Public consultation on conversion therapy

[everythingthelighttouches]

The government have announced a new consultation before implementing a ban on conversion therapy that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Does anyone know:
a) what is considered conversion therapy? Are there good and clear definitions? Would it include a safe space for professionals to apply a watch and wait approach, rather than no questions asked affirmation in children?

b) who is being consulted? If it is the public will a gender critical group provide us with a standard form we can all use?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57059459.amp

I don't see how this can be compatible for both the LGB and the T. If you are anti conversion therapy for homosexuality, how does that deal with "transing the gay away" as someone put it? If you don't appropriately question cases of possible gender dysphoria then you might be transing people away from gay relationships. If you do question it, you might be guilty of practising conversion therapy on the person questioning their gender.

Gay people need rights based on their sex and sexual orientation. If trans people also need protecting against conversion therapy based on the idea of 'gender identity', that needs to be separate, not tacked on to the end.
Otherwise yet again the law just creates a hierarchy of competing characteristics, which will lead to people being confused and afraid to act in case they are sued.

Look at the recent EHRC proceedings. That turned into a confused mess because even a highly experienced barrister wasn't able to get a sufficient grip on the relevant laws in order to take a judge through them. All of the gender identity laws are a mess. That's because they're trying to build a legal framework around incoherent concepts that a couple of years down the line have become even more incoherent and contradictory.

The net result is that the laws are so open to misinterpretation that in some cases they have been used against women.

Any conversion therapy laws focused on gender identity would likely end up going down the same path. Whatever the intention might be, whatever the initial words might say, doesn't count for that much when the words don't really mean anything and the gender identity ideology has so much leverage.

As to what the government is up to, I think they're seeing all kinds of woke causes, they've realised that opposing them all sets themselves up as being anti-woke in the eyes of a reasonably large (younger) constituency, and realising that that could be bad PR have picked out low-impact woke causes that they'll allow through calculating that it will be effectively at no cost to the government.

I read this on the bbc website this morning and immediately thought that what @Shedbuilder has said above was likely to be the case.

I guess it will depend very much on the design and format of the consultation, but would it not be better to run two separate consultations for LGB and T? Also, will be interesting to see if minimum age limits are set for this and what is included in the definitions...

I've just seen the delightful David Paisley on twitter saying that gender dysphoria equals transgender.

This seems at the heart of my issue with the conversion therapy rhetoric. It seemsto deny that there are any other possible reasons why someone could feel pain or deep disconnection between their body and the expected gender roles associated with that body.

That is so narrow minded, unempathic and demonstrates, in my view, such blatent male privilege, that I don't know where to begin.

gender dysphoria equals transgender

But according to the current form of the gender identity ideology, transgender doesn't equal gender dysphoria. An interesting assymetry.

Should therapists also be allowed to probe WHY someone believes they are gay? Should they be allowed to probe for underlying causes?

Why or why not?

So parents trying to convert a gender nonconforming child who might grow up gay into a straight child by telling them they're the opposite sex - that will be illegal?

What I want to know is where, all of a sudden, did gender based issues get lumped into conversion therapy at all?

Because my understanding of the term always meant that t was about attempts to change sexual orientation, generally either against the person's will or where they were coerced in some way, using pretty dodgy methods in a Clockwork Orange sort o scenario. Often though not always by people with no qualifications relating to therapy.

It was never about adults who wanted help from someone with legitimate therapy understanding sexual problems related to things like abuse or weird sexual urges, or even about adults who wanted to come to terms with being gay and remain celibate for religious reasons, or talking with or praying with religious leaders for similar kinds of reasons.

You can't just transfer a term specific enough to be used in medicine or law to something totally different without some justification, and in any case most of what seems to be discussed here are medical approaches that have at least as much, if not more, justification than affirmation approaches.

Govt statement is out

Bullet points:

“ Government announces plans to legislate the banning of conversion therapy.
Commitment to ban the practice in the UK set out in Queen’s Speech.

New support fund to be created, offering substantial help to LGBT people impacted by conversion therapy.”

Let’s hope the last point provides funding to detransitioners.

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plan-to-ban-conversion-therapy

Has 'Conversion Therapy' been defined? It absolutely needs to be.

But the "therapy" GNC children are having is prior to the commencement of a possible medical intervention that may have a lasting and irreparable impact.

There is no lasting or irreparable damage done to children by being gay.

@RedDogsBeg

Has 'Conversion Therapy' been defined? It absolutely needs to be.

It's literally the first comment in this thread.

According to NHS England, conversion therapy, sometimes called "reparative therapy"... is based on attempts to change someone's ... gender identity.

The concept of "gender identity" being meaningless of course.

@nauticant

According to NHS England, conversion therapy, sometimes called "reparative therapy"... is based on attempts to change someone's ... gender identity.

The concept of "gender identity" being meaningless of course.

If you're not trying to force someone to change theirs, why does it matter?

P116/7 here:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/985029/Queen_s_Speech_2021_-_Background_Briefing_Notes..pdf

Significant and irreversible medical interventions in children leading to a lifetime of being a medical patient and serious negative outcomes in terms of their experiences of life.

But then as you say, "why does it matter?"

Since the Keira Bell hearing it's clear that a lot of young people are being sent to the Tavi by homophobic parents who want their LGB children transed away. Or that people with a bundle of issues such as depression, autism, self-harm etc are presenting as transgender in the hope that gender reassignment treatment will make everything else better. Plenty of accounts from senior Tavi figures supporting this.

There was an article in the Times about this a couple of years ago.

So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left”.

“It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay,” he told The Times.

“Young lesbians considered at the bottom of the heap suddenly found they were really popular when they said they were trans.”

archive.is/zy6PA

If you're not trying to force someone to change theirs, why does it matter?

If they're going to be sent down a road of irreversible medical treatment and become lifelong medical patients it really does matter.

There's also, you know, some sort of attempt to be accurate in how things are depicted medically. Or legally.

@yeahbutnaw

Should therapists also be allowed to probe WHY someone believes they are gay? Should they be allowed to probe for underlying causes?

Why or why not?

Yes, if someone goes to a therapist worried or scared or uncomfortable with their feelings of same-sex attraction it would be perfectly acceptable to ask why that person thinks they are gay or lesbian or whatever. Of course in most cases it's instantly clear: they are troubled by the idea of being gay or lesbian because they are attracted to members of their own sex. If they weren't they wouldn't be wondering if they are gay and seeking assistance from a therapist. The problem is the troubled feelings, not the homosexuality.

A good therapist will work with the client to encourage self-acceptance. A bad therapist — a conversion therapist — will try to find a way of ridding the person of their gay feelings.

LGB issues are straightforward: you either fancy members of your own sex or you don't. Being gay or lesbian doesn't impinge on anyone else's rights or protections. Compare that with the complications of transgender identity: the fact that so many autistic and traumatised girls are seeking it as a way of escaping the horror of being regarded as female and fair game: that so many adult male iterances of transgenderism are based in paraphilias: that many people approaching gender clinics have a raft of mental health and life issues — and of course that many are using trans ideology to escape the fact that they're actually gay. Which kinds brings us round in a circle.

For the conservatives this is a win win, to the casual observer it appears to be a progressive and righteous piece of legislation.

Those on the left who look at the details and think this affects women negatively are attacked by the 'progressive' left which splinters the opposition.

Of course there may be conservatives who disagree with the policy, but unlike Labour the tories understand they still have a vote and don't attack them, unlike most of the last Labour leader candidates.

@Shedbuilder

That's the thing. Until a few decades ago, a majority believed that homosexuality would result in irreparable damage to an individual. That it was an unhealthy lifestyle choice. A perversion.

Of course that wasn't true. Someone being gay has no impact on anyone else's life.

The only reason you don't have the same viewpoint on trans people is because of your ideology.

Forcing anyone to "stop being gay" or to "stop being trans" is unacceptable. Your ideology is frankly irrelevant to the discussion.

[quote yeahbutnaw]@Shedbuilder

That's the thing. Until a few decades ago, a majority believed that homosexuality would result in irreparable damage to an individual. That it was an unhealthy lifestyle choice. A perversion.

Of course that wasn't true. Someone being gay has no impact on anyone else's life.

The only reason you don't have the same viewpoint on trans people is because of your ideology.

Forcing anyone to "stop being gay" or to "stop being trans" is unacceptable. Your ideology is frankly irrelevant to the discussion.[/quote]
What the fuck are you on about? Being lesbian, gay or bisexual doesn't mean taking drugs (which we do not know the long term effects of) or surgery.
We should not be allowing or encouraging this in children.