery.

Why are you discussing girls with precocious puberty as if they have anything to do with the treatment of gender dysphoria?

And by the way, have you read the court cases being brought by the girls treated with puberty blockers for the debilitating long term side effects they have experienced?

There's groups of lesbian and bisexual girls who wear binders who aren't trans and who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's girls with precocious puberty who aren't trans and use puberty blockers who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's an overlap in those groups who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. Which suggests it's not binders and/or puberty blockers that lead to someone starting testosterone or getting surgery, but the overlap does appear to be the reason why they're prescribed it in the first place.

Again. This is not clear thinking.

You cannot use girls receiving puberty blockers for the purpose they were developed as an explainer of future decision making of someone being treated for gender dysphoria.

Why on earth would you try to do that? I don’t believe anyone has suggested that a side effect of the chemical is to drive a child or a teen to have such thoughts.

However, there has been a rather well documented court case which outlined that treating a child or teen with puberty blockers leads 99% to them taking cross sexual hormones in the future.

I am not sure how you argue away that specific fact.

Alternatively, puberty blockers are rarely prescribed to youth

Please clarify this. What do you consider youth?

As a parent, I consider ‘youth’ to be anyone under 18.

Do you include the hidden stats of those being treated in the U.K. from offshore prescription in your statement?

I suspect the OP has wandered off but the main methodological limitations of this study bear repeating. These do not invalidate the study, they are simply limitations and must be considered in any discussion of the research. That report had no discussion, just a summary. A good discussion discusses and contextualises research as well as its strengths and limitations. It also points the way for future research.

1. The study was quantitative. All the results tell us are frequencies, with some minimal attempt at regression analysis. This is actually very thin and certainly policy and practice would rarely if ever be based on data that are so thin and lacking in interpretation and substance.

2. Terms are undefined. For example, what is 'conversion therapy'? It is not clear that there is a shared understanding amongst respondents re what this is.

3. There seems to be some confusion between causality and correlation - the implication is that there are connections between various elements of LGBTQ+ and suicidal ideation. The study does not consider whether there are other co-morbidities or whether there are clear connections here.

The biggest issue is what comprises 'conversion therapy. Now I know G&L YP who have undergone CT. In both cases, this was religiously inspired and they were forced to participate by their parents. In both there were religious ceremonies and in one case there was religiously motivated counselling. These are awful practices and I'd like to see them outlawed. I believe that in parts of the US they are quite common in the more fundamentalist churches. I am not sure they are quite so widespread in the UK. But, such 'snake oil' type treatments need stamping out - whether these aim to treat 'the gay' or cure cancer (and some similar practices do). I am more than happy to support this. I am also more than happy to support that members of actual legitimate psychological associations be taken to task if they do similar - i.e. aim to 'normalise' people in the name of religion, their own view of the world or anything else. I'd say, though, that this would be quite rare and that if reported such individuals would be dealt with by their relevant association. Quite happy to have anti- CT legislation to outlaw practices such as advertising 'straight therapy' or similar. What I am not happy about is making illegal or an offence the practice of different therapists to have conversations with people about their sexuality or gender expression. As an example, if a young woman who has been in therapy a while suddenly announces she is a lesbian then it is good practice to explore this. In more than one case where this happened (and I'm a researcher and not a therapist) this was actually her way into talking about childhood sexual abuse.

So OP - it is not just about 'finding studies that 'disprove' the Trevor research it is about asking questions about it and what it might mean for policy and practice. This is what peer review is all about.

Why are you discussing girls with precocious puberty as if they have anything to do with the treatment of gender dysphoria?

Seems to be a main theme in pushing policy, attach itself to the coat tails of a legitimate issue and entwine itself, LGB rights, DSDs, precocious puberty, gay conversion therapy and so on, and make its way in whilst lurking in the shadows. Any policy that needs to hide itself in the shadows cannot survive in the sunlight. This is how it's managed to get so far, by hiding, and activists are well schooled in the tactics, to misinform, conflate, confuse and hide.

Erkie it’s not a coincidence or a theme; it’s a strategy. Look at the Dentons publication-I haven’t a link to hand but I’m sure others have /google dentons trans document ?

I know Mrs Wooster, I'm just putting it out there for the lurkers. Denton's is an interesting read for sure.

The link for Denton's is in this article.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/amp?__twitter_impression=true&s=08

Erkrie wow 😮

There's groups of lesbian and bisexual girls who wear binders who aren't trans and who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's girls with precocious puberty who aren't trans and use puberty blockers who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. There's an overlap in those groups who don't proceed on to use testosterone or get surgery. Which suggests it's not binders and/or puberty blockers that lead to someone starting testosterone or getting surgery, but the overlap does appear to be the reason why they're prescribed it in the first place.

Funny that.

I keep coming back to this. This logic doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

Why would lesbians and bisexual girls who are not suffering from gender dysphoria ever be prescribed cross sex hormones? I have already pointed out that girls taking treatment for precocious puberty would not ever be considered to automatically go into cross sex hormones.

I also pointed out the horrific side effects now being the subject of a large class action from people who were treated with puberty blockers for precocious puberty. I doubt ANY doctor who knew of these side effects would in good faith prescribe a girl who had already had puberty blockers for precocious puberty to have another or to extend the treatment cycle for gender dysphoria.

Where is this overlap you are talking about? Actually what is the overlapping group?

Where has anyone stated that a binder or a drug induces anyone to medicalised transition without first there being an issue with gender dysphoria?

And are you stating that that people who have no gender dysphoria but using binders and puberty blockers should be included in statistics showing how many people with GD using binders and/or blockers do go on to cross sex hormones? Which would falsely skew that data completely.

I would like to know the thinking behind your quite strong assertion here if you don’t mind.